The adoption of cloud-based collaboration platforms is now unstoppable, as platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams become essential working hubs for organisations of all sizes.
What is not changing, however, is the importance of voice. Video’s significance has increased dramatically over the past two years, but voice is still crucial.
It was not long ago that enterprise voice was confined to PBXs, locking the customer into costly maintenance contracts. But digital transformation has moved voice to the cloud, converging it with the IT platforms enterprises are using and giving them more choice than ever.
Navigating a Complex Environment
The newfound choice that enterprises enjoy can make it complex to keep up with the pace of change.
What’s clear is voice is no longer a siloed technology – evidenced by the demand for platforms that unify voice with chat and video.
Andy Elliot, Vice President of Marketing at AudioCodes, explained to UC Today that organisations need a clearly defined UC strategy that considers the new pressures on their collaboration platforms, such as hybrid work.
“It’s more than likely that they adopted a platform such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom during the pandemic, that needs to now integrate with their overall comms strategy rather than run in parallel,” he said.
“So, they need to consider how to connect it with their existing voice network, or look at the voice offerings from those UC providers. Most will want to connect it to their existing network, to continue to benefit from telco tariffs and stay agile in terms of telco choice.”
The Crucial Role of the Reseller
For large enterprises, they best approach may be a migration that brings together their existing PBX with the cloud platform they’ve adopted over the past few years. This allows them to deliver the technology needed to enable hybrid work, while still bleeding value from expensive legacy infrastructure.
This is no simple task and reaffirms the value of resellers as trusted advisors in a world moving towards the cloud.
Eliot said that this migration creates a huge opportunity for resellers, provided they position themselves correctly.
“They need to work with a vendor that is trusted, certified and experienced in offering voice connectivity with all of these UC services and the plethora of legacy PBXs that resellers still need to maintain for their customers,” he explained.
“That means they need to be flexible and offer choice to support their customers, whether their customers choose to adopt a UC strategy based on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google or Cisco Webex.”
AudioCodes can carry much of this weight for partners through its Live Cloud platform. Delivered via an affordable SaaS model, Live Cloud lets resellers connect their enterprise customers’ voice to leading UC platforms.
This also counts for service providers, who can leverage AudioCodes for connecting voice to Microsoft Teams with Operator Connect.
“In essence, resellers and service providers need to offer flexibility to meet the different customer requirements today, an agnostic strategy that will serve them well as the cloud voice shift evolves in future years,” Elliot said.
Find out more about AudioCodes’ offering for resellers and service providers here.
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