Moving business applications into the cloud is hardly a new concept. Microsoft Office 365 has been around for more than a decade and nearly every business application today offers a cloud-consumption model. Unified Communications is no exception. UC as a Service (UCaaS) offers the same advantages as other cloud-based services, including more flexibility in features and pricing. Telephony, however, brings with it a unique set of challenges in the cloud. If a business application experiences higher-than-normal latency, the result may be a slight inconvenience. Latency in real-time voice communications, on the other hand, can render conversations unintelligible.

For this reason, businesses are both excited about the opportunities of UCaaS and nervous about trading in the quality and reliability of their legacy voice systems for less-than-stellar service. Since opportunity and risk are two sides of the same coin, let’s look first at the opportunities that UCaaS presents for businesses.

Lower Costs

Telephony has traditionally been a high-ticket item for businesses. There are the costs associated with the dedicated PBX, software licensing fees, dedicated circuits and long-distance fees from a service provider, and the operational costs to manage these legacy on-premises systems and make changes as new employees are added or deleted. Moving business communications into the cloud consolidates these costs into a monthly subscription fee, which can reduce costs by up to 30 percent.^* And, because the UCaaS hosting provider has already invested in the infrastructure, there’s no up-front cost associated with UCaaS services; businesses can start using all of the hosting provider’s telephony features from day one.

Higher Productivity

It stands to reason that having all your communications tools in one application would make you more productive, but how much of an improvement could you reasonably expect from UCaaS? According to Forrester Research, businesses that use UCaaS are able to make decisions 2.6X faster than companies that don’t have UCaaS.² This faster decision-making has a ripple effect of benefits across the business, from higher customer satisfaction to improved operational agility.

Support for Remote Workforces

Before 2019, remote workers were a rising trend. Then COVID happened, and that trend became a tsunami. Businesses recognize that remote work is here to stay and that workers need secure access to business tools and applications in a variety of places and on a variety of devices. UCaaS solutions support secure anywhere-access to critical collaboration and communications applications so that teams can stay connected even when they’re spread across the globe. As an added advantage, UCaaS also allows businesses to recruit from a much wider pool of talent.

UCaaS is designed to simplify communications and collaboration, but that doesn’t mean the move to UCaaS itself is as simple as just picking a provider and clicking a few buttons. To start with, there are a lot of UCaaS solutions on the market today that vary widely in terms of pricing, features, and flexibility. Some of them will be a good fit for your organization, and one will invariably be the best fit. For example, like many organizations, you may have existing communications tools that you want to keep, such as Microsoft Teams. Choosing a UCaaS solution that integrates smoothly with Teams, and choosing a services partner that can aid with that integration, would obviously be important considerations.

It's not enough to transfer telephony and collaboration to the cloud. It needs to be a smooth transition because businesses can’t afford disruption where communications are concerned. At Connection, we can help you choose the right UC solution at the right price from the industry’s leading providers including Fusion Connect, RingCentral, Vonage, Zoom, and more. We can also help you integrate Teams and other applications with your UC solution to help you get more value from your existing investments. And we offer managed services and consulting to ensure that your cloud services continue to meet your business needs.

Are you ready to take your communications to the next level with AI-powered UCaaS solutions? Then consider this your invitation to experience the future of business collaboration today. Contact your Connection Account Team to learn how our experts can help you seamlessly integrate the latest AI innovations into your UC strategy.

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