Is Now the Time to Consider a Cloud Communications Migration?

There is no time like a crisis to consider the future. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus pandemic has been a wake-up call for the importance of the cloud in support of, or as a replacement for, on-premises communications and customer service systems. The explosion in cloud-based meetings and collaboration services over the past two months catapulted all of us at once into a future that is more cloud-dependent for connecting and conducting business. Across the globe, meetings and collaboration usage has exploded. Usage of Cisco’s Webex Meetings Platform has surged 24 times. Organizations and employees that had been complacent with old solutions are now recognizing the value of this future and will push harder for change. In this changing environment, with new demands for capabilities, business resiliency and support, organizations are challenged to reconcile their on-premises communications solutions of PBXs and contact centers with the future.

Combine this with virtually all IT organizations working remotely with limited abilities to implement most new solutions that require physical interaction. There has never been a better time to consider moving business communications and customer support applications to the cloud. UCaaS already supports over 10% of business communications seats globally and is approaching 20% share in the US. A cloud-based UCaaS platform can deliver a range of new capabilities and flexibility, enable a much simpler and expanded business app integration environment and drive digital transformation. In my mind, it is clear that the innovation and integration advantages the cloud offers are key for the future of business. The challenge is how to adopt and deliver those capabilities across your workforce, while maintaining the underlying services the organization depends on.

The COVID-19 crisis is becoming an almost textbook demonstration of the need for business continuity planning, both in organizations and in IT. The travel and social distancing required to prevent the spread of Covid-19 limits organization access to physical systems. For many, this has exposed the potential shortfall of equipment and services provided from a fixed premise location that may not be accessible in an emergency. At the same time, cloud communication services are scaling rapidly and reliably to support explosive demand around the world. Employees, forced to work remotely for many weeks straight, are normalizing to a new work structure and set of tools and interaction and collaboration styles. This transformation will not fade away as we return to normal life but will become the new normal. In the wake of the event and the changes that will ensue, flexibility and adaptability will be critical for organizations. In the communications and collaboration space, that flexibility is in the cloud. The good news here is that, for many organizations the most critical point, the true total costs of a cloud-based solution are significantly lower than the actual total costs of operating an on-premises platform. 

I invite you to join me for a webinar with Cisco on April 16, where we will discuss the drivers of moving an enterprise to the cloud – business agility & resiliency, transformation & integration, and total cost of ownership. In the session, we will discuss how a cloud solution offers clear advantages in enabling your organization to integrate modern communications capabilities and practices into business processes to create the foundation for business transformation. We will discuss how the cloud enables your organization to have the agility to respond to the unexpected, with the resiliency to minimize the disruptions in our modern world.

We will detail how a cloud solution can decrease overall costs, while freeing up valuable technical (or IT) resources to focus on business transformation initiatives, instead of maintaining a telephony utility. We will show how the cloud delivers lower overall cost today. In addition to discussing the drivers and values of the cloud, the Cisco team will discuss what they have learned delivering and deploying over 30 million communications seats in the cloud.

To join us, register for the webinar here.