CREATING SUCCESS STORIES WITH ‘UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS’
Portman Tech’s first dance was with UCaas!
In the early 21st century, (yes, we are not discussing landlines, fax machines & pagers), industrial revolution revisited us in the form of advanced telecommunication. The evolution of the internet over the last two decades made things possible in a really big way, especially for businesses in the heart of cities like London. Companies started moving away from hard-wired telephone networks to VoIP (voice-over-internet-protocol), an internet-based solution. A new term ‘Cloud’ started appearing in the horizon. ‘Cloud Calling’, ‘Cloud Computing, ‘Cloud Storage’, essentially became synonymous with IT service providers.
The underlying word here however was “communication”. Organizations realized that to not just grow a successful business, but even if they wished to run it smoothly, effective internal communication was a must. Employees needed to interact with each other with clarity and speed. Any possible conflict had to be erased with transparency and mutual understanding, thus promoting the company’s values and goals.
And yet, all the new-found ways of communication were on separate platforms and dealt with unsynchronized data, which provided inconsistent user experience. Today’s world is more dynamic and not confined to a specific desk. One would like to be constantly available, attend business meetings while on the go, communicate with the entire team, or simply check if all security systems are in place from a remote location.
Integrating all these mediums of communication together with the PC environment is managed under Unified Communication. Instant messaging or ‘live chats’, voice/video calls and conferencing, data and screen sharing, call control and speech recognition, etc across multiple users with multiple devices, either from one to one, or broadcasted from one to many, the term ‘Unified Communication’ defines everything above.
You could order a meal delivery over a voice message; however, the restaurant may receive it in an email or chat medium for easier processing. The IVR can now be set up to automatically respond to frequently asked questions. Managing devices through apps on your phone – these are all not so-technical and conveniently set up for individuals or even big companies.
Having one interface for all your communication, managed from one place, would only mean simple to control. This would in turn increase response time, bridge the gap between dispersed team, eventually reduce costs and also improve productivity. Now, if you wish to avoid capital expenditure, you may choose not to deploy UC service on their own, and move the entire solution to the ‘Cloud’!
Since 2004, Portman Tech has been offering UC as a Service to its customers right here in London. As a premium managed IT service provider, we have the expertise to provide flexibility and scalability for your core business tasks. Offering contact-centre capabilities, including auto-attendant, interactive voice response, call routing, customer relationship management integrations, embedding cloud-based communication features into your business application and workflow, etc can be a near future discussion too.
Forbes Advisor rates the following UCaaS providers of 2022 very high:
- Nextiva – for businesses with multiple locations
- RingCentral – for businesses with a high call volume
- Zoom – for businesses that need a comprehensive video conferencing solution
- Vonage – UcaaS with robust features
- 8×8 – for scalable solutions like unlimited international & local callings, toll-free numbers, etc
The leading research and advisory company Gartner, has named ZOOM and Microsoft Teams as a leader in UCaaS in their magic quadrants; ZOOM in their first year of eligibility and Microsoft Teams for two consecutive years.
ZOOM was one of the fastest growing applications with over 400 basic/core telephony features. It has one of the most comprehensive UCaaS portfolios (ZOOM Meetings, ZOOM Team Chat, ZOOM Webinars, ZOOM Rooms and ZOOM Phone). One of the striking features of the ZOOM application is its focus on security protocols which includes a 256-bit AES-GCM encryption and in-meeting security options. This prompted us to work on a collaboration with them and we are happy to provide unmatched UCaaS to our clients.
As a customer, always ensure you have data on the pricing, scalability, customer support and reviews/ratings of a UCaaS provider before you choose your partner. Give us a call at Portman Tech and we will be glad to consult.
