Sponsor: Fuze

Investing in unified communications can have an incredible impact on productivity, but identifying the correct solution can be hard. What factors determine the value of placing your communications in the cloud? Most importantly—what does your business need? The Unified Communication Buyer's Guide: Cutting Costs and Boosting Productivity outlines the myriad of ways in which unified communications increases efficiency within businesses of all sizes.

Today’s youth is the first generation to define itself by technology, rather than by pivotal political or economic events. These young people are comfortable with every aspect of technology and our book “The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World,” uncovered new insights into the influence of technology on young people’s identities and the way they see the world.

La prochaine génération à entrer dans la population active a grandi dans un monde largement influencé par les appareils mobiles.

Pour les jeunes d'aujourd'hui, l'expression "il y a une appli pour ça" n'est pas juste un slogan publicitaire accrocheur. C'est un truisme, une réponse à plus ou moins toutes les questions qu'ils se sont jamais posées et une approche à chaque tâche. Peut-on en dire autant de la façon de travailler actuelle ? Eh bien, pas vraiment. On n'est plus dans le "il se pourrait qu'il y ait une appli pour ça, mais il faut que vous demandiez au service informatique, et elle pourrait être bloquée, ou ne pas fonctionner sur votre téléphone, et...", bref, ce n'est pas encore aussi évident qu'on pourrait le croire.

De hedendaagse jeugd is de eerste generatie die zijn identiteit ontleent aan technologie in plaats van aan cruciale politieke of economische gebeurtenissen. Deze jongeren voelen zich met elk technologisch aspect volledig op hun gemak en in ons boek "The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World", onthullen we nieuwe inzichten over de invloed van technologie op de identiteit van jongeren en de manier waarop zij de wereld zien.

It used to be the case that enterprise communications systems provided more features than the communications people used in their personal lives. Think of voicemail, call forwarding, recording, and multiple lines vs. the single POTS line you had at home (we know, we’re dating ourselves). But now, in the Internet era, the tables seem to be turning, with the rate of innovation in personal communications far outstripping what is happening in the enterprise.

Cloud unified communications (UC) started as a mostly small and midsize business (SMB) phenomenon, but has recently been moving upmarket to larger enterprise customers based on demand. This isn’t surprising - UC has many advantages over traditional private branch exchange (PBX) deployments, including features, redundancy, and price. But enterprise customers migrating from an on-premise PBX to a cloud UC solution expect the same quality and reliability they had with their PBX and primary rate interfaces (PRIs).

Download this whitepaper to find out how Fuze can provide customers the quality service they deserve.

The decision to invest in new technology should never be taken lightly. From calculating ROI to anticipating and negotiating contracts and changes in infrastructure, there are a multitude of factors to consider when making the transition to a new or upgraded communication service. Yet while financial and infrastructure decisions are ultimately major factors in a company’s choice of deployment, another significant area is often overlooked— the impact that a new solution will have on your company’s security.

We were recently asked for our thoughts on multi-tenancy vs. multiinstance architectures and which made better sense for cloud unified communications (UC) service deployment. You might wonder why anyone would care about this, as long as the services work. But the thing is, the multi-tenant vs. multi-instance debate uncovers fundamentally different approaches to delivering UC in the cloud. Fuze has spent eight years building a cloud UC platform with a multitenant architecture, so our allegiance is clear. This being said, we meet regularly with cloud UC providers that have opted for a multi-instance approach. Most of these folks are smart people, so to dismiss them as wrong isn’t fair.

There’s no better time for a business to embrace unified communications solutions. Actually, that’s not entirely true – several years ago would probably have been a better time. After all, these tools offer major benefits to businesses of all kinds, from the largest enterprises to the smallest shops. With a UC system in place, an organization’s employees can become more collaborative, more efficient, and happier. The sooner a company starts to take advantage of these possibilities, the better.

For those firms that have yet to embrace UC, though, one of the most important steps they must take is choosing a particular solution. While UC as a general concept is fairly straightforward and consistent, there is a tremendous amount of variety between the various services available. Here are some important considerations to keep in mind when evaluating available UC options.

In order to remain competitive in today’s global marketplace, organizations must constantly improve customer service, reduce IT overhead, and increase efficiency—frequently with fewer resources than before. This may seem like an impossible feat, but the advent of UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) has enabled IT departments to be viewed as business drivers rather than cost centers.

Companies looking to take advantage of a cloud UC strategy need to consider the move from a myriad of business perspectives. “How will Provider X’s solution serve specific departmental needs as well as the requirements of the organization as a whole?” “Will Provider Y be able to better equip us with the required tools to streamline processes and increase collaboration?”

Here are six additional questions to ask any potential UCaaS provider before making a decision.