Original Post by Dennis Collins
Cloud-Based Communication is Surging – Here’s Why You Should Follow the Trend
Within the year, analysts predict that the cloud will account for 28 percent of the unified communication (UC) market, up from six percent in 2015. As the breadth of available communication and collaboration apps expands, and vendors unveil born-in-the-cloud platforms, more organizations are embracing a cloud-first mentality when deploying new UC solutions.
There are a variety of factors that compel organizations to swap out their on-premise communication hardware for hosted and “X-as-a-service” models. Here are three primary reasons that might justify a similar shift in your business:
1. Your Organization is Growing, Internally and Externally
Although corporate growth is definitely a champagne problem, it’s also a clear sign that your business has outgrown its legacy communications infrastructure. Outdated PBX and telephony systems aren’t robust enough to accommodate the demand of additional employees, office locations, customers and business partners. When it comes to technology, every business needs solutions that are scalable, reliable and secure. With on-premise platforms, you can rarely have all three; cloud systems, however, check all of these boxes – and also provide more insight into usage patterns that can help optimize spending.
2. Your Team is Decentralized
Today, more than one-third of U.S. adults have telecommuted for work. In response to employee demands for better work-life balance and incremental productivity, more employers are offering some form of flexible working arrangement. On-premise communication systems typically obstruct employees from remotely accessing the files or collaboration tools they need, unless a virtual private network has been set up. Moving to cloud-based technology not only lets organizations effectively integrate the myriad UC apps staff use, but also ensure accessibility regardless of the end user’s location.
3. You Need to Allocate More Resources for Corporate Innovation
Organizations in B2C and B2B industries today are under enormous pressure to innovate, whether it’s their products and services, customer experience or marketing strategy. Businesses that stick with legacy communication hardware lock themselves into an expensive cycle of maintenance and upgrade costs – not to mention the security and downtime risks posed by aging on-premise tools. Adopting cloud-based UC means pivoting away from upfront capital expenditures, and replacing them with ongoing operational costs based on the resources employees actually use. This financial model frees up funds and allows IT departments to better forecast spend so that more resources can be devoted to revenue-generating initiatives.
Plenty of organizations are approaching an IT crossroads, where they can either keep upgrading their traditional UC systems or make the leap to the cloud. Depending on the state of your business today – and where you’d like it to be tomorrow – now might be the right time to try something new. Click here to see what “new” can look like!
