- Staying ahead of technology can distract businesses from keeping focus on their core mission.
- This can leave companies in a quandary over how to regain their focus in a world in which technology is a necessity.
- The maturation of UCaaS may be one way businesses stay on-track with core purpose and critical communications tasks
Little known is the cautionary tale of Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. Its lessons reach from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to the Cloud.
In 2003, Jason and Mia Bauer founded the company on a shoestring, pedaling mouth-watering cupcakes. The tiny company became the largest cupcake vendor in the world. It had 48 stores in 10 states and the District of Columbia. It hired dozens of new employees to manage the burgeoning empire. Along the way, the primary force fueling Crumbs’ rise—making delectable cupcakes—crumbled and so went the company with it.
Similar scenarios play out in other industries, often more than the leaders of the affected businesses realize. The driver is often not blinding expansion, but drifting from the core mission.
Communications Technology Can Distract
Sometimes the distraction is the technology needed for secondary but critical communications tasks. For instance, those needed for marketing, sales, and customer service. Platforms for audio, video and web conferencing, instant messaging, voice and telephony also play into this. Those platforms cost money and need maintenance, requiring IT personnel focused on the task.
This can leave companies in a quandary over how to regain their focus in a world in which technology is a necessity for competing. Businesses are discovering unified communications as a service or (UCaaS) is the answer. It is, in the eyes of many observers, the key next step in a digital transformation.
Instead of maintaining platforms on premises to carry out communications functions such as telephony or conferencing, UCaaS allows companies to rely on cloud computing. This cuts the need for massive spending on infrastructure and staff to maintain it. It also means companies can shift from a model centered on capital investment to one on operating cost. Expenses are slashed and the headaches of managing the communications apparatus are eased.
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UCaaS Helping to Keep Businesses Focused
Numbers suggest a shift is afoot. Synergy Research Group data state the number of UCaaS subscribers will swell by an average of 26 percent each year over the next five years. Larger companies are catching on. While almost nine in 10 UCaaS subscribers are small or mid-sized businesses, the number of enterprise subscribers increased by 57 percent last year. Mid-sized customers grew in number by 36 percent and small businesses by 23 percent.
Propelling the trend is the maturation of UCaaS. That prompted Boston software vendor PTC to shift its telephony to a UCaaS provider. Jason Mahoney, the company’s principal telecommunications analyst, told TechTarget’s Jonathan Dame: “I don’t think PTC could have made this move five years ago. Voiceover IP was a nightmare when it first rolled out.”
Now, UCaaS provides managers a one-stop shop. “They are your service provider, they are your carrier, they are your hardware manufacturer,” Mahoney said. The provider delivered them big benefits including local phone numbers in targeted countries for sales teams. That resulted in more potential customers picking up on the other end of the line.
Just as customers can blend public and private cloud computing for data, companies can employ a hybrid approach to communications, relying on a combination of UCaaS and on-premise infrastructure. The reasons for considering this approach are plentiful, with security rating at the top as with private cloud.
UCaaS Packs Benefits for Businesses
Other cloud computing benefits run parallel to those offered by UCaaS. Small businesses took to UCaaS because of the flexibility and ready scalability it offers. Changes in UCaaS can be made quickly and efficiently. Consistency in communications systems—an essential in customer service—runs far higher in UCaaS than in private systems. Some companies also have discovered the utility of UCaaS in disaster recovery.
No benefit is likely greater than allowing companies to get back to the basics of their business. That is what got the attention of Irvine, California-based Pacific Dental Services.
“You can invest millions and millions of dollars on great on-prem installs, and then you need a bunch of really skilled engineers to run that stuff,” Pacific Dental CIO David Baker said. “And I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and get out of the operational support on this type of system.”
A managed service provider can be essential in helping sort through cloud UC options and selecting the best course for a given company based on its needs and goals. As UCaaS continues to mature, ignoring it altogether will increasingly be an option for no one.
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