For any important journey, the destination is of course the most critical criteria. You need to understand your objective - such as a unified communications solution across a multinational enterprise - before you can figure out what it will take to get there.
But just as significant, is your point of entry, and understanding exactly where your roadmap will travel as you move from your present state to the desired outcome. This may not be straightforward or obvious, as John Macario, Channel and Enterprise Marketing SVP at Ribbon Communications, pointed out. Enterprises that have grown organically, often via a range of mergers and acquisitions over time in diverse markets, can end up with a telecoms environment that isn’t even fully mapped to start with…
All over the map…
Imagine a global multinational enterprise, with offices in 30 or 40 countries. Every one of those countries, or even some regions or offices within a country, may have some legacy voice equipment, like a PBX that they're using from large companies like Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, or some other smaller vendors. There are most likely different forms of call control technology, scattered all through the enterprise. The bad thing for the IT department is they must have expertise on every call control platform that is associated with their enterprise. And now, cloud communications has come into it. You've got this disjointed situation that you have to deal with. This was a typical scenario even before the pandemic’s shadow IT explosion, where people downloaded this or that unsupported free trial app to try and meet their unexpected collaboration needs.
Ultimately, however, what the users need is confidence that when a call comes in from anywhere it will offer an acceptable quality of user experience, in a world where jitter and delays are no longer professionally acceptable. “We've run across situations where calls are coming into a contact centre in, say, Austin, Texas, and it needs to be transferred to, to China.” Macario explained. “If you don't do that properly, with modern infrastructure, you're going to have bad call quality and more than likely, upset customers.”
The case for consolidation
Meanwhile, for those who may have struggled to hold their communications infrastructure together during the restrictions of the global health emergency, the time may be right to consider consolidating all communications services - including voice - to a fully cloud-based model. Transitioning to a hybrid is another option, especially if user requirements require incorporation of existing premises-based equipment, for technical or financial reasons.
There are numerous benefits to updating and consolidating voice infrastructure including cost savings and becoming more data-driven. Ribbon can create a solution that incorporates any desired approach, whether it includes resiliency, future-proofing your infrastructure, or making it location-independent.
