Section 1: The cloud: Where IT leaders want to be

Chances are you’re on a never-ending quest to help your business work more efficiently and agilely. One way to achieve that goal is by embracing cloud-based calling and collaboration solutions. With the right cloud-based technology strategy, businesses can also realize better security, performance, scalability, and cost efficiencies.

Driving migration to the cloud: Agility

In 2018, Nemertes conducted a global study of the communications and collaboration strategies of 653 IT leaders,
426 of whom were from small and midsize companies. When asked specifically about the unified communications (UC)
deployment options they were utilizing, survey respondents reported making extensive use of cloud-based collaboration services.

Why have so many IT leaders

made the move to the cloud?

Nemertes asked IT leaders about that, too. Leaders cited a number of reasons for making the shift, but the number one reason was agility.

That makes a lot of sense when you consider that business phone solutions need to serve a wide variety of collaboration needs beyond calling: Web facilitating and videoconferencing, enabling team workstream efficiency, enhancing contact center experiences for customers and agents – the “U” in unified communications leaps to mind.

Thus, when IT leaders consider their big picture communication and collaboration needs, they focus on being flexible enough to plan for the future and execute quickly.

When it comes to:

Adding or removing devices
Provisioning new locations
Adding new features and capacities that increase productivity

Giving employees and customers the modern omni-channel communication experiences they expect
Having updates and patches delivered automatically

The cloud doesn’t just make roll outs possible, it enables roll outs to happen in hours or days. With on-premises PBXs, those roll outs could take weeks or months, which is not only frustrating, but can potentially jeopardize business continuity.

Beyond agility

There are lots of other motivations behind the shift to the cloud.

Improved security and performance

Both are better in the cloud and here’s why: Cloud-based Unified Communications as-a-Service (UCaaS) providers servicing thousands of customers can’t afford any issues at that scale. As a result, they employ expert staff to continuously and proactively monitor for security and performance issues – and resolve them quickly.

Better allocation of IT staff time

With service providers overseeing UCaaS, IT can spend less time dealing with patches and upgrades, and more time working
with business units to deliver measurable value from new technology adoption and revenue-generating projects.

Predictive pricing model

As companies retire their expensive private branch exchanges (PBXs), cloud providers offer more cost-efficient
alternatives and consumption models that help reduce fluctuating payments.

Less disruption, more features

Cloud services aren’t just always up-to-date:
Software upgrade and hardware refresh disruptions are minimal, too.
And increasingly, more features are exclusively cloud-based.

The cloud-
based spend is
growing rapidly

Because the advantages of the cloud are so compelling and cloud momentum is so strong,
IT executives who don’t want to fall behind must have a cloud strategy.

The numbers reflect that reality. According to research conducted by MarketsandMarkets,
the UCaaS market is expected to grow from $17.35 billion in 2016 to $28.69 billion by 2021.
This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 10.6%.¹

When asked specifically about the UC deployment options they were utilizing,
Nemertes reports that 29.1% of survey participants have fully adopted cloud-based
platforms for their unified communications and collaboration (UCC) needs, 38.3% use a mix of
cloud and on-premises deployments, and just 32.6% use all on-premises platforms.²

The migration away from on-premises PBX infrastructure is happening in businesses of all sizes. But small to midsize companies are ahead of the curve.

¹ Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) Market Research Study, MarketsandMarkets, 2018.
² Best Practices for Moving to Cloud Collaboration at Your Own Pace, Nemertes Research, Q1 2019.

Introducing Cisco Webex Calling

When it comes to the technology that supports business success,
your company’s future is cloud-based.

Fortunately, you can take advantage of that future while
respecting the present.

Meet Cisco Webex Calling. You might know that Cisco
sells a lot of phones and headsets and on-premises PBX systems.
Cisco has sold over 93 million phones – we have 43% of the
on-premises PBX market. But you might be surprised to learn that
Cisco is the global leader in cloud calling with a 55% market
share in the segment.

There are many reasons to think of Cisco when your company migrates
to the cloud, with Cisco’s singular expertise in guiding comfortable
cloud journeys is right at the top. With Cisco Webex Calling,
you can confidently migrate your PBX to the cloud in a logical, practical,
and business-friendly process.

The Cisco Webex suite

Cisco is number one in cloud calling.

That’s a bold claim to make, but we’ve been a leader in
UC software since 2005, and we’re a leader in UCaaS solutions.
We’ve been a pioneer in IP phone systems, headsets, and
wireless devices — from sharable whiteboards to large-screen
room devices to huddle spaces – that all work smarter together.
We deliver the tightest interoperability between calling software
applications and multimedia devices, cloud and on-premises.

And that’s an important point. Cisco Webex Calling is part of the
complete Webex suite of integrated UCC services and endpoints.
Webex Calling is a trusted and proven platform delivered through
the Webex cloud using Cisco’s highly secure data centers located
strategically worldwide. Using secure connections reduces the
scattering of packets and simplifies reassembly – in terms of
reliability and high-quality experiences, Cisco Webex is unmatched.

In terms of easy management, the Cisco Webex Control Hub offers
an intuitive single-pane-of-glass administrative portal for managing
your entire Webex suite for calling, messaging, meetings,
team collaboration, and contact center services and devices.

A complete and tightly integrated native vendor suite for calling, messaging, meetings, team collaboration, contact center, and devices. Only Cisco offers that.

Cisco Webex:
Proven, trusted innovation

The power of Webex doesn’t stop with cloud calling.
When we say that Cisco Webex is proven and trusted,
we underscore a commitment to constant advancement
across the entire collaboration suite. That translates
into the most innovative, feature-rich calling and
collaboration platform on the market – something
we call cognitive collaboration.

Cognitive collaboration is all about applying people insights,
context, and intelligence to today’s workflows. Cisco put the
power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML),
and data analytics to work in Webex to make every
interaction more informed – calling, messaging,
meetings, team collaboration, and customer engagement.

Integration

Office 365, Google Suite, Salesforce, and so many more of the apps your teams love to use integrate smoothly with the Webex platform. And going forward, developers can connect new apps they create for your company through our open APIs.

Proximity

With proximity awareness in Cisco devices and Webex apps, you can easily move calls or meetings between devices, such as a smartphone, laptop, Webex room device, or desktop phone — with just one button to push.

Presence

Who is available to take calls and/or join meetings? Your Webex intelligent virtual assistant knows and can tell you, and call/invite them if they’re available, just by asking. Room devices can tell you if the space they’re in is available for a huddle up on the fly, just ask them.

Global connectivity

Webex Calling lets workers in multinational organizations communicate seamlessly using one global dialing plan and a common collaboration experience on one cloud-based calling platform.

Cisco Cognitive
Collaboration is about ROI

These and many other Cisco Webex Cognitive Collaboration capabilities – and more
to come – offer measurable ROI by making your organization more efficient, by giving
your customers better experiences, and by conveying to your employees that you are
committed to providing the modern tools that help them work smarter.

ROI is the underlying impetus behind digital transformation.

It’s about better ways to work that have tangible results on the bottom line.

It’s about doing more with tighter budgets.

It’s about outcome-based decision-making.

We talked about UCaaS enabling increased agility, cost-efficiencies, tighter security, refocused IT staff energy, and perpetual upgrades with less disruption. But there are plenty of other drivers behind the migration away from
on-premises PBX toward cloud calling.

In fact, the business case for transitioning to the cloud is
easy to make:

Improved disaster recovery
Access to detailed analytics and reporting
Outsourced non-core competencies
Support for your mobile, distributed workforce
Faster transitions to new industry regulatory compliance
Reduced business travel
Shifting large upfront capital expense outlays to predictable operating expenses
Consolidating UCC services and support under a single, dedicated vendor

If your current on-premises PBX and UC equipment can’t offer these business outcomes, it’s time to develop a cloud strategy.