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UCaaS offers simplicity, lowered TCO

Unified communications as a service offers a total communications service without the need for network hardware or application software purchases, says Richard Vester, director at EOH Cloud Services.


Johannesburg, 01 Sep 2015

As tough economic climates are driving organisations to find ways to do more with less, they are turning to unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

"The UCaaS market is growing, and market research indicates that from 2013 till 2018, UCaas revenue will double from $2.52 billion to $7.62 billion," says Richard Vester, director at EOH Cloud Services. "This isn't surprising, as companies of all types look for ways to support a growing number of communication channels and interactions, without having to shell out huge sums of money."

He says as unified communications and cloud technologies are intersecting to form UCaaS solutions, companies are starting to reap the benefits of UCaaS solutions. These include boosted productivity, streamlined processes and improved interactions across the business.

"The major benefit of UCaaS is definitely its simplicity and cost-effectiveness," he adds. "For businesses who are looking for access to the latest communications but don't have massive budgets or limitless in-house resources for on-premises solutions, UCaaS is a godsend. In addition, businesses for whom agility is crucial are turning to UCaaS as cloud-based communications solutions to free up capital to invest in core business capabilities and innovation."

UCaaS offers a total communications service without the need for network hardware or application software purchases, translating into a significantly lower cost of initial deployment and upgrades as a business switches its communications services to UCaas, he explains. Another huge benefit of UCaaS is flexibility, and its ability to connect today's mobile workforce. "UCaaS solutions can work alongside in-house solutions to facilitate flexibility, and allow the business to slowly move away from legacy technologies, lowering complexity."

UCaaS is delivered over cloud-based infrastructure, across standard IP networks, removing the need for VPN or MPLS designs implemented at the client's sites. "Organisations can easily maintain a distributed workforce with unified presence, and still get an excellent communications experience irrespective of where their workers are situated."

He says most businesses today have invested in disparate hardware and software to deliver various services to the business. "The problem is, too often these platforms cannot work together or integrate, causing issues and expense. With UCaaS, businesses don't need to purchase, install, maintain and migrate multiple, disparate communication platforms. UCaaS ensures it is all under one canopy, and includes support features, such as a help desk and training so end-users aren't left behind."

With UCaaS, not only are your communications simplified, it is a third-party's job to handle and manage them for you, saving time and frustration. A hosted model lets companies focus on their core business objectives instead of getting involved in the nitty-gritty of supplying communications technologies to their staff. In this way, businesses can focus on their revenue generating operations without having to have extra technical staff to manage the communications infrastructure, says Vester.

"In terms of scalability, UCaaS allows the business to grow without any major hassle. A business can grow from a smattering of users to several thousand in a relatively short space of time."

Finally, UCaaS boosts business continuity, as it runs on private and security cloud platforms that are geographically redundant, resilient and fault tolerant. In the event that there is a disaster rendering one data centre inoperable, communications traffic will automatically be routed to an alternative data centre, eliminating business disruption.

Ultimately, he says, UCaaS has the ability to transform the workplace, making it more productive, efficient and effective. "Hosted UCaaS is allowing many organisations to deliver a plethora of business benefits to their staff by removing many of the obstacles that hindered their path."

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EOH

EOH is one of the largest technology and knowledge services providers in South Africa and provides the technology, knowledge, skills and organisational ability critical to Africa's development and growth. EOH's 6 000 staff members deliver end-to-end enterprise applications solutions, a wide range of outsourcing, cloud, managed services and business service offerings to customers across all major industries.

EOH has been listed on the JSE ("JSE") since 1998; for more information, visit: www.eohcloud.co.za.

Editorial contacts

Mia Andric
Exposure
mia@exposureunlimited.net