The cloud is not necessarily the most appropriate solution for all businesses, particularly with regards to the contact centre.
This is according to Pippa Wilson, manager: cloud solutions for Jasco Enterprise, who notes when it comes to making the decision whether to adopt the on-premises or cloud-based contact centres, organisations should always consider the cost of implementation as well as the features and functions of the solution.
Despite the numerous benefits of migrating the contact centre to the cloud, the decision to migrate or stay on-premises should be based on the best model to deliver the best returns, says Wilson.
She points out organisations need to assess their specific situation, their existing investment, and their IT teams to determine the feasibility of migrating the contact centre to the cloud.
Ebrahim Dinat, COO of Ocular Technologies, says contact centre executives need to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) of cloud versus on-premises-based contact centres before making the decision to migrate.
The TCO should include the time taken to deploy a solution, and the flexibility to increase or reduce functionality based on business requirements, he adds.
"In South Africa, we must consider bandwidth availability and its costs, as this can impact the customer experience."
According to Dinat, if a business has just invested heavily in an on-premises contact centre solution, it would make financial sense to remain on the platform until it becomes feasible to strategically plan a migration into the cloud.
He points out on-premises contact centres can adopt smaller cloud-based contact centres when required, as this would greatly increase their scalability when the demand requires it.
This will allow for significant savings, as cloud-based solutions are an operational expenditure with greater flexibility to cancel the agreement when the contract term has expired, adds Dinat.
He believes when choosing between cloud and on-premises contact centres, the size of the contact centre does not matter. "Most cloud-based systems will provide all the technologies associated with an on-premises contact centre."
Wilson believes a cloud contact centre is the best fit for contact centres up to 250 seats.
In situations where contact centres require more than 250 seats, it is generally more cost-effective to opt for the traditional premise-based contact centre, adds Wilson.
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