A corporate world once dominated by enterprise applications on dedicated servers and people talking on deskphones via landlines, is now firmly entrenched in a cloud-based, wireless, mobility-centric reality.  And when it comes to unified communications, the options for businesses have exploded.  One thing that hasn’t changed however, is the need for interpersonal communication and collaboration.  Whether it is via voice or video calls, business people need and expect to connect and communicate wherever and whenever they want, on whatever device they have handy and in the manner they prefer.  And, oh yeah, they expect it to sound perfect, every time.

Challenges to Call Quality Facing Businesses and End Users

Since we were little, we’ve all learned to expect flawless sounding phone calls – and more and more we expect seamless video calls as well.  However, the trends towards cloud and mobility can cause challenges for businesses looking delivering this experience for colleagues, customers and partners.   

We’ve talked about the network challenges here in the past, but add on the fact that it seems as if we are constantly interacting across multiple voice and UC applications and with colleagues scattered around the country or the globe (see some of the stats about how quickly teleworking is growing, for example).  But one thing that hasn’t changed is that voice is still the dominant communications method.  Whether it’s a one-on-one phone call, conference call, UC collaboration session or video conference, when we need to get stuff done, we talk.

All of these changes are driving the need for reliable, high quality voice and audio endpoints, both headsets and speakerphones.  To get into more detail on why voice endpoints have taken on even more significance, we caught up with Urban Gillis, the VP of Channel Sales, North America at Jabra.

Voice and Audio Performance in a UC World

“With the challenges of being on the road, connecting from an airport parking lot, or even as a home-based contact center rep connecting through your computer, the need for a high quality audio endpoint has never been greater,” says Gillis.  “We’ve all experienced call jitter as the move towards IP phones and video calls has accelerated and these seem to be increasing as we’ve all been connecting through different types of networks.  Eliminating the possibility of poor quality originating from your headset or mobile speakerphone just makes sense.”

Devices that incorporate technology that support a professional experience can make all the difference.  For example, noise cancelling microphones to minimize the impact of that dog barking in the yard next door, or wind noise protection for that sales person on the road.  “Having software-centric products that allow devices to react as environments change provides real benefits to a mobile workforce.  The endpoints businesses and their employees choose deliver tangible results in terms of productivity and employee and customer satisfaction.  There are few pieces of technology that you use as often as your voice endpoint and it needs to deliver and perform for you.”

We couldn’t agree more.  I am never surprised anymore when there are call quality issues (connection / app issues, jitter, dropped participants, etc.) when interacting with customers and colleagues.  My standing line is, “Remember the good old days when phone calls always sounded perfect?  Isn’t progress great?”  With all of the variables that can cause call quality issues in our hyper-connected communications environment, making sure that your endpoints aren’t one of them is a no brainer.

The post Call Quality in a Cloud-based and Mobile-empowered World appeared first on The UC Buyer.

A compelling option for MSPs looking to avoid this fate is private labeling a UCaaS platform and delivering a branded, turnkey communications solution to their customers.  But what should an MSP take into consideration when looking at potential solutions to private label?  According to Mike Cromwell, there are four key areas businesses should look hard at prior to pulling the trigger with a private label UCaaS partner.

The Product and the Customer Experience

MSPs should approach the private labeling opportunity by realizing that whatever solution they choose will need to go toe-to-toe with existing UCaaS solutions by nationwide providers like Vonage, RingCentral, 8×8 and WestIP – or they might as well not get in the game.

“The product itself has to be competitive with the market, and deliver a great customer experience,” says Cromwell.  “MSPs are going to use this solution to upsell their existing clients and the cost of bringing an inferior product to market can be devastating.”  

When it comes to delivering a UCaaS platform that will meet or exceed the customer’s expectations, there are some table stakes that MSPs should insist upon when evaluating the product they will offer to their customers, including:

• A full-featured hosted PBX to handle all current telephony requirements
• Advanced Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) features like instant messaging & presence, conferencing, web conferencing, video conferencing and mobility
• The integration capabilities of the product with enterprise applications such as SalesForce.com
• A customer portal, branded for the MSP, that delivers web-based management of both enterprise administration and individual employee preferences

“If a company is going to put their name and logo on a product, it needs to be extremely capable, intuitive and easy to adopt,” says Cromwell.  “If the product isn’t great, prospects won’t respond well and MSPs will have a hard time getting their salespeople to adopt it and focus on selling it.”

The Platform Supports the Solution Provider’s Business

Once satisfied with the customer product, Solution Providers should take a hard look at how the platform will support their business.  “A private label solution needs to do more than just deliver a top-notch UCaaS experience for customers, it also needs to support the management of the MSP’s business from a technology perspective,” says Cromwell.  This can range from straight-forward issues like interface customization and branding, all the way through the management of the sales process and on to streamlined customer service.  Some of the areas MSPs should ask about include platform capability for:

• Quote to Order – solution design, proposal generation, and ordering tools
• Service Delivery – service delivery, implementation, and equipment fulfillment
• Customer Management – customer training, customer support, and trouble ticket management
• Integration & flow through automation – platform integration into 3rd party applications and vendors, as well as into the MSP’s applications
• Workflow Management – the ability for workflows to be customized by the MSP

“Remember, many MSPs have never sold a turnkey, hosted solution like UCaaS,” says Cromwell.  “Having a platform that is specifically built to provide a single interface for managing every aspect of the product, sales and customer service experience can mean the difference between selling a ton of licenses or having an expensive failure on your hands”

UCaaS Network Architecture and Capability

Once a customer sees the product and likes it, the conversation is going to quickly turn to the network backbone and underlying infrastructure.  

“When it comes to private labeling, the underlying network needs to be bulletproof and you need to have high confidence in the call control and routing.  Calls should never drop.”  Also it is is important to understand the underlying application backbone and whether it is a proprietary architecture, or is built on top of a major UC platform, like Broadsoft.  “Having the stability of a Fortune 500 company supporting the underlying application means the solution is going to stay current, it is built upon an open architecture and it is going to be fully supported.”

Solution Provider Enablement and Support

While the end user product, network and platform are foundational elements, an MSP won’t be successful without sales, satisfied customers, and attractive financials.  For MSPs considering the private label approach, the most important element is what the Private Label Provider will do to help the MSP drive sales and marketing efforts, as well as insuring they deliver a great experience to their customers.  “For businesses just starting to sell UCaaS, they need to ask the hard questions, starting with ‘how will you help us get up and running and selling quickly?’,” says Cromwell.  Some things to ask potential partners:

Solution Provider Onboarding and Training

• How is the end user product constructed and customized?
• What is the approach to onboard Solutions Providers?
• What training programs are in place for sales, support, and operations personnel?
• What documentation and resources are in place to quickly ramp Solution Providers?
• Does the training program also included best practices and tested processes & methodologies?

Sales & Marketing Support

• How will you support our sales team?
• Is there access to content to be used by sales personnel, including sales collateral, marketing materials, white papers, case studies, and product materials?
• Can all of your content be branded and customized?
• Do you provide best practices and sales tools including:
  • Customer qualification – LAN assessment & solution design
  • Designing a solution and delivering a proposal, including how to demonstrate TCO / ROI
  • Customer ordering tools, and customer agreement templates

Service and Customer Support

• What tools, systems, and processes are in place for service delivery, implementation, technical support, and customer support personnel?
• Are there pre-designed workflows and best practices provided?
• Are there support materials?  Can they be branded?
• Do you train our engineers on optimizing a customer LAN to support UCaaS?
• How will you help our support and technical staffs support our customers in troubleshooting potential issues?

End User Training and Support

• What is your approach to end user training and ongoing support?
• What resources and materials are available to train the end user & can those materials be branded?
• Are there videos available for end user training, and can those be branded?
• Are there defined best practices and documentation to support the training of new customers?

With so much riding on being able to sell and deliver a UCaaS solution, MSPs need to ask the right questions if they are planning on private labeling a UCaaS platform.  This goes well beyond just the technology and gets right into the heart of how to turn a UCaaS solution into a money maker for the company that creates happy, long-term customers.

Topics: Voice, Business Case, Best Practices, UCaaS, Homepage

The post 4 Critical Things MSPs Should Consider When Evaluating UCaaS Solutions appeared first on The UC Buyer.

Even as more people work from home, there is still a tendency to prefer physical devices like desktop phones and headsets.

Darren Knapp of Poly talks with Mike Cromwell and Dave Gilbert about how newer devices fill the roles both in-office and remotely.

Topics:

• State of the industry.
• Selecting the right device.
• How technology is throwing a life-line to businesses impacted by business continuity circumstances.

Take a listen, you’ll be happy you did. 

The post Podcast: UC Devices appeared first on The UC Buyer.

So I caught up with Thomas Negron,  senior systems engineer for Sonus Networks, which makes SBCs. He proved to be a fountain of information on the topic and, as it turns out, the list of differences between firewalls and SBCs is long.Before we jump in, Negron is quick to point out that Session Border Controllers do not replace firewalls. Rather, an SBC complements firewalls, providing functions that firewalls don’t, but not all of those that firewalls do.

Providing Security for SIP-enabled Traffic

To get nerdy right out of the gate, a firewall looks at traffic at Layers 3 and 4 of the OSI stack, including IP and TCP/UDP traffic. SBCs, on the other hand, can deal with any layer of the stack, up to applications at Layer 7. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), for example, which is used to set up and tear down real-time communications sessions such as those in a UC network, works at Layer 7.

Normally firewalls have fairly static configurations. They allow traffic from certain points to flow through specific ports to a defined destination, subject to certain thresholds, such as to prevent traffic overloads. And it can stop traffic from any end points that are not allowed.

Dig Deeper:  Download Session Border Controllers for Dummies for Free

Some firewalls go a step further and have limited awareness of SIP, Negron says. Maybe they’re able to dynamically open and close known SIP ports, rather than leaving them pegged open as a normal firewall would.

An SBC, on the other hand, has full awareness of the SIP stack and the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), which is used to carry traffic such as voice and video. As such, it can “peel the onion and have an inherent awareness of where packets are coming from and going to, how they should be formed and how to identify malformed packets,” Negron says. Those malformed packets may be legitimate packets or could be malicious; with its awareness of the larger picture, an SBC can tell the difference whereas even a SIP-aware firewall could not.

That capability enables an SBC to police against attacks that occur at higher layers, such as on video or audio streams. An SBC could detect and prevent a denial of service attack targeting a video port, for example.

With its application layer awareness, an SBC also understands what kind of bandwidth rates and packet sequencing are required to prevent a flood of RTP packets from inundating the network, a capability that is beyond the scope of a firewall.

Likewise, an SBC can detect when someone is trying to spoof caller ID numbers or hack into a PBX. The hackers can then force the PBX to dial out to numbers that no one in the company would normally dial, such as costly 900 numbers whose owners give the hackers a cut of the profits. The New York Times recently ran a story detailing how a seven-person architecture firm fell victim to the scheme:

Hackers had broken into the phone network of the company, Foreman Seeley Fountain Architecture, and routed $166,000 worth of calls from the firm to premium-rate telephone numbers in Gambia, Somalia and the Maldives. It would have taken 34 years for the firm to run up those charges legitimately, based on its typical phone bill, according to a complaint it filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

An SBC would have been able to thwart such an attack because it would have identified all those calls as out of the norm. That’s because SBCs understand the state of call sessions – including number from and number to, user name and company policies around time of day routing, least cost routing and such – and can police all of these aspects to ensure adherence to policies.

SBCs can also encrypt sessions when required, which is a best practice on Microsoft Lync networks, Negron says. “So if someone gets access to a switch they can’t just tap in and hear your credit card number over the phone.”

How SBCs Provide Interoperability

SBCs also diverge from firewalls by providing a number of functions that go well beyond the security focus of firewalls.

One significant capability is providing interworking that enables different flavors of SIP to work with one another. “SIP was purposely written to be very broad, which means everybody’s SIP variant is a little different,” Negron says. “An SBC knows about these variants and can interwork between them.” That enables a Microsoft Lync UC implementation to work with Cisco UC applications, for example.  “It lifts the burden of interoperability off the customer,” he says.

Similarly, an SBC can provide transcoding between different protocols, such as the older H.323 for voice and video and SIP.  

The post Highlighting the Differences: Firewalls vs. Session Border Controllers appeared first on The UC Buyer.

And it’s not just my buddy.  The fact is these headsets are being used more and more for unified communications applications and on-the-go by mobile workers, salespeople and executives. So it seemed worthwhile to get to the bottom of how these things actually work. To do so I talked with Henning Toft Schwarz, a product marketing manager at Jabra, which knows a thing or two about tiny wireless headsets.

It is even more relevant in light of recent events in that are leading to working and communicating from home in sometimes less than ideal environments.

Using Triangulation for Good Voice Quality

Different companies have varied approaches to how they pick up voice. Some rely at least in part on vibrations in the user’s jawbone as they talk. Jabra has a different approach that varies somewhat depending on the headset in question.

As a starting point in the discussion, Schwarz made it clear that voice quality is always better if the microphone is closer to the mouth; there’s no getting around that.  That’s why headsets for office workers and contact center agents  have boom arms of varying lengths.  But what about those in-ear devices?

To filter out noise other than the speaker’s voice in the small, in-ear headsets, the key is to have more than one microphone. The trick lies in software algorithms that essentially measure sounds coming from the mouth of the user, which take a specific time to travel to the microphones that are placed a known distance away in the headset. Background sound (noise) can be filtered out since it “looks” different than voice sound. On top of this microphones can be adaptive, allowing for measurement in different directions depending on the surrounding noise.  In this way you can obtain significant noise suppression and filter out everything but the speaker’s voice, Schwarz says.   

For example, white noise, background conversation and street noise are all clearly understood by the software, and the algorithm is designed to recognize those and cancel them out.

Another big issue is wind, and this can be harder to address.  Some models of wireless headsets have a small extendable boom arm and shield around the microphone that protects it from wind.   “Mitigating wind noise is intimately connected to design,” he says.  “Where the microphones are placed and having a shield around them that directs wind away from the microphones can make a big difference.”  When it comes to even smaller wireless headsets with shorter booms (or even devices that are in-ear only with no boom arm at all, like some developed for the military) the positioning of the microphones and the sophistication of the software makes all the difference.  

Best Use Cases for In Ear Wireless Headsets

The technology keeps getting smaller and better – and acceptance is growing, too. Nobody bats an eye when they see someone walking down the street wearing Apple ear buds. Schwarz says it’s just a matter of time before wireless headsets will become common.

I suspect he’s right because the uses cases are many. Mobile knowledge workers top the list. These are folks who use a UC solution in the office, increasingly with a soft phone. They can now use the same headset to connect to that soft phone as well as to their mobile phone – and transfer between the two without dropping the call. Consultants, salespeople, financial services professionals and anyone else who is frequently out of the office make great candidates for such technology, Schwarz says.

Somewhat surprisingly, he says craftspeople are likewise using the wireless headsets.  “They need to have their hands free because they can’t work when they’re holding a mobile phone,” he notes. “If they’re spending an hour on the phone each day, they’re losing an hour of work.”

Let’s just hope they decline the calls that come in while they’re in line at the coffee shop. Or at least they keep their voices down and trust that the technology built into their headset will allow them to speak in their inside voice.

The post How Those Tiny, In-ear Wireless Headsets Work appeared first on The UC Buyer.

DECT stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, although it’s also known as Digital European Cordless Telecommunications – which makes sense because it’s a standard that originated in Europe. It is widely used in wireless phone systems, to connect a cordless phone to a base station. DECT is also used for various other applications, ranging from baby monitors to industrial remote controls, but for our purposes, we’ll focus on the phone systems.

DECT is used for both consumer and corporate phones. In the latter case, it can be used with a PBX (IP- or TDM-based) and a wireless LAN, enabling users to move about an office without losing their calls.

The standard is widely used in most countries, working in or near the 1.9 GHz frequency band, where it does not interfere with other wireless technologies including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

I say “most countries” because in North America it’s a little different. According to Wikipedia:

North American adoption was delayed by United States radio frequency regulations. This forced development of a variation of DECT, called DECT 6.0, using a slightly different frequency range. The technology is nearly identical, but the frequency difference makes the technology incompatible with systems in other areas, even from the same manufacturer. DECT has almost universally replaced other standards in most countries where it is used, with the exception of North America.

DECT vs. Bluetooth – Security Concerns

An initial question that went through my head was about security as it relates to these additional office-based wireless spectrums. To learn more about whether there were any concerns, I spoke with Dennis Majikas, a service engineer with Jabra.  “People are concerned that others may be able to tap into their call via the wireless connection, but that is almost impossible to do once authentication is established,” explained Majikas. There are two areas of potential concern, the first is when the headset to base authentication is established which includes a number of handshakes and allows for establishment of a secure link. Once that happens the headset then turns voice into digital data, encrypts that, and passes only the encrypted data back to the base (for both standards), making the conversation highly secure.

“DECT uses 64 bit encryption, and Bluetooth has 128 bit encryption, so once the headsets are appropriately paired with their base stations the chances of someone effectively listening in on a call is virtually nil,” says Majikas.

DECT vs. Bluetooth – The Distance Dilemma

With respect to Bluetooth, the biggest difference DECT holds is its far greater range, around 100 meters. Bluetooth range varies depending on what class is in effect. Class 1 goes up to about 30 meters, Class 2 about 10 meters and Class 3 is 1 meter. In the case of an office environment, a Bluetooth-capable base station would be Class 1 capable, as would the headset. But a smartphone would be Class 2 so if the headset was to answer a call from the smartphone, it would automatically adjust itself to Class 2 power level.  (Class 3 is used for devices such as keyboards and mice.)

But DECT’s range can be both a blessing and a curse. DECT supports a maximum of 60 channels on a given base station in the U.S., or 120 in Europe. Given the maximum range of 100 meters, in a dense environment such as a call center, companies may run out of available channels even though plenty of additional users are well within range of the base station. In that case, there .a few things that can be done: First, the set up must be planned for and configured with base stations sufficiently far away from each other so as not to cause interference. Second, there are options for turning the DECT range down to 60 feet or so in high density environments to minimize interference.

DECT vs. Bluetooth – Connectivity Considerations

Another difference is that a DECT headset can connect to only one other device, namely the base station that provides a connection to the phone network.

A single Bluetooth device can connect to up to 8 other devices simultaneously.  In the headset example, that means the same headset could be used to connect to a user’s mobile phone, computer-based soft phone and desk phone.

So the choice in headset will largely depend on how it will be used. If your users need it only for desk or computer-based phones, as in a call center, a DECT headset makes sense – at least if you don’t run up against the channel limitation. The headsets  should be interference-free and will afford the ability for users to move about pretty much at will.

On the other hand, if the headset will also be used with a mobile phone, then Bluetooth may well make more sense. Mobility will be less of an issue since users have their mobile phones with them anyway so they’re well within the 10-meter limit. The ability to use the same headset for both office and mobile phones is convenient. And if you’ve got a UC system that enables uninterrupted handoffs between computer-based soft phones and mobile devices, that’s even better – the single Bluetooth headset should be all your users need.

The post Making the Wireless Headset Decision: DECT vs. Bluetooth appeared first on The UC Buyer.

As businesses tackle the problems associated with business continuity in these strange times, new tactics for managing teams when you can’t shake hands are being developed.

Dave Dyson of Eclipse Telecom talks with Mike Cromwell and Dave Gilbert about how one can adapt to this new environment of remote management as he shares insights to how remote learning has taken on a life of its own.

Topics:

• Reacting to a sudden need to turn to remote work.
• Using video to check in with your team.
• Eating your own dog food – if you want your team to use video, use it yourself.
• Embracing UCaaS as the best tool to use to go remote.

Take a listen, you’ll be happy you did. 

The post Podcast: Managing a Remote Team appeared first on The UC Buyer.

As it turns out, there is indeed a fair amount of open source UC software out there, some of which appears more “baked” than others. 

Below are three contenders that seem to have significant followings. We are not about to claim this is an exhaustive list, but they do appear to be viable options if you want to go the open source route for your UC implementation.

Asterisk by Digium

Asterisk appears to be among the oldest open source UC implementations, dating back to code developed in 1999 by Mark Spencer. Spencer is founder and CTO of Digium, based in Huntsville, Ala., which develops and distributes Asterisk code, along with UC products based on Asterisk.

From the Asterisk web site:

Asterisk turns an ordinary computer into a communications server. Asterisk powers IP PBX systems, VoIP gateways, conference servers and is used by small businesses, large businesses, call centers, carriers and governments worldwide. …

Asterisk is like a box of Legos for people who want to create communications applications. It includes all the building blocks needed to create a PBX, an IVR system, a conference bridge and virtually any other communications app you can imagine.

Users are free to implement the open source Asterisk software themselves, turn to an Asterisk integrator or consultant, or buy a complete solution from Digium, which claims its offerings cost as much as 80% less than traditional vendors. The company claims more than one million Asterisk-based communications systems are in use in more than 170 countries.

That’s a believable claim, judging from this long list of Asterisk system vendors around the world at VoIP-Info.org.

SIPfoundry Hybrid Cloud

SIPfoundry is another relative long-timer in the open source UC space, founded in 2004 in Massachusetts.  Its sipXecs platform offers the gamut of UC applications, include VoIP, video and web conferencing, “presence enabled everything,” and support for mobile devices.

SIPfoundry has a slick, professional web site – far from a given in the open source space – and makes a lot of hay over the idea that it supports hybrid public/private cloud environments. From it’s web site:

Already sipXecs is used by over a million people in thousands of companies worldwide who consistently report a reduction of overall cost of up to 80% after making the transition. The main reason for the cost savings? Resource efficiency in the cloud. A massive reduction in the number of hosts required, and a massive reduction in the resource footprint of the application combined with a high degree of automation and orchestration led to a significant reduction in labor. The result is a solution that IT people like.

The company focuses on enterprise organizations and has a special focus on education, listing schools including Colorado State and Holy Cross among its users.

And it provides an implementation intended for managed service providers. Companies including NetCarrier and eZuce use it to deliver assorted UC services.

Elastix by PaloSanto Solutions

Another apparently well-established solution is Elastix, based in Ecuador. At the time of this update, the company says its open source solutions are deployed in more than 100,000 servers.

Its UC solutions include VoIP, instant messaging, voicemail, mail server, video conferencing, virtual conference rooms, call recording, PBX interconnection, caller ID, fax-to-email and more. Its English-language web site provides a lot of information and a robust community for support.

Those are the most popular open source UC implementations that I found. If I missed your favorite, or you have experience with any of the above, by all means share your thoughts in the comments below.

The post Options for an Open Source Unified Communications (UC) Solution appeared first on The UC Buyer.

It is perhaps a throw-away statement to say that businesses across the world have had to adapt quickly and develop a remote working strategy. Even those with some remote staff have made adjustments big and small.

Crisantos Hajibrahim of Prodoscore talks with Mike Cromwell and Dave Gilbert about these developments, the state of the industry, and what kind of business continuity plans are necessary and effective.

Topics:

• Why Does a Business Need a Business Continuity Plan?
• What Holds Companies Back From Having a Business Continuity Plan?
• How to Keep Remote Workers Engaged, Productive and Contributing?
• You Can Implement the Tools for a BCP Quickly.

Take a listen, you’ll be happy you did. 

If you prefer a video of this discussion, you can find it on our YouTube channel. In the event that you like this content, please consider subscribing.

The post Podcast: Business Continuity Planning for Remote Workers appeared first on The UC Buyer.

Some businesses have reacted by installing spyware on their remote workers, which, if done poorly, can undermine the employer-employee trust relationship. While this may give the employer more insight into the activities of their remote workers, direct spying doesn’t necessarily provide useful data. What appears to work more effectively is the utilization of AI enabled analytics tied to your most useful software to keep your remote employees focused and gather the information necessary to coach them.

Here are some areas that proper analytics can assist in the rollout and use of unified communications services and your ability to train and coach your workforce. 

Adoption’s Impact on Business Continuity

A report from J Arnold & Associates, commissioned by Prodoscore, gives us many insights, such as, “according to Frost & Sullivan, only 27% of US users have a mobile client installed.” This lack of installed software makes a quick pivot from in-office to remote work more difficult. In order to get more users on a mobile platform you will need for that software to be implemented and adopted.

Implementation refers to setting up the digital and physical infrastructure of a UC solution, while adoption covers the human to software interface with a will and skill focus. You must be able to get your employees on board with using the new tools before they can be effective, and you must be able to monitor their usage and comfort level in order to direct training where it is necessary. Finally, analytics can help create SMART goals to further increase proficiency.

Dig Deeper: Why Analytics Holds the Key to ROI with Unified Communications (UC)

Many buying decisions made to move a company to Unified Communications were driven by what is best for IT, and what saved the most money for the company. If the rationale was cost savings or making the IT department’s workload easier, this is not always obviously beneficial for the individual employee. 

Your employees likely didn’t ask for any change, and some may actively resist it. It is incumbent on the leadership team to establish why this change is important and worthwhile. Or, as the insight report says it, “Find out how central [Unified Communications] is to their value proposition – and if it is, they should be able to provide proof points and references from customers showing high adoption rates among end-users.”

What Data Should Leadership Use

“Data becomes the currency upon which decisions will be made.”

Per the report, “Technology certainly has evolved, and UC has a big role to play by virtue of centralizing so many flows of digitized communication and information sharing.” With so much data being gathered, it can seem overwhelming to prioritize this flow from a firehose to a manageable trickle.

Related Blog: Crisantos Hajibrahim and Strategies Great Leaders Use to Avoid Analysis Paralysis

AI helps discover trends that might be easily overlooked by human eyes and brains by looking at relationships between varying data sets compiled from different systems. You can use these analytical tools to narrow the stream of data to focus specifically on the behaviors that drive the performance you want.

Measuring UC Productivity Through Analytics

Productivity has always been difficult to measure, but what’s not widely known is how today’s AI capabilities can bring new layers of insight that IT could not previously capture. Traditionally, the vast majority of voice activity was telephony-based, often running over the PBX. This becomes more difficult to measure because, for a variety of reasons, desk phones have lost their primacy in the workplace, and the downward trend of usage will only continue if not accelerate. 

With AI-enabled analytics about system usage and call logs, you can see the patterns of behavior that drive productivity. Measure this against deliverables and you now have the data necessary to lead, manage, coach, and excel.

Related Video: Crisantos Hajibrihim of Prodoscore discusses Business Continuity Planning & How Technology Minimizes Disruption by Enabling Remote Workers for UCBuyer TV on YouTube.

The high-level points in this blog are expanded in further detail from Prodoscore in their insight brief: Why Analytics Holds the Key to ROI with Unified Communications (UC)

The post How Great Leaders Use Analytics and Unified Communications Together appeared first on The UC Buyer.

But most of those semesters spent learning their subject and how to teach it never covered how to correctly use distance learning methods. 

Enter the year 2020 and the new way of doing things. Higher learning, alone, is a 600 billion-dollar industry in the USA, and most of their campuses are shuttered due to coronavirus threats. It seems like, in a moment, everything changed from classroom education to remote classrooms, video streaming, and group meetings.

For context, Mike Cromwell of the UC Buyer had a chance to sit down with Kevin Thomsen with Zoom Communications to ask his perspective on this matter.

Related Blog: Has the Workplace Been Forever Changed by COVID-19?  Broadsoft’s Founder Shares His Perspective

The Staggering Growth of Distance Learning

Kevin tells us, “On the education standpoint, higher ed and then universities, so Stanford was our first real big university that went on board. Eric our CEO went there, they adopted that remote learning via video early on. Online, e-learning.”

What you may not realize is that growth in distance learning was outpacing total enrollment even before COVID-19. Since 2003, the number of students taking at least one online course has grown at a rate greater than that of the overall higher education student body. Since 2009 though, there have been steady year-to-year declines in the rate of growth of online courses with an average growth rate of 3.7 percent. In about half a decade, by 2026, traditional students are expected to make up 61 percent of college enrollment. Between the years 2020 to 2025, the online education market is predicted to experience a 200% increase.

Students are increasingly comfortable communicating through technology. Even older learners with careers and families choose this option so they have more control over their life and education. Platforms such as Zoom can enable remote meetings with screen sharing, webcams, and recording. Kevin lets us know how much Zoom is being used, “we have the majority of K-through-12 using our free licenses. Our CEO lifted the 40 minute cap on free users for every real education instituted by K-through-12 to use the video, which is everything.”

Related blog: Choosing the Best Resource for Training Your Target Audience

The Impact of Video Learning

Incorporating video into your lesson is a strong move, because employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than to read documents, emails, or web articles. Recorded video can be replayed any time the employee needs it, referenced repeatedly, and even annotated with notes. According to B2C, using video for remote learning improves engagement, increases knowledge retention, and offers measurable metrics for attention.

Video-first is an organizational communication strategy that places priority on video conferencing tools, as opposed to audio-only conference calls, which is easier than ever in today’s environment. From the Zoom perspective, “to think that in 2020 that we would be at this inflection point, no one could have forecasted it. we’re just so happy that we were trying to make video and have successfully made video. More importantly, video-first cultures have allowed that total demographic to truly have a distributed workforce.”

Distance learning with incorporated video provides the facilitator and presenter with options to deliver dynamic content, engage with their learners, and run reports on attendance and interaction. 

In-House Training

In order to learn the new delivery methods for distance learning, professors, teachers, and trainers have had to take crash courses on whichever platform their organization uses. While every system has their own quirks, being able to access learning resources on their own terms is important. Either a knowledge base to answer basic questions, video learning, or even live classes make a huge difference when transitioning from a classic in-person model of instruction to a remote version.

For example, Zoom offers free and interactive live training webinars so even new users can get up to speed quickly. With a variety of lessons such as getting started or administration functions, Zoom enables users to learn the nuances of the platform at their own pace, at the skill level they need to reach for their particular role. “We’re just so happy to help our clients,” Kevin reminds us.

Next Steps

Whichever platform your organization chooses, you will need to learn a bit about how to set up classes, how to recall the lessons delivered, and how to do the baseline activities. From there, you can look at making your remote classroom more productive.

You can also watch the interview with Kevin and Mike here to gain a little more insight on what is happening in the world of distance learning:

The post How Education is Continuing By Using Video Conferencing and Collaboration to Enable Distance Learning appeared first on The UC Buyer.

The post Infographic: UC and Telework appeared first on The UC Buyer.

Increased Productivity

You can now edit Excel spreadsheets, compose Word documents, read PDF files, and send and receive email with rudimentary applications for your device.  Many of these applications have been around since the days of Blackberry, but where they used to be simple readers, there are now full applications for the most common business programs.

Screen sizes are getting larger, too, and with devices like Smart Pens you can get really precise on devices that fit in your pocket, not to mention lightweight tablets and pads.

This potential to fix one little problem or finish one more document is a powerful draw, but just like anything else can be managed properly.

Enhanced Work-Life Balance

The concern with using a personal cell phone was that one would never be able to escape the office and work-life balance would surely suffer.  If one can be reached at all times, it was assumed, one would be. The initial response to this was Find-Me Follow-Me, a protocol to route calls made to the office number out to a personal number.  That way, your clients didn’t have your personal info. The problem resurfaced when you called back, and the ubiquitousness of caller ID came into play.

But, with modern mobile applications, you can take your work number with you.  It can ring an application on your smartphone or computer, and you can answer as if you are at the office.  Furthermore, you can place outbound calls as if they originated from the office, with the appropriate caller ID in place.  Extension dialing, voicemail access, and any other feature of your office line can be utilized with a variety of applications.

How Top Performers Make it Work

For employees, the key to keeping your time even when you are shackled electronically is to pick and choose when you want to be “on call”.  The appeal of getting a few extra things done when you are up late at night, or to use the quiet of an early morning to respond to some emails is strong.  You have to keep in mind that you are eroding into your own time with every email sent and every spreadsheet cell filled. 

While a 40 point zero hour workweek doesn’t work for many positions, personal time is important for balance.  You work for your freedom, for your family, and unnecessarily cheating yourself is an archaic mindset to adopt.

Instead, set aside time if you must – an hour before breakfast, or right before the game starts on Sunday – makes a huge difference.  

For managers and directors, if you expect your employees to be available at all times, you will burn them out quickly.  Have reasonable expectations for off-hours availability and time, and respect these expectations. You can also set the same expectation for yourself.  Your time is important as well, after all.

Just because you can be as productive out of the office as in it does not mean your time has become any less valuable.  Use the tools you have to their fullest, including protecting your personal phone number, and enjoy the added freedom. But always remember that there has to be a balance between work and free time for yourself and your employees.

The post How Effective Leaders Reclaim Time with Technology appeared first on The UC Buyer.

In fact, according to Global Workforce Analytics, over 3.7 million people currently telecommute to work in the U.S., at least half of the time. Before your business takes the step of allowing workers to function remotely, a few myths may need to be exposed.

Myth: Remote Work is the Same as On-site Work

While about 50% of professions and disciplines can function autonomously, there are some that cannot. To eliminate the obvious, workers that provide a face-to-face service (such as cafeteria staff) or job site specific duties (construction) are out. Others may benefit from being on site, due to capital concerns. You wouldn’t want your cash room clerk to work from home, carting money to and fro every night, for instance.

The ones who can be looked at for remote work are the types that communicate almost exclusively via email and telephone anyway; your analysts, coordinators and agents who may have customer contact but not face-to-face contact.

Others are obviously remote capable, such as outside sales reps and those who work at multiple job locations. They are probably already working remotely, even if they do not have the tools to be accessible when they are away. And since an appropriately disciplined remote worker can save a company between $2000 and $7000 a year, it’s an opportunity that certainly deserves attention.

Myth: Employees Adapt Easily to Working from Home

It is a wondrous feeling to have a 2-minute commute walking down your stairs in slippers to go to the office, but the fact that work is always right around the corner is tough to put aside. The undisciplined worker can actually spend much more time “at the office” when the office is a few feet away, particularly during after-hours times.

Myth: Every Knowledge Worker Should Be Able to Work Remotely

No environment is a perfect fit for anyone, and the self-discipline required to work remotely is not always present. It may manifest in poor productivity or in emails sent out from the remote worker at unimaginable hours in the morning, either way reflecting work that is not being done during working hours.

Those who are great at setting and sticking to a routine, and those who have predefined times for conference calls and other checkpoints, tend to do better at working remote.

Myth: Enabling Remote Work via UCaaS

In the modern age, email has become a critical tool for business, but that doesn’t mean the telephone has gone away completely. A good Unified Communications as a Service product can enable a remote worker to have their business phone at their home office, or on their smartphone, with access as easy as dialing their extension.

Clearly, there are benefits and pitfalls with remote work, but the implementation of a solid UCaaS product enables your small or medium business to take every advantage when you can.

The post 3 Myths Managers and Companies Need to Know About Remote Working appeared first on The UC Buyer.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is suggesting in their current guidance for businesses, that companies prepare for and and encourage telecommuting where feasible and ensure their infrastructure can support multiple employees working from home.  That’s great advice. Let’s start by taking a look at your options when it comes to telephony.

Keeping Your Employees Connected When They’re At Home

While some media outlets are looking at this potential work-from-home explosion as an “experiment”, here at The UC Buyer, we understand the power and capability of Unified Communications and know that with a little preparation, businesses can quickly make this pivot and the solutions in the market can seamlessly scale to support their needs.  For example, the collaboration company Zoom notes how they have adjusted their own policies in lieu of the Coronavirus. If you do not already have an emergency work-from home plan,there is no better time to create one, or review the one you already have.

Whether you need to have your employees working remotely on a temporary basis or you want to move a part of your workforce out of central office on a more permanent basis, there are a few things to take into consideration when it comes to your phone system.

Related: 3 Myths Managers and Companies Need to Know About Remote Working

Three Ways to Keep Your Business Phones Up and Running

Making the Mobile Phone the Star of the Show

The simplest solution is to have each worker use their own mobile phone for business. According to Pew Research, 95% of Americans have a cellular phone, and 77% have a smartphone (with an incredible 94% of adults aged 18 – 49 having smartphones). In this sense, then, the hardware is already owned. But, unless your company directories already list everyone’s mobile contact info, you will need to gather this information and disseminate it to the entire staff. Furthermore, every employee will use their own mobile plan, and while most American’s have mobile plans with unlimited texting, far fewer have unlimited voice. So, this may cause your employees to incur expenses that were not negotiated ahead of time.

A solution for this lies in services that run as a smartphone application. You should check the options and apps provided by your UCaaS or hosted PBX vendor.  These often provide all the features of your office phone, including the same phone number and extension, voicemail, extension to extension dialing, and some services even provide video capability. With these applications, the smartphone uses data. Since 2015, over 98% of Americans have access to wireless Internet, so the employee often will likely not incur any additional expense for their data access.

Of course, the right headset can help out tremendously, as well. Our friends at Poly have solutions for the mobile worker that enhance voice quality and are comfortable enough for long days. These might be worth the investment as workers become long-term work-from-home associates.

Bringing Your Desk Phone Home

The next solution is to simply unplug the employee’s desktop phone and bring it home, then plug it into an Internet modem. Voice over IP phones connect to the Internet, and they know how to connect  and gather the information they need to enable their features and services, like name, caller-id, and even the corporate directory. Being geographically unbound as it is, the phone will work with any sufficiently high-speed Internet connection (which we have discovered, really isn’t a lot of speed for a single phone).

Related Blog: Desk Phones vs. Soft Phones for the SMB

While soft phones use a client or an application for their phone features, a desk phone will use the same buttons, handset, and other components the employee had at their desk – the exact device if you want it to be. This has the advantage of familiarity for the worker, with the same methods to call, hold, transfer, and access voicemail. The only thing you might need to provide is an ethernet cable.

Some higher end desk phones even have features that were designed for open office plans, the same features can help eliminate the noise and distraction of children, pets, and other factors found in home work areas.

Using a Soft Phone and Headset

Like mobile apps that allow the user to emulate their desk phone identity and features, a soft phone client is a program that runs on a Windows or Macintosh computer. It can provide similar features to a mobile app, and includes the company’s corporate directory, the same phone number and extension as the office phone, and operates on a portion of the screen so you can still use your laptop to do other aspects of the job.

These clients will default to the speakers, microphone, and even the webcam of the computer And since you don’t want your employees yelling at their laptop all day, the right headset can make talking with the soft phone much more comfortable while while providing professional sound quality..

Through accident or design, there may come a time when many of your workers have to work from home. With cloud-based communications, though, your business can continue to function as normally as possible through trying times. And, when you think about it, if everyone is impacted by some factor that makes business difficult and you already have a solution, your business will have an advantage over others.

The post Remote Worker Emergency Business Continuity ‘Must-Haves’ appeared first on The UC Buyer.

Quick Links to Curated Business Continuity Resources

UC Buyer Articles
Articles from the UC Buyer specifically focused on solutions and tactics for business continuity, enabling remote workers, and work-from-home employees to be safe and productive during the Coronavirus threat.

Business Continuity Resources for Business and IT Leaders
Businesses around the globe are in various stages of planning or executing their business continuity plans to keep workers safe in the face of the expanding COVID-19 threat. We share the best resources and insights for business leaders seeking best practices and tactics to enhance their business continuity plans.

Remote Worker Productivity Resources
A critical element to minimizing business disruption during a crisis is enabling traditional office worker employees with the software, tools, and the right equipment to maintain productivity remotely.  With the right tools in place, employees can sustain productivity levels, remain engaged, and ultimately minimize business impact throughout the crisis.

Virtual Event Solutions
With the evolving threat of Coronavirus, large gatherings such as trade shows and events are being canceled, travel restrictions are being imposed, and schools are being closed to halt the spread of COVID-19 in an effort to protect the health of employees and students. Having the right tools in place to keep business moving forward are critical to minimize disruption.

Technology News
We’ll keep our readers up to date with the latest relevant articles on how the Coronavirus threat is impacting technology companies, as well as breaking news on the business continuity front.

UC Buyer Articles

Articles from the UC Buyer for business owners, leaders and Information Technology organizations either planning or executing Business Continuity plans. Our topics will include helpful insights, helpful tips and tactics in the areas of Remote Worker productivity and engagement, keeping employees engaged and productive, and how to drive adoption of the UC tools among others.

Dave’s Tips for Awesome Virtual Meetings
Video conferencing is not just a business tool. It has become a way to stay personally connected. Dave Gilbert and Vince Corsaro have collaborated on a guide full of tips on how to deliver awesome virtual meetings.

Redefining the Future of Work and the Work From Home Employee
What does the growth of streaming services mean for the distributed workforce and the future of working from home? Mike Cromwell speaks with Kevin Thomsen on Zoom about the state of the technology and what it can mean for the future.

Has the Workplace Been Forever Changed by COVID-19?
Mike Cromwell and Dave Gilbert have a chance to talk to Michael Tessler about the changes coming to telecommunications and the workplace in general in a Video Blog. Insights about how Unified Communications fits in with these changes fills this article.

Improving Productivity for Remote Workers: Top Tips for #WFH
In this article by Guest Contributor Kelly Strain of PGi, a number of tips are given to make sure you are more productive as a remote worker, and how to engage your employees to make them as effective as they can be, regardless of the environment.

Infographic: UC and Telework
Cloud-based technology like Unified Communications is made for telework. This infographic shares some insights about remote work leading up to the aggressive push toward mobilization in March 2020.

How to Drive Participation and Engagement with a Remote Workforce
In this article, Mike Cromwell distills advice about how to effectively manage a remote team, including four major categories and a dozen pieces of advice on keeping that remote staff engaged, participating, and performing.

Infographic: The Benefits of Remote Working for Companies and Workers
This infographic details some of the benefits for remote working, both for the employee as well as for the business. Employer benefits, employee benefits, and Technological drivers are quantified with data gathered from a survey conducted by ConnectSolutions.

Now is the Time to Consider a Unified Communications Business Strategy
Dave Gilbert offers advice to managers and executives amid the fear, uncertainty, and doubt of the COVID-19 outbreak. This article gives tips on what you can control as well as an expected outcome for your business.

Remote Worker Emergency Business Continuity ‘Must-Haves’
Having the right tools in place for the remote worker can make a big difference in the impact to a business during times of uncertainty and in the face of health risks to employees due to the constantly evolving COVID-19 threats.  With the right plan in place and equipping employees with the right tools to perform their work from home are critical to minimize business disruption by keeping employees engaged and productive.

3 Myths Managers and Companies Need to Know About Remote Working
As business leaders are beginning to quickly migrate to a widespread remote working environment, it is important for leaders to understand how to maintain productivity, drive employee engagement and the tools needed to effectively lead.  We explore 3 common myths about working remotely.

Desk Phones vs. Softphones for the SMB
For an employee to remain productive and fully engaged when working remotely, studies have shown that selecting the right applications and tools makes an impact.  We explore the pros and cons of desk phones, mobile clients and softphones.

Whitepaper: Why Your Remote Workers Hate You (It’s Not What You Think)
This is a downloadable white paper that covers ways to keep your remote team working at maximum efficiency.

Business Continuity Insights and Resources

Businesses around the globe are in various stages of planning or executing their business continuity plans to keep workers safe in the face of the expanding COVID-19 threat. We share the best resources and insights for business leaders seeking best practices and tactics to enhance their business continuity plans.

The Suddenly Remote Playbook
Toptal, the world’s largest fully remote company, has assembled a playbook for getting your business remote in a sustainable way. They go into detail about how this will impact people, culture, and productivity so you know what to expect, and they also discuss some common problems and their resolutions.
Source: Toptal, May 1, 2020

With Coronavirus IT Security Threats Rising, MSPs Must React Wisely
With a growing number of people working remotely, some bad actors are looking at this as an opportunity for cyber threats. Without adequate time and planning to fully prepare for this possibility, MSPs are forced to react to these emerging threats. In this article by Todd R. Weiss for Channel Futures focuses on the kind of tools that can help manages service providers identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from these threats.
Source: Channel Futures, March 26, 2020

Infographic: A Coronavirus Action Plan for B2B Sales
Bain & Company has put together a quick read infographic to help B2B sales teams stem the threat and get on the right foot in topics such as securing revenue, delivering value, protect your margin, and growing your skilled employees.
Source: Bain & Company, March 20, 2020

What Should Be Included in a Business Continuity Plan?
In order to maintain profitability during and after a natural disaster, service interruption, or wide-scale medical emergency, you should have a Business Continuity plan. Jan Ritter of Voyant provides information and a guide to building that continuity plan, including information about SIP Trunking to maintain service, remote work strategies, and how you can use Unified Communications to best effect.
Source: Voyant, March 12, 2020

Why Critical Event Management is Essential to Business Continuity
Many articles talk about what to do for business continuity within the scope of your organization. How to protect your employees and customers, when to send people home, and how to continue communications remotely. But what about your supply chain and other components crucial for your business? This article by Everbridge brings up topics like how to protect your supply chain, and how to leverage technology and data to your advantage.
Source: Everbridge, March 11, 2020

How to Prepare Your Company for Telecommuting
Now that you need to move to telecommuting as a business strategy, what is the best way to implement these changes? This article by Star2Star give five important considerations, including how to share desktops, communication needs, and how to organize workflows and procedures remotely.
Source: Star2Star, March 11, 2020

The 4 Key Considerations for Extending Your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to Home and Remote Workers
Due to the spreading health crisis, we are presently in the early stages of the largest global work-from-home experiment in history. This article by Cato Networks explains the key factors that go into maximizing business continuity through the use of remote workers.
Source: Cato Networks, March 8, 2020

How Pandemic Threats Can Impact Financial Institutions
With examples pulled from the financial sector but messages that can matter to others, this article by Marie Giangrande exposes how enterprises can be affected in indirect ways. Have you thought of how to track absenteeism for your remote workers, or how to improve your business continuity plan in preparation for the next disaster, because this article will help.
Source: Everbridge, March 5, 2020

How to Start a Work-From-Home Agent Program
If there is one thing you can count on needing, it is a business continuity plan. When this extends to your contact center agents, a work-from-home program could be the ideal solution. Kay Phelps of 8×8 offers a series of five questions to ask and a load of advice to consider before implementing a remote worker solution for your contact center.
Source: 8×8, March 4, 2020

Weathering the COVID-19 Crisis Means Being Part of the Solution
When faced with monumental circumstances, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, the best leaders must be able to think, innovate, adapt, and overcome. This article gives tips on how to respond and push through such crises. Seven immediate steps and three longer-term tips for managers of every type of enterprise give crucial advice on topics such as protection, communication, and risk assessment.
Published on LinkedIn by Lars Faest, BCG, Managing Director Greater China, March 4, 2020

Communication Best Practices for the Next Infectious Disease Outbreak, Epidemic, or Pandemic
Governments across the world, as well as agencies like the World Health Organization are learning the best ways to communicate to an audience of billions. The development of best practices for communication in the event of a pandemic, outbreak, or other disaster is front and center to these organization, as well as yours. This article by Michael Scott defines these best practices, and the article includes a link to a Coronavirus Preparedness Kit.
Source: Everbridge, March 3, 2020

8 Questions Employers Should Ask About Coronavirus
Make sure you are asking the right questions and gathering the right information about this outbreak in order to best protect your employees and your business. The Harvard Business Review spells out the type of conversation starters necessary to best protect your employees, your customers, and your business itself. From when to exclude workers and visitors to travel policies, these eight questions will put your business in a better position to emerge from this disruption in a good place.
Source: Harvard Business Review, March 2, 2020

Lead Your Business Through the Coronavirus CrisisBusiness leaders around the globe are in various stages of preparing or deploying crisis management & business continuity plans as the COVID-19 crisis continues to evolve.  HBR provides valuable insights in this distilled list of 12 lessons for responding to unfolding events, communicating, and extracting and applying learnings.
Source: Harvard Business Review, February 27, 2020

Stress-Test Your Business Continuity Management
You should have a business continuity plan, but how can you be sure it will be effective before faced with the anxiety of an actual crisis? This article lays out the four components of a proper business continuity management program, including IT disaster recovery, as well as how to test, prioritize risks and threats, and select the proper team players.
Source: Gartner, February 12, 2020

A Video-First Culture is Critical for Overcoming the Workplace Challenges of the Future
Forbes Insights partnered with Zoom last year to gauge the impact of video on the workplace and the increasingly important role of video in the workplace.  In this survey by Forbes Insight, an assortment of valuable insights are provided around workforce trends and the effectiveness of video in improving productivity.
Source: Forbes Insights & Zoom, February 5, 2020

How to Measure Your Organizational Resiliency for Critical Events
This article from Everbridge shows you how to quantify, using the Organizational Resiliency Maturity Model, your enterprise’s maturity in the sense of being able to cope with the next crisis. You can assess risks, locate what may be harmed, prepare to act on protocols, and analyze performance at all stages of the response.
Source: October 2, 2019

Remote Worker Productivity Resources

A critical element to minimizing business disruption during a crisis is enabling traditional office worker employees with the software, tools, and the right equipment to maintain productivity remotely.  With the right tools in place, employees can sustain productivity levels, remain engaged, and ultimately minimize business impact throughout the crisis.

Work From Home Productivity Data
With the spread of coronavirus forcing thousands of people to work from home for the first time, there are more opinions than ever about how to work from home. This article explores what the data shows and why bosses don’t need to freak out about productivity from work from home employees.
Source: Rescuetime, April 1, 2020

Bosses Panic-Buy Spy Software to Keep Tabs on Remote Workers
As the number of remote workers rises, some leaders turn to keystroke capturing, browser logging, and screenshot saving measures. This article from Bloomberg explores the impacts this has for employers and employees, including some pitfalls that may impact employee trust, as well as advice for employees on how to utilize these measures to prove their reliability and resourcefulness.
Source: Bloomberg Technology, March 27, 2020

How to Transform Your In-Person Training Into Engaging Virtual Training with Zoom
In this time of social-distancing, in-person training is easy. This article from Zoom showcases some of the ways you can make virtual meetings as impactful as possible. Tips about how to get creative with your content, how to ensure retention, and how to create engaging virtual learning.
Source: Zoom, March 25, 2020

A Practical Guide to Remote Working
The appeal of remote working has come and gone, and now it is back again. Nadine Malek of Prodoscore does a great job in this article of exploring some great tips from personal experience like how to establish trust, setting up space to work, and how to regulate your time.
Source: Prodoscore, March 24, 2020

How to Avoid the Time-Suck of Social Networks While Working at Home
When transitioning from a typical office environment to one with less oversight, there is a natural concern that your productivity may drop. This article by ZDNet offers advice on how to minimize the distraction that social media brings to a work-at-home arrangement. Tips on how to ration your time, turning off notifications, and even some software that can assist you.
Source: ZDNet, March 18, 2020

Remote Work in the Era of Coronavirus
Many businesses were ill prepared for moving much or all of their employees from in-office to remote working. This article from 2600hz links to a podcast where Crisantos Hajibrahim, Alisha Bartash, and Dave Gilbert talk about this topic and others, such as work from home policies and how to ensure success with your remote workforce.
Source: 2600hz, March 13, 2020

How to Hide Your Messy Room for a Zoom Video Conference
Not every room is as photogenic as you might like. This article from The Verge explains how to use Virtual Backgrounds in the Zoom client to disguise anything in your room that might be less than professional.
Source: The Verge, March 11, 2020

Calling Without Compromise When Working From Home
Support for work-from-home business models is on the rise, so what is needed next is a path to get to where your home office is just as productive as your work office. In comes Cisco to talk about collaboration and calling with the minimum impact to your customer base.
Source: Cisco, March 11, 2020

Working in a Coronavirus World: Strategies and Tools for Staying Productive
Four strategies for remote work, enabling workers to stay productive when working from home – a trend that will experience a major boost as businesses shift to conducting business through tools and applications in an effort to avoid physical gatherings.
Source: ZDNet, March 11, 2020

New to Working from Home? Here Are Some Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro
Working from home has been a reality for a growing percentage of the workforce for years, but new factors are increasing these numbers at an alarming rate. If you or your staff have never worked remotely before, this article from Zoom offers the necessary instructions for not just setting up a home office, but how to optimize it and make it at least as productive as one in the office. Tips about environment, lighting, and the right software help managers and employees alike through this transition.
Source: Zoom, March 9, 2020

Productivity Hacks for Remote WorkersWith remote and mobile work becoming common, it can be a daunting endeavor to switch from working at the same place to working any place. Joe Martin of CloudApp details 6 practical and 3 technological hacks that can make your remote work as productive, comfortable, and enjoyable as possible.
Source: CloudApp, March 5, 2020

Coronavirus Plan: How IT Can Enable Remote Work
The Coronavirus outbreak is impacting businesses large and small, forcing even the best business continuity plans to adapt. The information technology department of such organizations can be invaluable in implementing remote work. This article lists several matter-of-fact statistics and then moves to offering solid advice about how to roll out a remote work plan.
Source: InformationWeek, March 4, 2020

How to Set Up a Basic Home Workstation for Remote Employees
As COVID-19 spreads and the possibility of widespread remote work deployments, setting up employees to effectively conduct their work from home isn’t as complex as you might think.
Source: TechRepublic, March 4, 2020

Is Your Remote Workforce Ready for Anything?
You have a remote workforce, but you are not sure if it as good as it can be. This article by Michelle Accardi explores the kind of tool and expectations a remote workforce should have. Tips on how to rally your workforce links to several other resources to provide you the information you need.
Source: ZDNet, March 3, 2020

Top 10 PROVEN Tips to Setup a Temporary Work From Home Office Successfully
If you have been put in a position to move your workforce off-site, they may benefit from some tips on how to setup a home office. This article from Henry Kayser with Zoom analyses this very scenario and offers ten ways to help your employees, such as setting up their workstation, benefiting from natural light, and using technology for virtual meetings.
Published on LinkedIn by Henry Kayser, Zoom, March 3, 2020

Working from home? Use these 6 tips for better video calls
Flexibility in working has been a rising trend for the past decade, and technology such as video conferencing facilitates this transition. Google offers tips for controlling your environment, focusing on what you present, and how to change parameters of your presentation software to make you as productive, comfortable, and impactful as you can be.
Source, Google, February 24, 2020

The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Change the Way You Work. Here’s How to Prepare Your Company
If it is not 5G changing how we work, it is a viral outbreak. In any case, the times are changing. This article explores these changes and gives four ways your business can become prepared to not only adapt to the changes, but how to thrive because of them.
Source: Inc, February 24, 2020

Remote Work Statistics: Shifting Norms and Expectations
Flexible working is becoming mainstream, and that fact is changing the paradigm of what is considered normal. In this article, Beth Braccio Hering breaks down key metrics about a remote workforce – including growth, attractiveness to talent, business impacts, and profitability.
Source: Flexjobs, February 13, 2020

7 Stats Leading the Remote Future of Work
The conversation is no longer “how big an office do we need” but “do we need an office at all?” In this article, CloudApp cites seven key performance indicators all managers and executives should be aware of regarding such topics as the demographics of remote workers, the impact of video conferencing, and customer preferences for chat vs telephone conversations.
Source: CloudApp, October 28, 2019

Remote Workers Are Outperforming Office Workers — Here’s Why
For a decade offices have been remodeled with experiments from pool tables to open-office plans. This article shows that not only have these changes failed in making employees more productive time. Brian de Haaff lays out the three principle areas where remote workers outperform their in-office counterparts.
Source: Inc, October 30, 2017

Virtual Event Solutions

With the evolving threat of Coronavirus, large gatherings such as trade shows and events are being canceled, travel restrictions are being imposed, and schools are being closed to halt the spread of COVID-19 in an effort to protect the health of employees and students. Having the right tools in place to keep business moving forward are critical to minimize disruption.

B2B Video Sales Meetings in the Time of Coronavirus
The COVID-19 outbreak is affecting business meetings across the globe, but that doesn’t mean that business can grind to a halt. B2B sales professionals can use virtual meetings to replace the in-person ones they are used to. In this article, Connect Leader offers advice about how to use tools like Zoom to close the deals and the dynamic impact that video conferencing has for sales.
Source: Connect Leader, March 11, 2020

Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event
Travel restrictions and other concerns have put a spotlight on events that can be attended online, rather than in-person. In this article, Zoom discusses the difference between webinars and meetings, how to host virtual events, and tips for engaging your audience. This advice can be used to give your presentation the impact it deserves, even if it is virtual.
Source: Zoom, March 4, 2020

How to Effectively and Safely Engage Your Audience Without Spreading Germs
Even without a pandemic, flu season is still an annual occurrence. Broadnet offers several pieces of advice on how to share information, close deals, and offer customer service without physically meeting your audience. Social media, virtual town halls, and video streaming events are useful tools that can be used to engage groups without spreading germs.
Source: Broadnet, March 2, 2020

Technology News

A curated list of articles containing technology news relating to the latest developments on the Coronavirus front.

How the Coronavirus is Already Rewriting the Future of Business
Harvard Business School experts were asked to speculate how COVID-19 will impact business in a post-pandemic world. This article by Dina Gerdeman details these predictions, such as how organizations will develop trust-based cultures, how remote work will become strategic, and how leadership will be forced to engage their people to work together creatively. Eleven strategic forecasts to set your own business at the tip of the sword for upcoming changes.
Source: Harvard Business School, March 16, 2020

Coronavirus Is a Preview of Our Self-Isolating Future
The experiment into moving work from corporate offices to home offices represents a glimpse into a future that we can achieve, even if everyone is not on board yet. Will Oremus of OneZero lays out the ways that working from home could reshape society with this well-sourced and comprehensive article. He also lets us know that the change is not really as radical as some may believe it to be.
Source: OneZero, March 11, 2020

NAB and Gartner cancel events due to coronavirus pandemic: 2020 tech conference cancellations and travel bans list
Events are being canceled or postponed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In this article, ZDNet gives details about the disruptions, including a listing of tech conferences that are canceled, postponed, or going virtual.
Source: ZDNet, March 11, 2020

YC’s Demo Day and SXSW Make Plans to Go Online
South by Southwest and Y Combinator’s annual demo day are going virtual instead of live sessions. PitchBook discusses how this may change business going forward, and tests the value of in-person meetings.
Source: PitchBook, March 6, 2020

Virtual Events Thrive Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
The number of virtual meetings is sky-rocketing, starting in China but going abroad. As the cautious cancel or postpone the traditional in-person events, virtual events are being taken more seriously than ever. PR Week explores some of the uses for virtual gatherings, from shareholder meetings to educational summits, as well as what it will mean for the future of industry shows and other physical events.
Source: PR Week, March 6, 2020

Working From Home, Video Job Interviews And No In-Person Meetings Will Be The New Post-COVID-19 Standard
How will the reactions to the Coronavirus pandemic shape the future of business? Forbes reports how the temporary changes to work from home, travel, and meeting policies may become permanent going forward, and what impacts these changes can have on the work-world.
Source: Forbes, March 6, 2020

JPMorgan Asked Thousands Of Employees To Work From Home: This May Start A New Trend
Major companies like JPMorgan, Amazon, and Twitter are reacting to COVID-19 by permitting tens of thousands of their employees to work from home. Forbes reports in this article about some of the unintended positive consequences of such programs, including impacts to child care expenses, pollution, and work-life balance.
Source: Forbes, March 4, 2020

Microsoft’s new coronavirus plan: Seattle-area employees to work from home for next 3 weeks
Microsoft has reacted to the Coronavirus pandemic by recommending all 54,000 of its Seattle-based employees work from home for the next few weeks. They have also updated their travel guidelines, all based on guidance from health officials.
Source: GeekWire, March 4, 2020

Companies Are Cancelling U.S. Domestic Travel Over Coronavirus Fears
Facebook and Amazon are among the companies rethinking employee travel as the outbreak intensifies. The Washington Post, in this article, explores some of the impacts to the hospitality and transportation industries, as well as how major tech companies are adapting to the disruption through their employee policies.
Source: Washington Post, February 28, 2020

The post Business Continuity Central appeared first on The UC Buyer.

The answer to that question depends on a number of issues according to Jason Cummins, SVP of Voice Networks at Magna5.  “MPLS is a proven technology and it is not going away anytime soon, especially among larger companies with multiple locations.  These businesses are looking for the direct, guaranteed point-to-point connections and additional capabilities around packet prioritization that MPLS can deliver.  This prioritization is important because your data is going over the same MPLS path and using the same bandwidth and that is a finite resource.  Voice and real time traffic must be prioritized.”  He went on to explain that for the majority of businesses out there, especially if they have a single location, MPLS is not necessary to ensure a high QoS.

VoIP Packets, Delivery and Prioritization and MPLS

When it comes to voice, or really any real-time communications, there are three key metrics that every business cares about:

1. Did all the packets get delivered
2. Did they arrive on-time
3. Did the arrive in the proper order

MPLS extends this for multi-location companies by allowing for priority tags to be attached to the packets to ensure each packet arrives with the right priority as they travel along the protected paths from source to destination.  This control is an important addition for some businesses, but that ability to prioritize packets really only becomes an issue in a network where there is congestion – an issue that many small and medium businesses can effectively address.  No congestion, no need to prioritize packets with MPLS.

Dig Deeper:  Check out the Broadsoft Whitepaper – Premise-based vs. Hosted UC: A Cost of Ownership Comparison 

For businesses considering a UCaaS solution and using an over-the-top approach to real-time communications, there are two key aspects to take into account in order to address the congestion concern.  First, getting the packets to your network edge efficiently and in a prioritied fashion, and second, ensuring you have the necessary bandwidth to get the packets where they need to go without delay.

Optimize Network Hardware Configuration to Prioritize Voice Packet Delivery

According to Cummins, for the majority of businesses considering UCaaS most of the quality issues come from their own LAN and that is the place to start.  “Most off the rack business routers in the market today have some kind of mechanism that allows the voice traffic in the customer’s network to be prioritized.  Companies often use more network resources and bandwidth sharing large data files internally than they do bringing voice out to the internet, and that is where conficts and congestion can arise.”  Taking basic steps to configure the equipment in the LAN to prioritize communication packets can pay major dividends in Quality of Service.   Cummins says he has spoken with many companies that are tightly focused on MPLS, when the quality issues can be found in the network itself.

We went into a bit more detail in a recent post when we discussed a common method for assuring priority of voice and communication packets:

The most common method of taking advantage of this capability is called the dual drop scenario.  In this instance the data network has its own port on the switch and the phones have their own port.  According to Mann, “by separating it out this way, you can easily prioritize the voice and conferencing packets and you are in a better position to deliver a quality experience to your team.” Another way to think about the importance of packet prioritization is, would you rather wait a few extra seconds for your email to show up or experience jitter on twenty percent of your phone calls?  Having the right hardware to prioritize communications packets is critical.

Making Sure You Have Enough Bandwidth for Over-the-Top UCaaS

Once you have your voice packets prioritized and delivered to the network edge and ready to go out over the internet, the next key is making sure you have enough bandwidth to avoid congestion.  But how much is enough?  Lucky you, we covered that in the same post!

…businesses should use the 1 to 6 rule as a starting point.  “The rule of thumb is that businesses need to plan for one active phone call for every six users.  So if you have 60 employees, there will be 10 ongoing calls at any given time…more if you have  a contact center.”  

Toll quality calls require 80Kb per second, per call, so if a business needs to support 10 calls at a time the upload / download speed for voice calls alone is 800K per second.  “Of course that is the baseline.  Companies needs to leave extra room for overhead, extra usage and data,” says Mann, “They also need to take into consideration richer forms of communication like video conferencing, web conferencing and collaboration.”

So is MPLS right for your company?  It’s likely if you’re a medium or larger organization with multiple locations.  If not, look first at ensuring you can prioritize voice traffic on your LAN and that you have enough bandwidth (and then some) to support your UC deployment or your connection to your UCaaS provider.   Actually, you should do that even if you are going with MPLS)  Let us know how you think about this challenge in the comments section below.

The post Addressing MPLS vs Over-the-Top and other UC & UCaaS Quality of Service Questions appeared first on The UC Buyer.

According to the CEO of CafeX, Rami Musallam, advanced collaboration is all about finding ways to eliminate friction in internal company processes as well as while interacting with customers.  In this insightful podcast interview we dig into how cutting edge technologies, like Chime, their one-click video conferencing platform, are delivering seamless collaboration from the boardroom to the contact center.

We discuss what it really takes to make video a single click experience, whether you are at your desktop or using the company telepresence room.  We also review how enabling collaboration technologies like desktop sharing, allows businesses to take customer care to the next level by saving time and lowering the risk of unhappy customers.

Take a listen, you’ll be happy you did. 

The post Advanced Collaboration and Seamless Video Are Finally Here, Podcast Interview with the CEO of CafeX appeared first on The UC Buyer.

According to David Jodoin, the Chief Technology Officer for collaboration software vendor CaféX, trying to deliver this kind of exceptional service is why so many businesses are focused on improving Customer Experience Management, or CEM.  “Thirty years ago, if you were going to buy life insurance for example, a rep would come to your house and you’d sit around the kitchen table and discuss all the pros and cons of a solution while looking at different options.  You knew you could always count on this type of high-touch customer service if you had a question or a problem in the future.  That is not always the case in our e-commerce driven, fast-paced modern economy.  But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still looking for that kitchen table feeling.”

In a recent podcast interview with Jodoin, we discussed what businesses need to take into consideration and the types of technology they are putting in place to ensure that customers feel like they are getting that type of service in every situation.  Take a listen to the entire interview here.

Moving Customer Service Beyond the Contact Center

Here at The UC Buyer we’ve covered the importance of creating a true omni-channel contact experience in which every interaction is visible to each person who might come in contact with a customer, regardless of the channel in which the interaction takes place.  This cohesive approach to customer care is key to not only meeting, but exceeding customer expectations, says Jodoin.  “Collaboration is core to every business, including collaboration with customers.  Leading companies are realizing that customer service must become a key tenet of their brand and that every employee is a customer service agent to some degree.”  

This means that service will move beyond the contact center agents and may bring in employees or even external constituents who have the expertise necessary to solve a customer’s problems.  Customers want to solve their problems quickly and want to feel like they have an advocate on their side.  Jodoin shared a story in which, using CaféX’s video collaboration technology, a contact center rep for an insurance company acting as a customer advocate was able to connect the customer with a claims adjustor and even bring in the body shop at the same time to solve the problem quickly by connecting all key stakeholders.  “Being able to break down barriers can lead to vastly increased first call resolution and happier customers,” says Jodoin.  

Making Mobile a Cohesive Part of the Solution

With so many businesses publishing their own mobile apps, we may all be facing a bit of ‘app fatigue’.  This can be especially true when businesses publish multiple apps to handle different functions (which one should I use?), or alternatively when they put every type of functionality from their website in a single app and it becomes overly complex.  According to Jodoin, the best business apps are designed to provide customers with the ability to solve problems when they are in a time of need.  For example, hopping on the app to let your bank know that you lost your credit card.  Leading companies are taking this a step further and starting to leverage WebRTC to put direct connections to customer service within their apps so that customers can ‘chat’ or ‘talk’  with the company and escalate their interaction with a simple click.    

In this instance, passing along the context of the customer’s mobile experience to the customer service agent is key.  “If a customer is using a mobile application and realizes she needs to escalate the interaction to talk with an agent, the last thing she wants to do is spend 10 minutes bringing that person up to speed on what she is trying to accomplish.  By passing along information directly from the app about who the customer is, their history and what the customer has been trying to do, this interaction becomes seamless for the customer and the agent resulting in vastly better outcomes.”  Jodoin shares a story about a large financial industry customer that found that first call resolution leveraging this approach went from 64% to 88% and the net promoter score went to the highest levels they had ever seen.  

Hands-on, Persistent Service Becomes the New Gold Standard

As customers focus more intently on improving the customer experience, many are moving from a transaction-based service model to an outcome-based approach.  This means figuring out ways to successfully solve problems quickly.  “Going back to that kitchen table story, one thing those reps had going for them was they could glance over to see what the customer was working on and having trouble with,” said Jodoin.  “Replicating that capability with single-click co-browsing functionality is gaining a tremendous amount of traction in the market right now.  If the agent can jump in to quickly help you complete a transaction with your favorite retailer, or troubleshoot a technical problem, your likelihood of continuing as a happy customer goes way up.”

Another area that businesses are showing a lot of interest in is ‘outcome-based team collaboration spaces’.  These are essentially persistent virtual meeting rooms that agents can set up to manage interactions in a centralized fashion, bringing together all the capabilities necessary to solve a problem:  Virtual meeting rooms create a space that can be used for collaboration with the customer, the agent and any additional stakeholders necessary to help solve the customer’s problem; the tools to collaborate and share information in that space, like co-browsing, video collaboration, chat and history for instance, and; the ability to share content, documents and context relevant to the situation.   By delivering all this in one place and then having this become part of the customer record, the company not only increases the potential of positive outcomes, but positions themselves to handle future issues more quickly and easily.

Collaborative online systems are already adding hours back into people’s lives and delivering an easier journey to a defined outcome.  

And isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

The post Getting Back to High-Touch, High-Value Customer Care appeared first on The UC Buyer.

As more businesses migrate to cloud-based communications, whether Skype for Business Cloud PBX or a UCaaS platform, protecting the communications network becomes an immediate concern.  Every business understands the importance of keeping their lines of communications open, avoiding downtime and keeping themselves safe from attack, so it’s no wonder that security is a top priority.  According to a report released by Akamai earlier this year, DDoS and web application attacks are up 23% and 26% year over year.  And once a hacker has you targeted, they don’t let up.  The rate of repeat DDoS attacks has skyrocketed and target organizations get hit an average of 29 times, with one company targeted 283 times. 

As we’ve covered in the past, Session Border Controllers are the answer for businesses looking to secure their communications network, in much the same way that firewalls are for data networks.

RELATED: Firewalls vs. Session Border Controllers: Outlining the Differences. 

But for companies, especially small and medium businesses, focusing on security and deploying an SBC isn’t always top of mind. Although Microsoft ‘strongly recommends’ deploying an SBC with any Skype for Business deployment, it’s estimated fewer than half of the companies do so.  To learn more about how businesses – and the service providers they rely on – are addressing this issue in an increasingly cloud-based world, I recently spoke with Rich DeFabritus, the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sonus, a leading maker of Session Border Controllers.  “There is no question that as SMBs transition their communications to the cloud, they should be increasingly aware of the need for an SBC,” says DeFabritus.  “As with most technology, they are looking for ways to make it simple to deploy and ideally prefer to minimize the outlay of CAPEX.”

SMBs Looking Towards Communications Service Providers for Cloud Based Security

In the past, we’ve discussed the various options that businesses have when it comes to SBCs, virtualization and the cloud.  This includes the concept of SBC-as-a-Service.  As we explained:

In this instance, the service provider handles all aspects of delivering SBC capabilities as a service from their own cloud.  Customers eliminate all hardware requirements and rely on the Communications Service Provider (CSP) for setup and management, software upgrades and network configuration and security for their SBC instance.  “In this scenario, service providers have their own orchestration software which allows them to adapt to identified traffic spikes,” says [Walter] Kenrich [Director of Marketing at Sonus]. “They can utilize load balancing across instances to elastically react and can even take advantage of analytics to do so dynamically and proactively.”  Just like every other area of computing, expect to see more businesses providing as-a-service offerings for SBCs.

As DeFabritus pointed out, the concept of SBCaaS is very appealing to SMBs because they may not have the internal resources or expertise to deploy and manage their own SBC, even if it is virtualized.  “Our service provider partners have expressed a growing desire among their SMB clients to outsource the management of their entire communications stack, including the security layer.  From their perspective, the optimal solution must be ‘right-sized’, meaning the virtual SBC requires a much smaller footprint than has traditionally been available.”

Delivering SBCaaS With the Right Footprint

According to DeFabritus, the level of interest among smaller businesses for communications security as a service has been a real eye opener for service providers.  “Larger service providers like AT&T and Verizon have relationships with tens of thousands of SMBs and they have customers asking them for solutions on everything from Unified Communications to security.  They want to offer their customers SBCaaS, but only at the level their customers need and a price they can afford.”

This has been a challenge, as the initial software edition SBCs were designed for larger businesses that were early adopters and were comfortable with virtualizing or even outsourcing network functions.  These virtual SBCs can be resource intensive and tend to have a larger footprint, both from a software and hardware perspective, as they need to process the interworking, transcoding and security components of an SBC for a larger enterprise, but do so on COTS (common-off-the-shelf) hardware without specialized hardware and chip sets. 

This is overkill for most businesses, says DeFabritus.  “We have been getting a tremendous amount of interest in our SBC SWe Lite, which is a fully featured SBC that uses the same code base as our SBC 1000 and 2000, but consumes about half the resources of the nearest competitor.”  The reason this is important to service providers is because the solution can be quickly deployed on a standardized server that hosts other virtual applications they manage on behalf of their clients. It is easy to set up, move, manage and scale as customers need, which comes in handy when a customer needs to quickly ramp up their call center for the holidays, for example.

“SBCaaS is gaining traction because enterprises are beginning to realize the importance of securing their mission-critical communications network, and many of them have been putting it off.  Now they have an option that their service providers can offer them on a per user, per month basis that addresses their needs.” 

Sounds like a Goldilocks solution…not too big, not too small, just right.

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