Cloud Based Phone solutions for small business allow you and your team to work exponentially better and far smarter with intuitive team collaboration, and the ability to integrate with nearly every business application on the market.
The cloud based phones are mind blowingly simple to implement and manage through out the life and growth of your small, medium, or enterprise business.
Make sure that your team has the freedom to break out of their inboxes and build stronger relationships with effective real-time messaging, video calling, file sharing, tasks, and more.
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There are some really exciting things going on in the tech world right now! We’re pretty excited to see what Ring Central is doing to support the inclusion of women in the tech space! So excited in fact that we stole their blog and are sharing it with you, so you can get just as stoked as we are! Welcome More Women in Technology!!!
From the Women in Tech luncheon that RingCentral EVP of Innovation Kira Makagon facilitated to the keynote by Girls Who Code Founder and CEO Reshma Saujani, women in high tech was a key topic of discussion at ConnectCentral® 2018.
The percentage of women holding computer science jobs has been on the decline since 1995, when 37% were female. Today this number is down to just 25%, and that figure is projected to decline to 22% by 2025. Why is this happening, and why does it matter?
Girls Who Code Founder Saujani points to cultural norms and the fact that we’re not encouraging girls to pursue computer science as a career. Boys are raised from birth to be brave, take risks, deal with failure, and move forward, she stated. But girls are coddled, taught to be perfect, and not encouraged to explore math and science. RingCentral’s Makagon said having women in computer science careers matters not just for diversity and because it’s where the jobs are, but also because research points to companies performing better when women are a part of the management team.
The challenge for women in science
Saujani’s Girls Who Code has produced 90,000 graduates in seven years, and these girls major in computer science at a rate of 16 times the average. But today, she’s less worried about the pipeline of girls entering computer science programs and more focused on attrition once they declare computer science as a major. The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, reports that, before joining the National Center for Women and Information Technology’s Academic Alliance, its attrition rate for women in the computer science major was 13.6% compared with 2.5% for men.
Saujani points to the need for a cultural shift at universities—so women aren’t as isolated, plagued with insecurities, and subjected to microaggression. She speaks of being in the “2.0 phase now,” which moves beyond teaching girls to changing culture, so girls are encouraged and feel like they belong in the world of computer science.
Cultural change can be powerful—Saujani noted that in the 1970s, less than 10% of doctors and lawyers were women. But then came popular TV shows like Ally McBeal and Grey’s Anatomy, and today 50% of doctors and lawyers are women.
How to help
So how can any working man or woman help change high-tech culture to welcome more women? Three themes bubbled up from both Saujani and Makagon’s sessions:
The power of male allies: When men actively support women, change happens. Saujani mentioned a Rhode Island Institute of Technology men’s club that encouraged women in science and helped shift the percentage of girls graduating with coding skills from less than 14% to over 27%. Makagon’s panel and audience agreed it helps when men enter a room full of men and ask, “Where are the women?” or notice women who aren’t speaking up and ask them for their thoughts.
Role models matter: Both leaders talked about the influence of women who came before them—role models—as being helpful. Makagon brought up Margaret Hamilton and the NASA women coders who sent John Glenn into orbit as examples. Saujani, Makagon, and the members of the WiT panel are all role models whose real life stories, highlighted at technology conferences such as ConnectCentral, offer encouragement to other women.
Culture matters: An example of how culture influences behavior that Saujani relayed is a Barbie book that told the story of how Barbie needed help from Ken to solve a complex computing problem. Clearly, the message is that girls should consult men where math and science are concerned. Contrast this example with one she shared of a Girls Who Code student who programmed a game called “Tampon Run”. Its opening screen declares “Menstruation. It’s totally normal. And yet, women are taught that it’s embarrassing. And crude. We disagree. So we made a game to combat the stigma. Our hero is armed with tampons. Her mission is to rid the world of the menstrual taboo.” It’s a simple “shoot them with tampons before they get you” type of game, but as Saujani said, when girls are dropping out of school or staying home sick because they have their period, this game can normalize an uncomfortable situation. And it’s an issue that men are not likely to solve.
Girls Who Code is one avenue for closing the gender gap in technology. But even being aware of the gender disparity is a first step in driving change. Next time you enter a conference room, look around and ask where the women are.
The biggest buzz words in business and in our government are CYBER SECURITY and CLOUD. The evolution of the “cloud” has gone from where we’ve stored pdf and pictures to hosting our telecommunications and basically storing our entire business. Critical and sensitive business and personal information is exchanged and stored making it a hacker’s personal heaven. One do non-tech people really understand what “The Cloud” is, and two if you don’t really understand what the cloud is how can you really have piece of mind that you’re safe and protected? Brace yourself, but the easy and unpleasant answer…You are never nor will you ever be 100% safe. Now, hold on to your pants because there are very basic and very key steps that you can take to ensure that your exposures are reduced almost down to nothing. The key is, hire experts and then listen to your experts! Here’s why Towner Communications the Cloud Telecommunications Experts in the Midwest…Yes we can claim that, are telling you to get in the cloud.
Here’s our top 3 reasons we propose Cloud Solutions to almost if not all of the small to medium size partners we consult for.
1. Physical Real estate in their office: Premise telecom solutions can be massive and take up more space in your office than you can give up. The entire concept the cloud is that everything is off site and tucked into a server in a far off land. Use that extra room for your ping pong table, or an extra office.
2. Cost Savings: Unlike on premise solutions, unless you purchase the equipment you’ll be using, there is little to no upfront major cash lay out. Flexible plans mean you can rent the equipment and ALL your telecom services and needs are wrapped into one nice tight little monthly payment.
3. Flexibility: As your business grows so can you’re solution. As you’re business becomes seasonal so can your solution.
These are all great selling points of the cloud and are the apex of what small and medium companies need to grow and stay competitive. HOWEVER please proceed with caution when you’re evaluating a provider!!! You have to ask the right questions and receive the responses that are clear and accurate and fit the culture of your business. Not all carriers are created equal and not all fire sale tactics (like tossing in phones for free) or promising the lowest prices in the industry mean you’re getting a great deal. Usually these companies deal in volume and aren’t concerned about your specific business needs. This is why you’ll experience more frequent outrages, less than desirable customer service, and more importantly cookie cutter cyber security measures that leave you exposed to costly attacks.
These are the exact questions you have to ask when looking for the perfect telecom partnership:
What solution offers the most cyber security VIOP or cloud?
Best Answer: It’s important to understand that VoIP is a universal term for Internet based telephony which also includes cloud. If they don’t tell you that VOIP and Cloud are virtually the same RUN. Both terms mean that the calls are delivered via the internet. Now here’s the key point…Any call that is made over public internet is going to have a high level of exposure.
Who has control of your data if you go cloud?
Best Answer: Here’s the deal…Cloud is a sexy word that everyone throws around to seem like their on the cutting edge and super with it. The magical cloud is simply a system (much like you would have on site) that resides in a data center somewhere in a location that doesn’t even have to be remotely close in proximity to your physical location. This means that any and all security concerns are no different to when there is a physical phone system. What’s really important is the promise of the security level that your partner is giving you. On site the it would equate to the level of security your IT guy is promising you.
Is VOIP more vulnerable to hacks?
Best Answer: HECK YES! Analogue phones are by definition secure. Often times when companies think about cyber security and getting hacked, the last thing they realize is that their phone systems are one of the most vulnerable. Because of this, they don’t encourage their staff to update passwords as frequently as they do with their computers, they don’t educate their team members on the things to look for to identify possible security breaches. The key here is that any expert provider knows that they can give you that ISDN security with call encryption on VoIP.
Key take aways here are that you don’t buy on price or promise. That you buy on reputation. Cloud solutions are amazingly reliable and secure and can take most if not all of the headache of the telecom portion of your business off your plate. However it’s not the solution that you need to evaluate it’s your provider. Look at reviews, talk to your peers. Throw the lowest and highest prices out and by all means, pick a local vendor who can give you customized and speedy service and solutions!
Attacks against a core internet firm play havoc with some of the world’s most popular websites.
Across the US on Friday, people screamed at their phones and computers and went a little crazy trying to figure out which of their favorite websites were still working.
At 7 a.m. local time, folks on the East Coast discovered that sites like Twitter, Spotify, Etsy, Netflix and software code-management service GitHub were knocked for a loop. Hackers had flooded Dyn, one of the biggest internet management companies in the country, with junk traffic — effectively shutting down services and websites throughout the region.
The outages eased after two hours but returned with a vengeance at midday, affecting areas across the US and parts of Europe.
“The earlier issues have resurfaced & some people may still be having trouble accessing Twitter,” the company tweeted. “We’re working on it!” Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security said it was “investigating all potential causes.”
It wasn’t until late in the day that Dyn said the issue had been resolved.
Hackers had used what’s known as a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) — conscripting hordes of internet-connected devices like computers, routers and security cameras into a botnet — to cripple Dyn’s servers.
Based in New Hampshire, Dyn is both a DNS service provider — translating URLs into IP addresses — and an internet management company, helping website customers get the best-possible online performance. It also filters out bad traffic headed to the websites, and that’s where things fell apart Friday. By overwhelming Dyn, the attackers were able to overwhelm many of its customers.
Last month, noted security expert Bruce Schneier said core internet companies were seeing people probing their networks to learn how well they could respond to DDoS attacks. The title of his blog post: “Someone is learning how to take down the internet.”
Cybersecurity company Flashpoint said Friday the botnet attacking Dyn was built with the same malicious software that launched the attack against Krebs and French website OVH — the two most powerful DDoS attacks on record. Called Mirai, the malware works by “enslaving vast numbers of these devices into a botnet, which is then used to conduct DDoS attacks,” Flashpoint researchers said in a statement.
Until now, successful attacks on sites as large and popular as Twitter, Reddit and Netflix have been rare.
“Given the drastic increase lately in the size and scope of DDoS attacks, DNS providers [like Dyn] are scrambling to increase bandwidth capacity to withstand the latest attacks,” said Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security for cybersecurity company SentinelOne. “They are attractive targets for large-scale DDoS attacks.”
Having just about everything connected to the internet doesn’t help. Before, the bad guys had to rope in thousands of computers to launch their attacks. Now they have potentially millions of smart TVs, refrigerators, home routers, security cameras — even baby monitors — at their disposal.
Given how easy these devices tend to be for hackers to compromise, researchers like Shankar Somasundaram of Symantec think DDoS attacks will just get worse.
“There will be more of these attacks,” he said.
First published October 21 at 6:52 a.m. PT. Most recently updated on October 22 at 8:58 a.m.: After updates throughout the day Friday, which included the addition of comments from Twitter and others, as well as various background information, this story was recast Saturday to reflect that the outage had been brought under control.
Towner Communications LLC is committed to being the number one provider of cutting edge telecommunication technology in the Kansas City area. With the ability to service multi-million dollar accounts as well as s mall business accounts, we strive to build and foster long lasting relationships with all of our clients
A Look at Emerging Cloud Communications Technologies
Communications is more than just connecting people. The right communications technology helps businesses connect the dots between where they are today and where they want to be tomorrow. In this chapter, you explore the future of emerging cloud communications technologies and how they can help your business today and into the future.
Tighter mobile integration
Predicting the need for tighter integration between business communications systems, core business applications, and users’ mobile devices doesn’t take a crystal ball. The mobile workforce of today and the future expects its mobile phones to work everywhere, so productivity can happen anywhere.
Emerging technologies for tighter mobile integration include the following:
Voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) networks: This is a specification that enables more efficient use of available bandwidth and tighter integration with apps over an LTE network.
All IP‐based communications: Carriers move voice services from 2G/3G circuit‐switched (CS) networks to LTE, enabling redeployment and reuse of limited spectrum, and develop apps that are natively voice‐enabled. Today, voice and data are separate, and not all voice is IP‐based — even on LTE networks. In the near future, all LTE connections, both voice and data, will be IP‐based.
Convergence of mobile and enterprise communications (no more “apps”): Today, most unified communications (UC) vendors provide an app for smartphones that enables enterprise communications. Users will soon be able to make and receive corporate calls on their smartphones—not from a separate app, but from a native dialer.
Intelligent reachability: Intelligent reachability allows users to be reached on any of their devices through a single phone number with intelligent call routing capabilities, using location data, Bluetooth, and Wi‐Fi, among others, to route the call to the most appropriate device (rather than simply ringing every device).
New use cases: These enable mobile apps to leverage real‐time communications. Today, an app can trigger the dialer to make a call, but the call happens outside the app. In the future, mobile apps will be natively communications‐enabled via seamless integration to network‐based communications capabilities.
Enterprise routing capabilities: These use location and contextual awareness through more intelligent and capable mobile networks as UC vendors and cellular carriers develop new technologies together.
Software‐defined networking over Internet
Today, cloud communications customers generally connect to their service providers over either a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) wide-area network or an over the top (OTT) Internet connection. At least some OTT is typically used in almost all environments. For example, it’s common to find MPLS at office locations, while employees use OTT at home or on the road.
MPLS offers the best quality, but it’s more expensive than other options. Many service providers include MPLS services and guarantee the quality of service for their customers.
OTT is less expensive, but it’s basically just an Internet connection. There’s no quality of service guarantee, and voice quality can degrade and even become unacceptable at times. For example, if a neighbor on the same network streams a video during a call, the download could interfere with your call.
A new innovation, known as software‐defined wide area networking (SD‐WAN) is emerging, offering businesses the best of both the MPLS and OTT worlds— better quality at a lower cost. SD‐WAN delivers these benefits by using multiple network connections, including a mixture of OTT and/or OTT with MPLS services.
SD‐WAN provides enterprise‐grade performance, visibility, and control over Internet broadband and private links. WAN traffic is automatically steered across the best links and most‐optimal paths. Dynamic multipath packets are steered to the optimal link based on performance metrics, application requirements, business priority of the application, and link cost. This technology can create a virtual, high‐bandwidth pipe from multiple, inexpensive broadband links and leased lines, providing businesses with improved WAN economics and quality.
Workstream messaging / Team collaboration
Unified communications technology generally includes instant messaging (IM). However, IM generally only supports internal users and is designed primarily for one‐to‐one communications. But a new category of communications is emerging: workstream messaging, sometimes called team collaboration. These messaging services are specifically designed for business collaboration.
Workstream messaging provides the same familiar experience of consumer‐based messaging applications, but offers enterprise‐oriented capabilities, like:
Persistence
Directory integration
Search
Single sign‐on (SSO) support
Integration with other enterprise applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM)
Workstream messaging tools started with basic messaging services but has been expanding into real‐time communications. A cloud communications provider can offer workstream messaging software with extensive real-time capabilities, including support for desk phones and public switched telephone networks (PSTNs).
Because workstream messaging also organizes and shares content (like files and photos), it provides contacts, content, and communications—all in one place. Workstream messaging will combine the benefits of asynchronous communications (like messages and files) with real‐time communications (like voice and video), and become central to business workflows.
Workstream messaging isn’t just another feature of unified communications—it often becomes the preferred means for real‐time communications in an organization.
Workstream messaging is self-organizing, which offers many benefits for users compared to an unwieldy “catch‐all” email inbox. Also, messages are more collaborative because they tend to drive more frequent, less formal, and concise interactions between communicating parties.
Workstream messaging is also superior to IM because, like actual workgroups and teams, it extends beyond organizational boundaries. In the consumer world, messaging‐based apps now dominate communications, but those services do not suitably address enterprise requirements, like security and integration.
Workstream messaging has the potential to change the nature of communications applications, like email, in the future. Organizations using workstream messaging solutions today have benefitted from a significant reduction in internal email volume because these solutions offer many advantages over traditional email systems, like self-organizing message streams.
Some might argue that reduced email isn’t much of a business benefit because messages are effectively moved from one application to another. However, the storage footprint for workstream messaging is generally smaller than for email, and there are numerous other advantages, including:
Organization. Email tends to follow a last‐in‐first‐out model, but organizing content chronologically is not always ideal. Workstream messaging tools organize messages by logically defined containers that group people or topics together. A new message arrives in that space, and the space itself is promoted to the top.
Search. Rather than store conversation history in individual email folders, workstream messaging tools share a single copy of the history among the participants. Everything is in one tool, along with content such as documents or photos.
History. Group history can be easily shared with new members to quickly bring others “up to speed” on a conversation topic.
Shared knowledge. Some workstream messaging tools allow containers to be searched by non‐participants. If someone in the company is looking for someone with knowledge of widgets, for example, then conversations about widgets can be identified to reveal potential experts.
Many cloud communications providers are moving to continuous upgrades rather than scheduled upgrade cycles. Thus, another advantage of cloud communications software is that it’s not only the most current, but also that it’s more secure than premises‐based solutions, in which continuous upgrades aren’t practical.
1. How you can enable a mobile workforce with cloud communications
We’re all busy today. But we’re not always productive. For example, we spend several hours every week checking emails, schedules, text messages, and voicemails in multiple applications and on multiple devices just to make sure we’re not missing something. But ironically, managing multiple collaboration tools on multiple devices is a sure way to miss something.
Cloud communications opens up and unifies collaboration so businesses begin thinking outside their inboxes.
It brings employees, customers, and partners into the conversation from wherever they are, on whatever device they’re on. And it lets them pick up the conversation quickly, by organizing everything into a single cloud‐based application where voicemails, videos, chats, and more can be stored and easily accessed whenever they’re needed.
The key to better collaboration is through your mobile phone. If you’re like most of us, it’s the first thing you check in the morning, the last thing you see at night, and it goes wherever you go. That’s a far cry from where most legacy phone systems are today, which were designed well before the mobile era and handle mobile communications as an afterthought.
The rise of the mobile workforce has challenged modern perceptions of what a traditional office environment should be.
Gone are the large spaces filled with wall‐to‐wall cubicle farms. Instead, they’ve been replaced with functional work spaces where people collaborate and are more productive, and mobile working, once seen as a major hassle for organizations, is no longer considered a compromise for businesses trying to accommodate unique work situations like flexible working schedules and office closings due to severe weather. Today, everything is digital, and remote employees—equipped with the right communications tools—can be as productive outside the office as they are in the office.
Consider the following mobile workforce trends:
Nearly 70 percent of employees use their personal device for email
26 percent of employees are productive while outside the office or home
36 percent of employees use up to three mobile devices to do their work
Cloud communications also means no mobile app gets left behind. Your business apps are integrated into the communications fabric so you can share information, ideas, and images from a single screen without constantly opening and closing apps or worrying about interoperability.
Regardless of how your organization compares with other forward‐looking mobile organizations, your business is constantly moving. Work is done while eating breakfast at home, riding in a car, walking to lunch, sitting in a hotel lobby, or waiting in line at the airport. Your employees work remotely—blasting out emails and text messages, and answering calls from customers and clients (or prospective customers and clients) at all hours of the day and night, whenever and wherever they’re needed—regardless of whether they’re “at work.”
Life is mobile, and your communications system should be too. You should be able to be as productive on your mobile phone as you are at your desk.
2. Supporting multiple locations with cloud communications
In addition to supporting mobile workers from any location, modern business communications systems need to support remote workers from multiple locations. Unlike mobile workers, remote workers perform their work from a fixed location—it’s just not located at your main campus or headquarters. Perhaps it’s a branch office located in another city or country, or a temporary office setup to support a new project, or even a home office for a teleworker.
Regardless of the specific situation, remote workers all have unique communications requirements that are often similar to deskbound workers at your main office location, but without the same resources—equipment, connectivity, and support.
Legacy private branch exchange (PBX) systems are usually cost prohibitive for smaller remote locations consisting of fewer than ten users.
For this reason, remote workers at smaller locations are often equipped with Centrex phone systems, analog lines, or residential phone services that lack the features and functionality of a business communications system. They may also be required to connect to the main office over a virtual private network (VPN) connection, which can negatively impact voice quality.
Cloud communications effectively creates a virtual communications system across all remote locations for an organization, extending the solutions available for both mobile and remote workers, to include:
Mobile phones
Desk (hard) phones
PC (soft) phones
Contact center agents
Both on‐premises and cloud communications systems support mobile and remote workers. However, on‐premises systems treat these workers as the exception: Mobile/remote access has to be approved and set up, a VPN or other similar security measures need to be configured, and additional network bandwidth may need to be provisioned (for remote access).
Cloud communications treats office, mobile, and remote workers all the same.
It completely eliminates location from the equation and provides users with the same set of features that they have in the office, regardless of their location.
Learn how 62 local chapters and 27,000 Make-A-Wish volunteers rely on hybrid cloud communications from Mitel to make wishes come true >
3. Reducing costs with cloud communications
Not all dollars cost the same. A dollar invested in a technology project that has a low return on investment (ROI) has opportunity costs that may amount to far more than the initial investment itself. Similarly, many technology projects require ongoing commitments—sunk costs—that further erode profitability for a business: the proverbial “throwing good money after bad.”
Large investments involve risk.
Not only is there a heavy financial stake, but also the organization is essentially placing a series of bets on the investment:
Is this the right technology for our business? How will the technology change over the next three, five, and 10 years?
Is this the right vendor to partner with for our business? Will they be around in three, five, or 10 years?
How quickly will our business grow over the next three, five, and 10 years? Will this investment scale to support that growth?
Capital budgeting is always a very subjective process. A capital expenditure (CapEx) is usually defined by a minimum investment threshold, for example one thousand dollars, and the investment must have a valuable life of more than one year.
CapEx may, in some cases, include bundled equipment, installation and project management costs, implementation services, freight expenses, and initial training costs, among others. Businesses can depreciate a capital investment, typically over a five‐ or seven‐year period, but they must also pay property taxes and maintain fixed asset records on all capital investments throughout the useful life of the investments.
And of course, most technology today is obsolete well before its five‐ or seven‐year depreciation period.
It all gets extremely complicated, extremely quickly.
For these and many other reasons, most businesses prefer operating expenses (OpEx) instead of CapEx. OpEx costs—like utilities, rent, perpetual licensing fees, and software maintenance—are typically lower (in the short term) than CapEx costs. This is particularly true in terms of upfront costs required, which frees up cash for other projects that drive revenue and growth for the business.
OpEx costs are typically more stable and predictable than CapEx costs and provide more flexibility for a business should requirements change.
For example, a service provider will usually charge a known recurring rate for a given level of usage, a per‐user (or per‐seat) fee, or a monthly subscriber fee.
The original thought behind premises‐based communications systems was to keep costs down by owning the solution. But as those systems have aged, businesses find themselves owning the problem of maintaining, upgrading, and expanding those systems.
The cloud offers a better path for growth.
It not only saves you money through economy of scale, but also it scales cost-effectively as you grow. You never have to worry about adding more servers and switches as you add more employees. You simply add another seat in the cloud at a fixed monthly cost and have the assurance that new employees are connected into all of your business communications from day one.
If you’re looking to reduce communications costs, cloud communications can save you money:
No costly, upfront investments in servers, switches, and PBXs
No budget “surprises” with consistent or predictable calling plans
No costly, across‐the‐board software upgrades as new features and versions are released — you get the latest versions immediately, automatically
No wasted money on overprovisioned trunks or underutilized hardware
No high energy and cooling costs to run a roomful of equipment, and rent to store it all
As part of your ROI analysis, you should compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) of cloud‐based and premises‐based communications solutions.
Remember, a cloud‐based solution consists almost entirely of OpEx costs, whereas a premises-based solution requires both CapEx and OpEx (in the form of ongoing software assurance and upgrades).
Learn more about saving money with cloud communications >
4. Focusing on business, not infrastructure
Technology has the ability to transform your business and drive innovation. But it can also drive you crazy if all you’re doing is putting out fires to maintain the status quo. Think of it this way: Would you rather have your engineers fixing the phones or finding new ways to delight your customers?
Cloud‐based communications solutions are exactly that: solutions. Fixing bugs and repairing hardware are the cloud provider’s problems, and most of them make sure it never becomes a problem for their customers—even going so far as to guarantee systems uptime and availability in their service level agreements (SLAs).
While you never have to worry about losing dial tone, your IT department can focus on making sure you don’t lose your competitive edge in the market.
Innovation is the key to continued growth in today’s business environment. Cloud‐based communications ensure your business is on the leading edge and in tune with the millennial workforce that will drive your business into the future.
5. Staying current with evergreen cloud-based software
Keeping your communications systems current is important—not only to ensure your business leverages the full functionality and latest capabilities available in your communications system, but also to ensure security and stability.
However, software and firmware upgrades can be risky and challenging, particularly for an IT team that only occasionally performs system upgrades.
They require a lot of planning and coordination. Maintenance windows must be planned around business cycles and downtime is never acceptable—even when it’s planned!
Most premises‐based communications solutions offer software maintenance for an added cost. But the risk and hassle of actually performing the upgrade belongs to the customer—and there are costs associated with performing those upgrades. The current state of the system must be documented, the upgrade must be downloaded and tested, the maintenance window has to be scheduled and communicated, contingency and back out plans prepared, and extended support provided for “the morning after.”
A cloud communications solution also requires regular upgrades, but the risk belongs squarely with the service provider.
Of course, if the upgrade goes awry, your business may suffer, but your service provider should have the resources in place to minimize the likelihood, as well as service‐level agreements (SLAs) to mitigate the impact.
What Does Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) Mean?
Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) integrates communication forms like voice, video, and data services with software applications. This creates a cohesive environment that enhances business processes by making it easier for employees to connect, collaborate, and communicate effectively.
Key Components of UCC Include:
Instant Messaging: Real-time text communication between individuals or groups.
Presence: Knowing whether a contact is available, busy, or offline.
Unified Messaging: The ability to retrieve all messages (voicemail, email, SMS) from a single inbox.
Conferencing Applications: Tools for connecting large groups to share information and ideas seamlessly.
Teamwork Applications: Software that supports collaboration on group projects.
Video Conferencing: Enables video communication across PCs, mobile devices, and room-based systems.
Mobile Applications: Extends UCC capabilities to smartphones and tablets, ensuring communication continuity.
The Impact of Unified Communications and Collaboration
In today’s hyper-connected, always-on business environment, organizations face unprecedented pressure to operate swiftly and efficiently. Quickly finding the right people, accessing vital data, and exchanging information can determine your business’s success.
Unified Communications and Collaboration addresses these challenges by enabling more intuitive and efficient connections. UCC simplifies connectivity and improves business processes by uniting real-time and historical communication, like voice, video, and data services, into one environment.
Three Major Benefits of Unified Communications and Collaboration
Adopting a UCC strategy offers three significant benefits that can dramatically enhance employee collaboration and productivity:
1. Reduce Time Wasted
UCC provides real-time presence information across your organization, allowing employees to see their coworkers’ availability instantly. This feature reduces communication delays, enabling faster decision-making by helping you reach the right person quickly. According to a study by Frost & Sullivan, companies that implemented UCC solutions saw a 15% reduction in time spent on daily communications.
2. Connect Geographically Dispersed Employees
With businesses increasingly operating on a global scale, UCC is essential for bridging geographical distances. In Mid-Missouri, where teams are spread across Jefferson City, Columbia, and beyond, UCC enables real-time collaboration without in-person meetings. This capability ensures that your top talent, regardless of location, can contribute effectively to projects.
3. Provide Freedom of Choice for Maximum ROI
A comprehensive UCC strategy enables a mobile-first, any-device approach, letting employees choose their preferred communication methods. With BYOD policies on the rise, Columbia and Mid-Missouri businesses find that UCC reduces Shadow IT risks and boosts productivity. Gartner reports that companies adopting mobile-first UCC strategies see a 25% increase in employee satisfaction and engagement.
Proven Results of Unified Communications and Collaboration
Studies continue to show that UCC helps organizations save time and money by improving communication efficiency. For example, seamlessly switching between communication methods, like turning a chat into a conference call, greatly enhances information exchange. Organizations that implement UCC solutions reduce expenses related to employee downtime, travel, and mobile work by an average of 43%.
A Nexus study found that over 60% of firms using UCC save three hours a week per mobile worker. For Mid-Missouri businesses, this adds up to 12 extra hours of productivity per employee monthly—time for growth and innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Columbia and Jefferson City Businesses
A: UCC can significantly improve communication efficiency for small and medium-sized businesses in Columbia by integrating multiple communication tools into one platform. This streamlines operations, reduces response times, and enhances collaboration, which is crucial for businesses operating with limited resources.
A: In Jefferson City, industries such as government, healthcare, and education are particularly benefiting from UCC. These sectors require robust, reliable communication systems that support real-time collaboration and data exchange, making UCC an ideal solution.
A: UCC enables remote workers in Mid-Missouri to stay connected and productive by providing access to essential communication tools, regardless of location. Features like video conferencing, instant messaging, and mobile integration ensure that employees can collaborate effectively, whether they’re in Columbia, Jefferson City, or working from home.
A: When selecting a UCC provider in Columbia or Jefferson City, consider their experience with local businesses, the level of customer support they offer, and their ability to provide tailored solutions that meet your specific industry needs. It’s also important to evaluate their scalability options to ensure the solution can grow with your business.
A: Most businesses in Jefferson City and Columbia see noticeable improvements in communication efficiency and collaboration within the first few weeks of implementing UCC. Full integration and optimal use of the system may take a few months, depending on the complexity of your operations and the level of employee training.
Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) is more than just a technological upgrade—it’s a strategic initiative that can transform how your business operates. For companies in Jefferson City, Columbia, and across Mid-Missouri, implementing a UCC strategy can lead to significant improvements in efficiency, communication, and employee satisfaction.
Ready to bring your business to the next level?
Contact Towner Communications today to learn how our UCC solutions can help your Mid-Missouri business thrive.
Do you have a cloud provider? If you do, are you happy with them? It’s a question many business owners don’t ask themselves enough. Cloud communications is an investment of capital, time, and human resources—an investment that you should be thrilled with. Once we sign contracts, we tend to accept the level of service we receive without analyzing our satisfaction with what we actually get. Part of this resignation stems from the contracts signed up front: breaking contracts usually means serious financial detriment. In the business world, that’s highly frowned upon because you’re costing the company even more money. But if you weren’t bound by a contract, what would that mean to you?
When the honeymoon period is over
Business relationships are susceptible to the same characteristics of any personal relationship—sometimes entering into a contract with a vendor starts off flawlessly and everything is sunshine and rainbows. But far too often in business, once the dotted line is signed, things change: service levels drops off, promised features become elusive, and costs can skyrocket. Being stuck with a cloud communications provider who doesn’t put your business needs first is more than irritating—it can harm your customer service, internal productivity, and your bottom line.
When you want more features
Not every cloud communications provider is created equal. Once you choose your provider, you may initially be happy. You get the service level you expect, the features you wanted—all at a price you are comfortable paying. Technology is notorious for constantly evolving. And your provider may not offer the latest features you’re interested in for your business. While you may be happy with every other aspect of the business relationship, the bottom line is this: limited cloud features and offerings could jeopardize your business.
When the contract dictates your decision
I’d wager most businesses stay with their cloud communications provider because the contract is king. Why evaluate the level of service and feature offerings if both are satisfactory and you can’t go anywhere anyway? Evaluation is crucial to consider because the best-performing and most lucrative companies don’t just think about today, but think about their company’s future. Still, many companies are wary of breaking contracts. But what if the contract was removed from the equation? Right now, Towner Communications could remove the barrier for you and give your business the best cloud communications applications for today and tomorrow.
Questions to ask yourself
Now that we can remove your existing contract from the equation, there are some questions you should ask yourself to truly gauge your satisfaction with your current provider.
1. Am I happy with the level of service I receive from my current cloud provider?
2. Do I have the features I need to maximize my business productivity?
3. Is my cloud provider a leader in Gartner’s five magic quadrants?
4. Do I trust my cloud provider to offer the latest and greatest features?
5. Is my cloud communications platform easy to use?
6. Does my cloud communications platform enable team and project collaboration?
If you answered “yes” to all the above, congratulations! You have a cloud communications provider that works for you and your business needs.
If you answered “no” to one question, you might have the right cloud provider for you—but why not verify by checking just in case?
If you answered no to two or more questions, you should strongly consider looking into Towner Communications Cloud program. As partners with Mitel, a leader in Gartner’s five magic quadrants, Towner is uniquely positioned to provide the cloud communications your business or enterprise needs.
Nearly 2,000 cloud subscribers choose Mitel each day. Businesses across the world trust Mitel for their cloud communications solutions—see why you can, too.
Whether for cost-savings, BYOD considerations, ease of administration, or reliability, school districts across the United States are actively shifting communication and collaboration to the cloud. It’s a Path to the Cloud!
As part of this shift, schools and administrative offices are deploying Google’s cloud-based education apps – like Google’s free email services – allowing them to free up millions of dollars for other initiatives.
Some K-12 organizations have hesitations about the security of sensitive data in the cloud, but as adoption grows across the education sector, more and more schools are considering cloud technology to achieve their goals. Many educational organizations seeking the benefits of cloud communications and collaboration look to Mitel. We manage a rich ecosystem of solutions that’s integrated with the largest technology partners in the industry, including Google and Microsoft.
Many educational organizations seeking the benefits of cloud communications and collaboration look to Mitel. We manage a rich ecosystem of solutions that’s integrated with the largest technology partners in the industry, including Google and Microsoft.
Microsoft Lync Integration
Mitel MiVoice for Lync, for example, seamlessly integrates features – like integrated softphone, voice integration and click-to-call support – with Microsoft applications to offer robust voice capabilities.
Google Integration
Mitel MiCollab is our anywhere, any-device collaboration software. It integrates with Google Cloud Platform and Google Apps, enabling collaboration through voice; instant messaging; presence; and audio, video, and web conferencing. MiCollab also seamlessly interacts with Google’s calendar, email and contact management apps.
Bonus: With MiCollab, a user’s presence status automatically updates according to the Google Calendar scheduling.
“Given the explosive growth of cloud-based apps and communications, Mitel provides the best path to the cloud for schools.”
Cloud Deployment Flexibility
With a unified communications and collaboration architecture focused on ease of use and administration, Mitel provides public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid deployment models. With Mitel, your school can deploy applications in a private cloud, a public cloud, on premise, or a combination thereof. And you’re never locked in to a single deployment model—you can move applications when conditions change.
The software remains the same; only the location changes. It’s how our MiCloud for Education solutions easily accommodate school districts’ changing needs and preferences over time.
Cloud Security & Reliability
Cloud deployments merit special consideration when it comes to security. Your educational organization will need to work with communications and collaboration providers like Mitel to isolate and protect your networks, applications and data. But the technologies and strategies for securing cloud-based deployments are advancing every day, and Mitel is leading the charge.
If you’re concerned about the reliability of cloud communications, consider this: If your network fails, communication with the outside world will be impacted whether your system is on premise or in the cloud. Fortunately, in a highly distributed school system, a network failure in any building will only impact a single location, and mobile communications can help your school weather the event until full service is restored.
Finding Your Path to the Cloud
Hundreds of school districts throughout the United States have deployed Mitel Voice and Unified Communication solutions. They’ve found that the cloud is a far more dependable platform than they expected, and that it offers advantages they had never imagined. It’s time to start taking a serious look at long-term strategies for cloud communications at your school—and how MiCloud for Education can help.
Do you have a cloud communications provider? If you do, are you happy with them? It’s a question many business owners don’t ask themselves enough. Cloud communications is an investment of capital, time, and human resources—an investment that you should be thrilled with. Once we sign contracts, we tend to accept the level of service we receive without analyzing our satisfaction with what we actually get. Part of this resignation stems from the contracts signed up front: breaking contracts usually means serious financial detriment. In the business world, that’s highly frowned upon because you’re costing the company even more money. But if you weren’t bound by a contract, what would that mean to you?
When the honeymoon period is over
Business relationships are susceptible to the same characteristics of any personal relationship—sometimes entering into a contract with a vendor starts off flawlessly and everything is sunshine and rainbows. But far too often in business, once the dotted line is signed, things change: service levels drops off, promised features become elusive, and costs can skyrocket. Being stuck with a cloud communications provider who doesn’t put your business needs first is more than irritating—it can harm your customer service, internal productivity, and your bottom line.
When you want more features
Not every cloud communications provider is created equal. Once you choose your provider, you may initially be happy. You get the service level you expect, the features you wanted—all at a price you are comfortable paying. Technology is notorious for constantly evolving. And your provider may not offer the latest features you’re interested in for your business. While you may be happy with every other aspect of the business relationship, the bottom line is this: limited cloud features and offerings could jeopardize your business.
When the contract dictates your decision
I’d wager most businesses stay with their cloud communications provider because the contract is king. Why evaluate the level of service and feature offerings if both are satisfactory and you can’t go anywhere anyway? Evaluation is crucial to consider because the best-performing and most lucrative companies don’t just think about today, but think about their company’s future. Still, many companies are wary of breaking contracts. But what if the contract was removed from the equation? Right now, our cloud contract buyout program could remove the barrier for you and give your business the best cloud communications applications for today andtomorrow.
Questions to ask yourself
Now that we can remove your existing contract from the equation, there are some questions you should ask yourself to truly gauge your satisfaction with your current provider.
1. Am I happy with the level of service I receive from my current cloud provider?
2. Do I have the features I need to maximize my business productivity?
3. Is my cloud provider a leader in Gartner’s five magic quadrants?
4. Do I trust my cloud provider to offer the latest and greatest features?
5. Is my cloud communications platform easy to use?
6. Does my cloud communications platform enable team and project collaboration?
If you answered “yes” to all the above, congratulations! You have a cloud communications provider that works for you and your business needs.
If you answered “no” to one question, you might have the right cloud provider for you—but why not verify by checking just in case?
If you answered no to two or more questions, you should strongly consider looking into Mitel’s cloud contract buyout program. As a leader in Gartner’s five magic quadrants, Mitel is uniquely positioned to provide the cloud communications your business or enterprise needs.
Nearly 2,000 cloud subscribers choose Mitel each day. Businesses across the world trust Mitel for their cloud communications solutions—see how Towner Communications can help.
Do you have a cloud provider? If you do, are you happy with them? It’s a question many business owners don’t ask themselves enough. Cloud communications is an investment of capital, time, and human resources—an investment that you should be thrilled with. Once we sign contracts, we tend to accept the level of service we receive without analyzing our satisfaction with what we actually get. Part of this resignation stems from the contracts signed up front: breaking contracts usually means serious financial detriment. In the business world, that’s highly frowned upon because you’re costing the company even more money. But if you weren’t bound by a contract, what would that mean to you?
