The Top Ten Benefits of Cloud Based Unified Communications

In the past, businesses set up legacy phone systems using physical, on premises equipment. Today, business leaders are turning to the Cloud, where critical Unified Communication platforms, applications and systems are securely stored in offsite data centres. Contemplating moving your UC to the Cloud? Consider these ten benefits:

1. Low Cost: Cloud based UC is especially cost effective for small businesses, because it eliminates the need to invest in the installation and maintenance of a traditional phone system. With minimal acquisition costs, fast implementation and lower total cost of ownership, organizations with budget constraints for capital investments can streamline their UC services affordably, by turning to hosted UC. By hosting a phone system over the Internet, businesses can access lines on a “need now” basis, paying only for what they need, when they need it. The Cloud also offers access to high end features and upgrades, at a fraction of the cost vs. traditional systems.
2. Feature Rich: Cloud based Unified Communications provide users with an array of sophisticated features such as advanced email and voicemail options, as well as automated attendants. Other features include edge traffic shaping, which preserves bandwidth and ensures call quality and reliability, as well as the ability to connect two Internet circuits onsite, providing extra backup. UCaaS combines enterprise grade voice features with sophisticated Unified Communications and Collaboration applications and hosts them securely in the Cloud.
3. Scalability: Your business is bound to grow, and so should your phone system. Anyone who has moved or expanded an on premises phone system knows just how difficult it can be to manage in terms of costs, equipment and time. A Cloud based UC system allows organizations to quickly and easily add features, without putting a burden on their IT departments. The ability to add or remove users as needed, with reduced administrative efforts and guaranteed service level agreements (SLAs) all help make a move to the Cloud even more attractive.
4. Disaster Recovery: Your phone system needs to be up and running 24/7 to stay connected to your customers. The Cloud protects your business voice platform during disasters, providing the reliability, resiliency and redundancy needed to keep your business running. Available disaster recovery protection features include the ability to remotely access voicemail from email, automatic call rerouting to offsite locations and cell phones, and Cloud based auto attendants that continue to take calls and provide information.
5. Uniformity: With a Cloud based Unified Communications system, companies with multiple locations can deploy a unified phone experience, where users have access to the same call quality and features. Users can seamlessly transfer calls to other locations, helping to improve overall company efficiency. Even better, instead of paying numerous local providers, multisite companies can pay a single bill to a single nationwide provider for all of their lines.
6. IT Efficiencies: Your IT department has enough to do without adding phone system maintenance to the list. With the Cloud, your provider expertly manages your system offsite, leaving your IT department free to focus on other high priority issues. A hosted UC provider also offers a level of technical expertise that’s difficult for smaller organizations to acquire on their own. A Cloud based UC solution increases IT efficiency, by eliminating the support and maintenance that an on premises system demands, allowing IT administrators to focus resources on core competencies.
7. Business Agility: Whether your business is downsizing or growing, the Cloud provides the flexibility you need, now and in the future. Businesses have the flexibility to roll out Cloud based UC without the IT time and resource commitments associated with a legacy deployment model. Hosted UC offers the ability to quickly update systems through the Cloud, so a business can choose to deploy new applications to all users, or to a single department, as soon as they become available. An experienced telecommunications provider offers valuable expertise, earned through dealing with thousands of customers, which helps them understand the complexity of situations and challenges and make a UC Cloud transition fluid and efficient.
8. Increased Security and Reliability: Hosted UC providers power their UCaaS offerings via the Cloud. The best providers have secure, resilient data centres that are redundantly configured and geographically separated to ensure continued service in the event of catastrophic events, plus Service Level Agreements that provide uptime guarantees. Each organization’s data and user settings are backed up and mirrored in multiple locations, creating a disaster proof backbone for your business communications. Hosted UC providers also offer 24/7 monitoring, as well as the latest encryption and security protocols, so you can rest assured that your data is safe and secure.
9. Greater Mobility: UCaaS is a strong enabler for the mobile and remote/home office worker. It allows user access to all business communications features, from any registered user device, including smartphones, laptops, desktops and, of course, desktop phones. Organizations can enable users’ smartphones to transparently bridge calls from the company’s Wi-Fi networks to cellular networks and back, keeping “on-the-go” and “location agnostic” users connected. Desktop client software can turn any network PC into a virtual desktop phone and unified messaging terminal. Users can travel with their extensions, use video conferencing, and access advanced call forwarding and web-browser dialling. A mobile workforce needs to keep communicating, even when they are miles apart.
10. True Collaboration: True collaboration means anywhere, anytime access, on any device. UCaaS gives users access to applications that will allow them to instantly chat, set up video and voice conferences, share and exchange documents, as well as engage customers in real time dialogue. Project teams who are spread across multiple time zones can use Team Chat features to update content in real time, conduct whiteboarding sessions and leverage video to overcome silos between departments. Cloud based UC empowers remote workers with the ability to collaborate with customers and coworkers, just as if they were meeting face to face.

Final words
Cloud based Unified Communications (UC) provides businesses and organizations of all sizes with the communications tools needed to succeed in today’s fast paced, always on environment. Cloud based communications offer a system that is affordable, scales quickly and is flexible enough to grow alongside your ever changing communications needs.