Are you frustrated with your legacy premises-based TDM or VoIP PBX system? Maybe it's at the end of support, and you can’t get any manufacturer help when needed. Spare parts are all refurbished, trained technicians to support the system are hard to find, and the possibility for a major outage is increasing — as fewer and fewer resources are available.
You might also be feeling pressure from the market to provide a better customer experience, which would require newer tools with more features and functions, and legacy PBX can be somewhat limiting.
During the pandemic, UCaaS and CCaaS were clear winners, as enterprises leveraged them to enable remote working. The speed of deployment and ability to connect much of the organization within days moved the maturity timeline and acceptance of the cloud by at least 24-36 months period. Not moving to the cloud carries risks and costs of its own, and these are likely to grow over time. Some premises systems are already at or approaching end of life, and time will only increase this risk, and the market does not really support a path for integrating legacy and cloud systems. In addition, the vendor community is putting much to all of their R&D into cloud-based systems.
Is there a possible strategy for moving forward with a UCaaS solution? In a single word: Yes.
In my Enterprise Connect session, “
NOT Moving to the Cloud: What Are Your Risks?,” I will cover and address all TDM and VoIP systems that have been publicly announced at end-of-support and will help identify if your organization is one of them. We will identify the major trends moving to the UCaaS cloud and the differences in the deployment models between premises and UCaaS (to date). We will also look at the risks associated with moving to the UCaaS cloud, and those areas IT has to be responsible for, whether you are on-premises or in the cloud (there are more in common than one would think).
Additionally, we will identify ROI areas for managing the cost for moving to the UCaaS cloud, as the UCaaS cloud has been typically more expensive than a premises-based solution over a five-to-seven year period. And we will plan out a process and a set of steps to help you on the road to getting the approval that you need to convert to a UCaaS or CCaaS solution. Can you use a temporary UCaaS solution that was delivered during COVID and make that the permanent UCaaS or CCaaS solution? We'll cover that in this session too.
Lending their industry expertise, a panel of vendor representatives will be joining this session. They are:
- Greg Zweig, director of solutions marketing, Ribbon Communications
- Praveen Mamnani, VP of product management, RingCentral
- Douglas Knight, senior director, product management – voice and unified communications, Spectrum Enterprise
This should be a great session not only covering end-of-support risks of premises-based solutions but will also provide insights and vantage points from three nationally recognized UCaaS providers in the market. Key questions to be covered during the session include:
- Which systems and technologies are already end-of-life or most at risk of becoming stranded investments?
- What timeline should you plan for your migration to the cloud, and what’s the degree of risk for waiting?
- How do you craft a business case for moving to the cloud rather than continuing to “sweat the assets”?
- If your premises-based deployments are still in place, but you rolled out cloud services selectively to deal with the pandemic and remote work, how can you leverage this initial step as you plan a full migration? What are the challenges?
You will walk away with identifying a strategy for moving forward to the UCaaS cloud. Also, I will be available to meet privately one-on-one after this session to discuss the topic in detail on Tuesday from 4:00-5:00 p.m ET and Wednesday from 9:00-10:00 a.m. and 1:00-2:00 p.m ET at the Speaker Lounge. I look forward to seeing you at Enterprise Connect and make sure to check out my other session, “
UCaaS & SD-WAN: A Winning Combination,” which will explore the benefits of combining the two services.
