Collaborating in the cloud

According to recent research, 80 per cent of organisations are looking to move to cloud based unified communications, predominantly in the next two years.

As well as the cost savings and additional features they’d be able to access, one of the main reasons respondents gave for migrating was the risk of failure of existing systems.

When your business relies on your people, customers and partners talking to each other, it’s easy to see why reliability is so important.

The research also showed that bundled services are increasingly of interest to organisations, so bringing together services like fixed and mobile services, cloud storage and hosting, devices and guaranteed connections.

But if you’re moving your unified communications services to the cloud and you’re consolidating your services, you need to make sure you choose the right vendor.

Multinational organisations face a dilemma. There might be cheaper or quicker suppliers out there, but they need to move to the cloud in a secure, integrated, governed way, whilst still delivering a seamless user experience. The right approach can deliver cost reduction, better productivity and improved motivation.

Because if they don’t deliver a great experience, at best people won’t use the new technology, and at worst, they’ll indulge in shadow IT and purchase their own collaboration tools, adding to the headache for IT departments.

That’s when you look beyond just buying a technology. To services like user adoption, which can help focus on people, making sure you deliver a great user experience and improve productivity. And to buying a tool which can be integrated with the services you use every day, meaning no dipping in and out of different applications.

Integration means you can schedule a meeting within your calendar, share your applications, run the app on your mobile device. You can remain in the application you are working in, but still collaborate with your colleagues. It brings that delightful experience together for your users.

But for your IT department, that means that they can still maintain security, provide management reporting and stay in control of data.

With Cisco and BT, you get the best of both worlds. A platform for collaboration that uses the latest technology to put people first. BT has sold more hosted collaboration solution seats than anyone else globally and are experienced at helping your users make the most of the new service. With 24,000 applications integrated into Cisco Webex and a fixation on creating that seamless experience, Cisco and BT are a powerful force in collaboration.

Find out more about BT and Cisco and how you can make the most of collaboration by moving to the cloud.