Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies create ready-made solutions for digital challenges. Instead of enterprises designing their own tools and applications, SaaS companies offer their products hosted in the cloud. A variety of models in the form of as-a-service have emerged in the past decade. One prominent example is Unified Communications as a Service, commonly referred to as UCaaS.
Meetings are about to die. Particularly since collaborative work has become the staple of modern office life, they are about to die. And after they die, they will move somewhere better, virtual. Somewhere in the cloud, or in a special bundle of apps. But don’t get your hopes up high yet.
After all, there have been attempts to put new life into meetings. Some preach against inherent inefficacies. “Make meetings purposeful”, they say. Others are deluding themselves that theater methods will do. So “treat your meetings like an improv session”, they say. Seems like everyone thinks that “The Office” is a documentary. That we should all turn Michael Scott and do some improv.
Our parents could barely dream about being happy at work. They were satisfied with a monthly pay and some thought the job wasn’t that bad after all. In opposition, our generation feels entitled to be happy. Are we ignoring reality or seeing it for what it really is? Can we use collaboration technology to turn this potential into a sustainable realistic scenario?
He who never dreamed of working remotely from a beach in Bali, let him cast the first stone! But is this way of work as productive as sharing the same office? There are a lot of voices out there promoting the “death of the desk job
You probably noticed it too; there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to turning unproductive teams into highly productive ones. Fortunately, “teams” have been the subject of near-constant study in recent years so we have a lot of data we can use to improve our performance. Take a look at what I found to be working.
If you want to learn how not to implement collaboration software, here’s the perfect hypothetical situation: a mid-sized company is looking to enhance the knowledge sharing and productivity of its employees. As a result, the firm settles on a collaboration solution and the IT department has the task to implement the platform.
Imagine this: two employees located in separate offices have only an hour left to meet the deadline of a critical project. Instead of settling for the outdated approach of sending countless emails back-and-forth, they leverage the company’s communications and collaboration tools, such as audio conferencing and instant messaging, to conduct a much more effective conversation and strike a business deal in time.
This is very much today’s reality, as people are simply not as attached to email as they used to be. In fact, one could argue we are witnessing the demise of the golden age of email.
The banking sector has been through a lot for the past 6 years. Starting with the 2008 financial meltdown and continuing with a perpetual lack of customer trust, the banking industry seemed to be on a continuous downward spiral.
Yet, there are signs that banks have finally learned their lessons and have managed to turnaround consumers’ confidence. The 2014 Ernst & Young Global Consumer Banking Survey shows that consumer confidence in banks has risen 50% versus previous year. The report goes on to state that this increase is not the result of consumers turning back to “normal” but rather the result of banks taking an active stance on building trust again. And this trust resides on customer experience.
Due to the myriad of benefits brought by technology, like business flexibility, reduced costs, and bolstered collaboration, the VoIP telephony market is looking particularly sunny. In fact, according to Frost & Sullivan, the North American VoIP market (including SIP services) is expected to at least triple in revenue from $2.83 billion to $9.35 billion between 2013 and 2019.
“Businesses are transitioning from legacy private branch exchanges to IP-based Unified Communications platforms and, as such, are looking to VoIP access and SIP trunking services to complement these new platforms,” said Michael Brandenburg, communications analyst at Frost & Sullivan. He also noted that VoIP and SIP trunking offer business recovery and mobile features that “are simply not available on more traditional telecommunications services“.