Posts Tagged Under: unified communications

Africa Is on the Brink of a Unified Communications Revolution

For quite some time, VoIP telephony and Unified Communications tools (voice, instant messaging, video calls, audio conference, and presence combined into a single communication stream) have proliferated on many markets, and now it appears as though Africa too is on the brink of this communications revolution. With technology evolving so fast, businesses in developing areas of the world are catching on to the need to deploy robust communications tools.

By taking advantage of both VoIP and UC, companies benefit from cost savings and increased functionality which, in turn, improve business processes and boost productivity.

As the number of reliable Internet connections increases, so does the number of businesses that can leverage IP telephony. With that in mind, let’s take a look at two countries in particular—South Africa and Nigeria—and how VoIP and UC are making an impact there.

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VoIP Market: Revenue Set to Triple Yet Lack of User Awareness Jeopardizes Success

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“.

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Latin America: With UC&C, Business Will Never Be the Same

This week, Brazil takes a deep breath from the whirlwind days of the FIFA World Cup and returns to business. The fact is that businesses in Brazil, and in Latin America for that matter, are not going to be the same much longer. In short, business for a lot of people is no longer limited to the confines of an office. Research indicates that by 2015, there will be 1.3 billion mobile workers worldwide. Recognizing this shift, businesses across the globe are leveraging modern communications tools, those which enable workers who are on the go to remain connected in order to adapt to this changing landscape.

Unified Communications tools are becoming more popular than ever as they cater to a mobile workforce. Such tools that combine voice, data, presence, email, and video into a single interface provide employees with access to their critical communications from any Internet-connected device, no matter where they happen to find themselves.

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3 Ways to Lower Costs in Healthcare with Unified Communications

Escalating costs in healthcare has been a constant headline topic for years. So much so that worldwide famous economists, Robert S. Kaplan and Michael Porter both tackled the healthcare cost problem by suggesting the activity-based costing method. The main pillar of this method is streamlining operations. Studies show that doctors spend 25% of their time in direct patient contact while another 24% is spent communicating with fellow colleagues. 24%! This is a huge percentage that no doubt could be lowered by employing smarter communication tools.

As such, healthcare providers, both large and small must constantly look to take advantage of new communication infrastructure enhancements. And many of them, if they haven’t already deployed them, are looking towards Unified Communications solutions.

Eva Blue - Peaceful Hearts Doctor, San Francisco
© Eva Blue – Peaceful Hearts Doctor, San Francisco

 

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Collaboration Software: Impressive Results on Business Productivity

Business collaboration is that elusive Holy Grail of corporate executives. Blamed whenever a project fails or derails (96% of executives blame workplace failures on lack of it), hailed as the key to success whenever somethings works, every business planning cycle takes into account how to improve the way employees collaborate. Yet, since collaboration software or enterprise social networks stepped into the world, improving how we work is closer to reality.

In fact, in a recent study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, 86% of businesses indicated that online collaboration software was either “important” or “somewhat important”. Compared to 52% in 2012 and 75% in 2013, it’s fairly obvious that businesses are increasingly turning toward such solutions to bolster productivity, streamline business processes, and encourage collaboration as much as possible.

To keep up with this interest level and likely sales opportunities, service providers should consider adding collaboration software to their portfolios.

Improving Organizational Efficiency

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World Cup Football on the Edge and the Need for a Resilient Contact Center

The United States might be known for many things, but the prowess of its men’s soccer team is not one of them. This is the reason why many football enthusiasts around the world were puzzled when John Brooks’ header made it passed the Ghanaian goalie in the 86th minute of the World Cup game, giving the Americans a 2-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

It was an upset to say the least. And Americans across the country took to Twitter to celebrate en-masse, indicating a large U.S. fan base for the Brazil-hosted event, as well as a hit for social media platforms. Twitter reported 4.9 million tweets sent during the U.S. vs. Ghana match. The latest U.S. vs. Portugal also brought a flurry of activity on Twitter when Portugal’s Varela managed to equalize the score in minute 90+5′ 🙂

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Transforming Contact Centers with VoipNow

Companies today understand the importance of differentiating their businesses from the competition’s by offering customer service that is second-to-none. This imperative is supported by recent research, which indicates that more than half of customers will take their business elsewhere in the aftermath of a negative experience with a brand.

When companies decide to enhance customer service delivery, their decision makers often first look at contact centers. Since contact centers serve as the human extension of brands, they are the primary interface with key targets and, therefore, of paramount importance in retaining customers or improving relationships with them.

As a result, many businesses choose to deploy industry-leading contact center solutions, many of them cloud-based, to bolster their customer service offerings. And this means that business is good for contact center providers.

Service providers catering to these businesses need to stay on top of industry trends and add to their portfolios those solutions that ensure their customers get all the functionality they want. Cloud communications platforms are a common solution for several customer service key trends.

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3 Ways for Service Providers to Benefit from IaaS Market Trends

Cloud computing market is no longer a trend or a niche subject. Cloud seems to be here to stay and is slowly becoming the new playing field, shaping up industries as it grows and forcing them to adapt.

In a series of articles we’ll investigate how the cloud computing market is segmented, its growth rate and also what this whirlwind evolution means for service providers that focus on SMBs.

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How Cloud Communications Help Create a Holistic Customer Experience

By 2020, customer experience will matter more than price and product in determining consumer purchases. A strong and sobering fact for most companies. Thanks to the rise of the digital world, customers now have more choices when it comes to brand selection. Following a bad experience with a company, consumers are able to go online and spread the word about their poor experience. And this experience soon leads the way in which other consumers will make their purchase decisions. Because of this, many forward-thinking businesses are focused on cultivating an environment leading to positive customer experiences.

Deciding to pay more attention to improving customer service, many contact center decision makers are embracing the fact that customer experience needs a holistic approach. Customers no longer tolerate companies living and acting in silos. In fact, an omni-channel customer experience stands out as one of the top trends affecting how customers perceive their interactions with a specific company.

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VoipNow Changing the Communications Game for 8 Years

8 is definitely a lucky number. It signifies fortune and prosperity to the Chinese and wealth and abundance in Hinduism. For us, 8 is the number of years since VoipNow was born.

Today we’re celebrating VoipNow’s eighth birthday, together with our partners that use it to deliver Unified Communications services to more than 200,000 businesses around the world. Voxilla recently acknowledged it as one of the top-three call center solutions in 2014

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