Cloud technology has taken the market by storm, meaning businesses across various industries are switching to cloud hosted communications. The cloud has grown into a mainstream alternative, with the opportunity to remove on-premises hardware and fixed lines appealing to organisations of all sizes.
Many businesses are already moving their communications to the cloud. Today we look at ten real-world reasons why this could benefit your organisation.
1. Cost
The cloud offers predictable monthly costs with the possibility to make significant savings compared to traditional communications platforms. Hosting a phone system over the Internet ensures that businesses are only charged for what they use, making cloud-based communication systems especially cost-effective for smaller businesses.
The cloud also eliminates upfront costs, such as installation and configuration, and removes the need to pay for the maintenance of a traditional phone system.
2. Management
Often, managing on-premises solutions can be expensive. And with the complexity of many communications systems, a whole IT department may be required to manage it. The cloud eliminates the need for maintenance and enables IT support to be outsourced to the communications provider, while the use of analytics programmes allows the business to stay in control.
3. Scalability
Anyone who has had to move or expand an on-premises phone system understands how difficult it can be. Future challenges and changes can be hard to predict, creating difficulty with long-term decision making regarding investment in technology.
The cloud provides the flexibility and scalability required to adapt as the business moves, grows or sizes down, and access to updates and new features without the requirement of new hardware.
4. Vendor Management
With cloud communication, there is just one vendor for everything. They manage the communication system off-site, allowing the business IT department the time and resources to focus on strategic business projects and other high-priority problems.
5. Technology
By hosting your communications platform in the cloud as a service, automatic software updates guarantee that the technology will not become outdated or lag behind the latest innovations.
This ensures the communications system is future-proof and allows the business to stay focused.
6. Quality of Service
Uptime is hugely important to many business, therefore requiring a communications system with the ability to scale up or down to match peak times in the business cycle. The cloud uses multiple remotely hosted data centres to avoid downtime and maximise uptime.
7. Affordable Redundancy
Hardware and software can be difficult to deliver with on-premises communications systems. However, businesses can get access to a level of redundancy that would traditionally be too expensive, when they share resources in a cloud environment.
8. Disaster Recovery
The cloud can be a useful tool to protect business from the effects of natural disasters, cyber attack or equipment failure. It enables businesses to resume operating quickly after a disaster, and in some cases continue running throughout.
There are a number of disaster recovery options. Some organisations re-route calls to remote locations and mobile phones, while others use on voicemail or cloud-based auto attendants to take calls continually. Cloud back-up ensures the visibility and access to information across multiple locations and in case of disaster.
9. Simplicity
Cloud interfaces enable employees to talk, chat, collaborate and connect at any time using one easy-to-use platform.
Although simple, hosted communication systems are full of features, including unified communications, video, messaging and the ability to make and receive calls over multiple devices.
10. Mobility
Businesses must keep their teams connected and communicating efficiently, even when in different locations. Cloud-based unified communication enables remote access as if they were sitting at their desk.
Hosted communications also helps with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. Cloud-based systems ensure there are no problems regarding the devices that employees use, giving them access to live analytics, reporting and call recording.
