Contributors
Today’s workplace comprises of video calls, hybrid meetings and collaboration tools, allowing people to operate remotely from anywhere in the world. These new cloud- based, voice-enabled platforms were also to the customers benefit, providing them with the technology that enabled omnichannel experiences: they can now interact with a business in any way they like – simplifying the customer journey.
This rapid-fire change to business – and the speed at which it was adopted – came with its own unique set of problems.
Legacy systems were not always compatible, proving expensive and time-consuming to update and resolve. Unified communications platforms (UC) certainly can automate and simplify processes, but if adopted too quickly and without a valued partner to guide them, can increase complexity rather than reduce it.
Three challenging limits to progress
1. Complexity
Software, applications and equipment all come with their own specific technology, but as your infrastructure swells, so does your integration complexity, incompatibility and complications.
2. Legacy systems
It can be challenging to part with systems you’ve invested into. Entire companies are built on specific configurations of platforms, but as technology advances, the ability to utilise these systems becomes more and more difficult to match with modern methods.
3. Flexible first: working remotely
Workers now crave the ability to work from anywhere. How can businesses satisfy this requirement when their infrastructure is limited by on-premise servers, a growing security surface and staff leaving to look for flexibility elsewhere?
So, what should businesses do to navigate these obstacles and prepare for the next iteration of the modern workplace? The answer lies within a phrase that’s easy to say but not always easy to implement:
Simplify and automate.
Simplifying and automating your business with unified communications, including collaboration and voice services, helps limit complexity, improve productivity for workers, streamline the customer journey and reduce overheads – but only if it’s enabled by agile digital infrastructure. So where should businesses start?
Streamline and simplify
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Network managers are being asked to do more with a lot less, and consolidating applications onto a single platform means users – workers and customers alike – are given a seamless experience. The fewer moving parts mean there’s less to go wrong.
Customers want an omnichannel experience and the ability to interact with businesses exactly how they want to. From web-based chatbots and WhatsApp Business to customer hotlines and email help desks, consumers now expect the choice of how to contact companies about their products or services. Businesses that consolidate their voice- based applications onto one platform are utilising the simplicity of the technology, preparing themselves to deliver the next generation of customer experience (CX) and the proceeding iteration of the modern workplace.
Legacy systems can be costly to migrate to the cloud, but the benefits – once migrated – are almost endless. IT teams no longer need to solve incompatibility issues, wasting time on tasks that could easily be automated. By utilising the capability and efficiency of cloud voice, these teams instead have an improved user experience that benefits both themselves and customers in the long term. Having a single digital infrastructure company handle this service on your behalf also improves simplicity – leaving you more time to focus on profitable, strategy-driven tasks while providing a single point of contact for management and support.
Multinationals often struggle with complex data protection laws, especially when their workforce is spread across multiple regions. Human Resource teams can now rely on digital infrastructure that supports UC platforms to manage these complexities on their behalf, simplifying processes that usually strained HR teams’ time. Colt was the first digital infrastructure company to adhere to binding corporate rules (BCRs): the global privacy certification approved by three European data protection authorities.
Tailor-made communication: Esprit
This case study shows how we helped international fashion retailer Esprit hop over its digital hurdles. To keep it ahead of fierce competition, they needed to replace existing telephony solutions with Microsoft Teams-based telephony for smooth communication between company locations. They also took advantage of Luware's contact centre solution - one of our latest partners.
Read the Esprit case study
Automate the everyday
Automation – as we have seen with the most recent advancements in AI – is the other side of the coin, if businesses know how to profit from its potential. Similar to the strategy of simplification, having infrastructure that automatically performs tasks on a business’s behalf saves time and reduces cost, paving the way for the modern workplace.
Automation in action: a use case
A multinational business has over four thousand employees spread across three continents, 12 countries and 30 cities, providing a digital service to over two million customers every year. Customers contact this business via a UC platform which relies on an automated, self-service portal that creates a digital history of interactions with each customer to track who has served whom, via which medium, and the outcome. This ensures queries or problems are quickly resolved while providing its analytics team with behavioural data that informs future business with observable market trends.
All this is made possible with a simple, automated voice-based UC platform: the ultimate tool for the modern workplace. To understand more about how automation can impact your business, Rui Ferraz, Colt’s Intelligent and Unified Communications Product Manager, explains in this video how Microsoft’s Operator Connect platform can help simplify and automate your processes.
Our newest colleague: AI
There’s no escaping the impact of artificial intelligence applications on everyday business tasks. It was only natural to fear its potential initially, but once the dust had settled, it was clear that language model applications wouldn’t replace roles fulfilled by humans. Instead, these applications would simplify and automate the more menial tasks, giving them more time to focus on business-critical objectives and new strategic thinking that AI will never replicate. One in three IT leaders we spoke to in our quarterly brand awareness research ranked AI adoption in their top three priorities for the next twelve months.
In their Future of Work, IDC found that CIOs who invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technologies will see a 40% increase in productivity by 2025, delivering greater speed to expertise. The same goes for businesses in the modern workplace. UC applications can now do intuitive tasks like taking the stress out of finding a meeting time between five individuals, across various locations and time zones, by using AI to help find the perfect meeting time with no clashes.
Innovative, time-saving tools like these are now being built directly into UC applications – including Microsoft Teams – that simplify and automate processes for staff, meaning they can fulfil their fullest potential in the modern workplace.
To learn more about how voice- based technology can build a modern workplace fit for the future, and in light of recent developments, we sat down with two experts from Colt to hear what influence they think it will have on the business of tomorrow.
What you need to do to prepare for the modern workplace
You’ll need digital infrastructure that’s capable and agile. It will handle the high-bandwidth requirements of today’s voice-based applications while responding quickly to the latest technological breakthroughs in voice- based infrastructure. Leveraging a technology’s potential is vital in keeping ahead of the game – a valuable strategy for any modern workplace.
Your modern workplace checklist
- Upgrade legacy voice solutions to more cost effective, future proof cloud services
- Implement a solution which not only suits your company's needs but can be activated simply and quickly wherever your end user chooses to work
- Simplify processes globally by working with an operator who can provide regulatory compliant services throughout footprint under a single contract
- Make sure your employees are fully trained in the best way to use the applications they need to work effectively
- Work with a partner who can offer all the benefits of a fully owned resilient quality global network
- Minimise requirements for internal technical knowledge by choosing a partner who can offer full end to end support
- Consider where AI and automation can be used to enhance your customer experience
To learn more about our cloud voice portfolio or how we can prepare your business for the modern workplace, book a session with our in-house experts to explore how to create a workplace fit for the future.
