It’s been an unexpectedly busy start to the 2020s for Ribbon Communications, like many others within the UC space worldwide.
While they stepped up to support their channel partners with a raft of free licences and upgrades in the previous quarter, the company is now turning its attention to supporting the transition to permanent new ways of working — understanding the unique requirements of the new reality, and helping users remain competitive, secure, and efficient, during continued social and economic flux.
John Macario, Senior Vice President of Global Channel Marketing for Ribbon, reflected on the phases of the transformation they had witnessed in recent months.
“What we’re seeing and hearing from partners, is that their enterprise customers scrambled to make things happen, and ensure business continuity in response to the pandemic. Call centres got dispersed very quickly, but with varying degrees of success.”
Back to the new future…
“Today, some people are returning to the office, but things have changed. The first is the realisation that not everyone will be going back.”
“During these four of five months of shutdown, CFOs of large corporations are inevitably looking around and saying, we’ve had empty office and not lost any productivity. So, why are we spending so much money on real estate…?”
One example is Nationwide Insurance in the US, who have just announced they are closing five regional offices. “Those employees will be working from home permanently, depending on robust UC solutions. This is the new reality, with call centres fully distributed, agents will be wherever they need to be, but I don’t think anyone can envisage a time in the near future where we go back to a traditional call centre, where everyone is crammed in back to back.
“Many decision-makers are coming to the conclusion that their current tools are not adequate to address the new reality, and more secure and strategically planned solutions are needed”
One digital workspace to rule them all…
With collaboration platforms effectively replacing the office for the long term, another trend Macario has identified among their partners and clients is a need to consolidate around a single virtual hub, which acts as a centre of reference and truth for the whole organisation.
“You can’t run a business with some meetings on Skype, some on Teams, some on Zoom… You have to pick one tool and make it work for your enterprise. It doesn’t work well, if for example you have Teams as your calling platform, then use a separate call centre app that’s not really connected with it.
You need to have all of these tools properly integrated, so everyone becomes familiar with the experience and the functionality.”
Designing the online workplace
When you consider the budgets and planning cycles which used to be involved in designing and specifying a new corporate headquarters building, the inception of a digital equivalent surely deserves similar levels of attention in the new reality.
Whether that’s the creation of bespoke integrations like the Mida Solutions and Ribbon Communications call centre product, or simply ensuring that corporate communications tools have the right look and feel to ensure team members have the same emotional connection with them as they might enjoy stepping in to a local branch office in a new town, the design of the digital workspace will surely enjoy richer consideration in new reality.
