Campbell, California-based Integrated cloud communications platform provider 8×8 has announced that its unified communications and contact centre product is the first of its kind to support multinational companies in Mainland China.
8×8’s New Shanghai Data Centre
8×8 partners with telecommunications giant China Mobile to provide global organisations in China cloud phone and customer engagement capabilities, as well as access to local numbers, via 8×8’s new data centre. 8×8’s new China data centre, based in Shanghai, means 8×8 now serves 35 regions worldwide with its connectivity offering.
“In today’s global economy, multinationals need to ensure their offices and employees around the world have access to the same communications, collaboration and customer engagement capabilities as they shift to a hybrid work model,” said Meghan Keough, Global Vice President of Product Marketing at 8×8. “Now organisations operating in China can utilize the industry’s first cloud phone solution to provide cost-effective, enterprise-grade voice quality and reliability, which is critical for meeting employee and customer experience requirements at both a local and international scale.”
New Options for Multinationals
Multinationals in China must overcome challenges such as connecting to China’s Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a problem which the partnership hopes to overcome.
A statement from China Mobile international read: “Multinational companies have traditionally relied upon the combination of costly local-hosted gateways and VPNs to allow China-based offices and employees to communicate inside and outside of China. These solutions caused reliability, security, quality and cost concerns, especially for in-country calling over China’s public telephone network. Our partnership enables 8×8 to offer these organizations a differentiated, fully compliant and high-quality service in China for all of their domestic and international business communications.”
8×8’s Global Reach allows users in regional offices to make calls via 8×8’s open communications platform as if they were connected to a traditional PSTN landline, benefitting from improved voice quality, cloud resilience, and machine learning assistance for automatic call routing.
“For multinational organisations, implementing a global communications and customer engagement strategy can be remarkably difficult to execute, due to the complexities of managing infrastructure, requirements and regulations in each country of operation, especially in critical markets like China,” said Lynda Stadtmueller, Research Vice President & Practice Lead, Information & Communications Technology, at Frost & Sullivan.
“Multinationals will welcome 8×8’s recent announcement of the expansion of its cloud-based contact centre and communications solution into Mainland China. For the first time, companies can serve all their customers, employees, and partners in China and around the world with the same high-quality communications, contact centre, and analytics services.”
