Lessons learned from customers.

This section shares examples of lessons learned by customers as they have reviewed and deployed various types of technology. 

Cost savings with Cloud based contact center

Because customers are required to have extra trunks of lines coming into the call center to prepare for any downed lines, most call centers have a high number of unused lines.  Going to a cloud based contact center removes this requirement and saves money immediately.  

SD-WAN versus hub and spoke design for networks

Customers have found that their hub and spoke design which supported their centralized deployment of applications, have now become a poor design to support the high number of cloud based applications.  The apps no longer sit in the head-end data center, they are internet based and by forcing users back to the hub, they have created a poor end user experience.   SD-WAN prioritizes cloud based applications and allows remote offices to go directly to the application. 

Trend to watch-  Cloud abstraction- 

As brands like Pivotal Cloud Foundry grow in popularity you will see the ability to move your workloads dynamically between cloud providers.  This gives great flexibility to application development teams. 

SIP Trunks better than PRIs.

Customers have found value in deploying SIP trunks to get better value from their phone deployments.  By virtualizing your direct dial phone numbers and hosting your DIDs in the cloud, you overcome the limitation of PRIs and their limited number of lines. (23 per).  SIP trunks move your phone numbers off your premise and allow you a great transition step towards deploying a hosted voice solution. (UCaaS)

Internet connections for remote offices and rural sites.

Customers shared the value of managed service providers that will deploy 4G/LTE cellular antennae to provide internet connectivity.   These providers will select the best carriers for you sites and in some cases utilize satellite connections.  The service includes "pooling" your data so that you get one bill for the aggregate amount of data used across multiple sites, even when there are different carriers. 

Virtualizing fax numbers.

Customers who have lots of phone lines dedicated to fax numbers can virtualize these numbers and save money on their phone bills.  Managed Fax service providers now offer the ability to host your fax # and to email a digital copy of each fax to the intended recipient.  These digital copies are more secure than paper faxes and particularly helpful when sending sensitive data that must meet compliance standards like HIPAA.