Telephone systems and PBXs (private branch exchange) have historically been a hot potato in a business; an important service for users needing firm ownership and the most obvious bucket thrown into being that of the traditional IT team. This IT team is often frustrated that they do not have the telecoms experience to know what they are dealing with.

Over the years I have lost count of the times the IT team has commented both from customers and businesses I have worked within of struggling with the telephony component, lacking skills, experience and understanding of the ethos of this historic comms world. The telco world, its approaches and components, are very different to the IP based world that traditional IT is used to operating within. Often these historical telephony deployments are also creaking, having through accident and sometimes design, been configured in weird and wonderful ways that now no one is familiar with or has the time to unpick. So, IT are keen to have someone else own the problem, but find there is nowhere else to locate it in the business.

In 2017, a vast number of firms still sit in this camp, faced with the challenges of supporting and maintaining telephony systems, often based on ageing technology and bolted together from varying suppliers to achieve delivery of provisioning, PBX, desktop devices and IP interfaces with todays modern world of softphones and PC and mobile based technologies.

Often the biggest challenge is when something breaks and the IT team has to circle around, reacting to fix an issue none really has the confidence or experience of. This same team has to maintain, monitor and manage not only telephony, but the breadth of IT services and solutions serving the business.

The challenge with telephony over email services or most typical IT services, for example, is that it is real time and any degradation in packet quality is seen immediately from both ends of the spectrum, caller and recipient. Send an email that gets delayed and more often than not neither end notices as it is seen as a transient communication method. A phone call is immediate real time two-way communication, where any degradation in service results in packet loss and obvious call quality issues to those on the call. Thus, have an issue on your PBX and find your breadth of users complaining about mid call line drops, sound quality (hissing or crackling) or issues making or receiving calls.

This situation is exaggerated quickly when you have multiple sites with local PBXs and issues to manage on a wider scale. In todays demanding world to support customer demand for high quality service and response, and staffs need for more flexibility to work anytime, anywhere on any device a new approach is essential.

As we have seen in the CRM world, once cloud has proven its disruption it will grow fast

So along came VoiP and cloud telephony to deliver the common benefits of cloud from better resilience (uptime and performance), removal or reduction in capital costs, faster deployment, easier upgrades and scaling of usage.

In todays world, there is rarely a logical reason to deploy a traditional physical PBX. As we have already seen in the CRM world where now 50% of all new deployments globally are cloud based and expected to soon reach 70% of all sales once cloud has proven its disruption it will grow fast.

So with cloud telephony, much of the challenge for the IT team in managing the telecoms for the business is taken away by the cloud provider, except the administration, provisioning and configuration of policies for the business.

The bigger question is: should this even be with the IT team? Take Salesforce as a business application platform. Is this managed by IT? They may have been involved in the initial procurement, providing a security review, a technical approval for fit for the business network and security models, but the day to day management revolves around the business needs. Provisioning and decommissioning users, configuring data presentation (fields, reports, dashboards), managing business rules, helping users this falls under a Salesforce Administrator / team.

So is telephony not an extension of this? A business service that should the technical complexity and implications be removed (using a cloud provider) is better placed being owned and managed by a business services admin as opposed to a technical IT support team.

Now take another thought initiative and consider integrating your telephony and CRM, having customer and prospect data supporting the logic of voice interactions.

Imagine being able to inform a sales user that should a key customer be marked as Gold category then their calls will automatically be put to the head of inbound call queues. That any new sales opportunity in the CRM over a target threshold value will automatically get priority support during their trial experience and bypass automated call recording triage processes. That if you put an account in your teams name that any of their inbound calls will automatically go to the sales rep allocated and then the call group for your team only.

The business and customer benefits are obvious in this day of a heightened buyer dynamic expecting and demanding high quality customer service.

To enable this should it not be easy and intuitive for the same Salesforce Admin / team to manage the customer telephony in alignment with the CRM system? Embedding the cloud telephony end to end inside of Salesforce itself is long overdue. This allows the utilisation of the same security model and all rich data to create a non-technically managed, customer centric phone system that is as flexible as Salesforce itself.

Telephony has been in the hands of the technical IT team out of necessity, not choice. Now you can choose to put it where it belongs, in the heart of customer-centricity land aligned with customer service and sales.

Editors note: Find out more about Natterboxs latest announcement with regards to Salesforce here.

Read the rest here:
How cloud can neutralise the telephony hot potato - Cloud Tech

Cloud computing has made a dramatic surge over the past five years, but issues such as compliance and data residency are also driving tech leaders to carefully consider their IT architecture. In the video above, we break down the three most important things you need to know about the cloud versus data center decision. For those who prefer reading to watching, you'll find the entire summary below.

And to explore more about this topic, check out the full ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature The Cloud v. Data Center Decision. You can also download the full report as a PDF ebook (free registration required).

Up until a few years ago, companies had to make a strong case for why they wanted to use the cloud, and they often had to overcome fears about security and lack of control. Today, the script has flipped. Many IT leaders now have to justify why they want to run something on-premise, if there are comparable options in the public cloud. Plenty of companies ARE still choosing their own data center, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, but the context has completely changed.

When it comes to new applications for standard business functions, most enterprises are choosing go cloud-first. There's a very high bar to justify running something like email, CRM, or ERP on-premise. Launching custom applications or migrating legacy applications is a different story though.

The initial perception of cloud was that companies were doing it to cut costs. However, today's cloud isn't as much about saving money. It's more about shifting to a modern architecture so you can take advantage of the latest technologies like containers and microservices. And, being in the cloud insures that your business will always have access to the next big leap in tech without a big infrastructure upgrade. In other words, it's about agility.

Again, to learn more about this topic, read our full special report "The Cloud v. Data Center Decision" and you can download them in one PDF on TechRepublic, available for free to registered users.

The Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. Since we run a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8:00am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6:00pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet's global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.

Previously on Monday Morning Opener:

Read more:
3 things to know about the cloud v. data center decision - ZDNet

It's hard living in this age. Everything you do needs to be documented. We're not just talking about your social media shenanigans, but stuff you need for your government and office transactions, you know, the bigger reasons why Internet came to be in the first place. Nowadays you spend a considerable amount of time and money on spending additional external hard drives to store all these filesthose of necessity and otherwise. Then sometimes, you have to deal with a broken drive or two; then sometimes, you lose them to your horror. Pictures of you and baegone! Videos of your cliff jumpingnowhere to be found!

The inconvenience brought in by the physicality of these drives and devices can be haunting as days go by. In the corporate setting, not having enough space for your files leads to miscommunication, mismanagement, and delay. If you're just worried about it because you have no space in your phone for any more selfie, it can also be problematic. Enter the concept of cloud storage platforms, which PC Magazine defines as the "means of storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer's hard drive." Yes, you read that right: All your files easily dumped and then catalogued online in one data center and that's it. Imagine the fictional Pied Piper from TV series Silicon Valley. In the plot, It's so revolutionary the similarly made-up high-tech company Hooli is running after its ownership.

The concept of cloud computing fits right into the tech culture of social media-heavy using FIlipinos.

At the press launch of the partnership between Philippine-based enterprise solutions provider Nexus Technologies announced its partnership with Singapore-based IT company InfoFabrica last April 21, Nexus-InfoFabrica Country Sales Manager John Defiesta couldn't have agreed more of how cloud computing can help advance Filipinos' lives in more ways than one.

There is a huge opportunity for Philippine companies, big or small, to take advantage of what cloud services have to offer."

Defiesta said the partnership aims to make cloud computing accessible to all Filipinos, in anticipation for its now-growing demand.

A report from Gartner, Inc. indicated that there will be at least an 18% growth for cloud computing in the Philippines this year. Big companies like Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, and ABS-CBN have been using thecloud, too; it's an attempt to savemillions of pesos from purchasing additional storage and servers for their numerous customers.

Another factor why cloud computing is a worthy investment? Flexibility. InfoFabrica offers a pay-as-you-go model where you only pay for additional storage when you need it. You can avail of it permanently or for a certain period. It's also perfect for startup companies, small businesses, and even students, said Defiesta.

Defiesta also predicts a sharp growth of cloud computing in the Philippines within the next five years. No more storage woes!

"There may be problems in terms of bandwidth, but the country is improving, and telco companies are making an effort," he reassured.

ALSO READ:Hot Stuff: Where to Find Celeb- and Athlete-Approved Workout Wear Online

Banner photograph from Unsplash.com

Read the original post:
Hot Stuff: Ever Heard Of Cloud Computing? Here's Why Filipinos ... - ABS-CBN News

Investopedia

Google: No to Price War Over Cloud Computing | Investopedia Investopedia Google's Tariq Shaukat said the company won't get into a price war with Microsoft and Amazon. Google touts AI in the cloud to beat Amazon, Microsoft - CNBC.comCNBC Top Three Cloud Computing Stocks to Watch - Profit ConfidentialProfit Confidential Google May Need an Acquisition to Catch Amazon, Microsoft, Says ...Barron's 1redDrop -InfoWorld all 11 news articles »

More:
Google: No to Price War Over Cloud Computing | Investopedia - Investopedia