Here’s a big question: What does every enterprise today prioritize for investment and identify as mission-critical for their growth and efficiency goals? The answer, of course, is the holy grail of digital transformation (DX). Which leads us to a big riddle. Is DX a destination in itself—or simply a means to get there? In terms of enterprise communications, DX generally involves migration from legacy PRI solutions to cloud SIP trunks. But to what ultimate end?
If you’re transitioning to a digital-first outlook, the easiest way to achieve instant and compliant global scale for your voice and messaging needs is to consider the Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) model. CaaS provides a core telephony infrastructure layer that lets you scale any VoIP-enabled application or platform to markets across the globe.
Think contact centers, conferencing, Unified Communications (UC), and even Communications-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solutions. It’s an approach that has enabled astronomical growth among many of the biggest communications solutions on the market including the likes of Zoom, which just enjoyed an out-of-the-ball-park IPO. For IT decision-makers, CaaS is a giant stepping stone on the DX journey.
To help you assess where your enterprise is on your journey to DX/CaaS nirvana (in terms of your SIP trunking needs at least), we’ve broken it down to three key stages: transformation, navigation, and integration.
Transformation: benchmarking your progress
Here’s the big picture: your goal is to leverage emerging services (like virtual phone numbers) in order to reduce your costs and improve your operational efficiency. Cloud-based solutions give you the flexibility and scale to stay agile.
But before you start assigning capital to new offerings then working out how to integrate them with your legacy systems, the best starting point is in fact identifying how you can measure success. Your business needs (fast growth or strategic forays into new markets) and the new digital tools and platforms available are evolving daily. So look for measurable business value in 6 months or less.
An obvious area to focus on is cost savings – nearly half (44.9%) of organizations that adopted SIP trunking reduced their overall PSTN access spend by an average of 16.1%, according to recent research from Nemertes. In addition, the overall operational costs of unified communications platforms dropped by an average of 39%.
As well as the bottom line, look for improvements in your business processes – for example, better response times to customers. Seek out the innovative applications (virtual phone numbers or messaging services, for instance) that can truly benefit your business.
Navigation: keep an open mind
There’s more to SIP trunking than just PTSN access and more than one way to incorporate this into your business. For many buyers, the most flexible model is acquiring the features they need to support their DX goals as and when needed. Typically, this might include number porting or emergency call routing, available via SIP trunks.
Remember what we said about taking a 6-month view? There’s likely a smart developer out there finalizing an app or service that could meet your evolving needs—for example, delivering better mobile-friendly interaction with your customers.
Working with a cloud provider means that flexibility is baked in. Free from a reliance on one or many limiting, location-dependent legacy providers, you can scale up as soon as you see a need and quickly enter new markets and work with a single, compliant global provider across all regions, rather than multiple vendors.
Integration
Thinking that an all-cloud CaaS provision is your ultimate DX destination? It’s highly likely that the potential cost savings, efficiencies and ability to customize your offer that cloud-based solutions provide will create a compelling business case.
However, for many enterprises, this will still mean working out contracts with legacy providers. Choosing a cloud provider that can deliver reliable speed, service and quality performance is critical. What feature sets do they offer, and what’s in the pipeline? And you’ll also want to partner with a business that’s as future-focused as you are – it’s not just about what offer today, but also their ambitions for 6 months time, a year… and more.
Want to work out your own roadmap to DX bliss?
Read Nemertes’ study on how to leverage cloud communications or..
