Migrating to unified communications (UC) can offer numerous benefits to organizations, especially when it’s part of a broader digital transformation strategy. By consolidating multiple communication solutions into a single UC or UCaaS platform, UC adoption can significantly boost productivity and collaboration among employees, streamline business processes and reduce the costs associated with maintaining legacy systems.
However, many organizations considering embarking on this process still use legacy PBXs, which incur maintenance charges and a recurring service fee, and also support a variety of voice applications and analog devices. As a result, they may be dissuaded from pursuing a UC migration due to fears about the potential complexity of the project.
But is this concern really justified and what can organizations do to ameliorate it when adopting a UCaaS solution?
Try the Hybrid Way
When adopting a UCaaS solution such as Microsoft Teams Phone System, hybrid deployment is a great way to support both cloud and on-premises telephony solutions. This deployment model allows organizations to use the Microsoft Teams cloud-based solution for their communication and collaboration needs, while still utilizing their current on-premises telephony infrastructure.
With Microsoft Teams in a hybrid deployment, users can make and receive calls, send and receive messages and participate in audio/video meetings from within the Teams platform. They can also continue using their on-premises voice solutions like IVR, contact centers or PBX in parallel.
This deployment model can be particularly useful for organizations with complex telephony requirements – such as needing to retain control over things like telephony infrastructure, SIP trunk conectivity, existing call plans and legacy systems – who want to take advantage of the considerable benefits of cloud-based collaboration.
Overcoming Complexity
The challenge for organizations wanting to migrate to the Microsoft Teams UCaaS solution is that they may struggle to support and maintain hybrid deployments. This becomes even more difficult when it comes to global multi-region deployments, where there are likely to be many branches with different legacy solutions that need to be connected and treated as a unified network.
Organizations that find themselves in this position might be forgiven for envisaging a world where they could gradually migrate to a UCaaS solution, while integrating their on-premises equipment into the deployment at the same time. They might even go one step further, and imagine being able to select one cloud solution based on a per-user-per-month offering that could handle all these different elements and more.
Is this just a pipe dream? Not anymore, it isn’t.
Introducing AudioCodes Live
AudioCodes Live for Microsoft Teams covers all the bases when it comes to simplifying hybrid UC deployments. This innovative fully managed service lets any organization work easily with Microsoft Teams. It can also support other platforms in parallel, such as Zoom Phone, Cisco Webex and more, without having to consign previous technology investments to the scrapheap.
AudioCodes experts handle your entire Teams migration, including planning the deployment, installing the hardware and overseeing every part of the solution on a day-to-day basis, with support given 24/7. We also take care of integrating the different UC platforms, so employees can talk to each other regardless of where they are or which platform their branch is using.
And if that wasn’t enough, AudioCodes Live also includes subscription-based add-ons like business phones and a range of solutions for meeting rooms, interaction recording, IVR, contact centers and meeting productivity.
So if you’re grappling with the challenge of hybrid UC deployments, you’re not alone. AudioCodes – and, of course, AudioCodes Live – is here to help.
