Network Modernization: Cloud Voice Service and the Future of Digital Transformation

Your customers expect your business to deliver higher levels of personalization and flexibility. However, this level of service requires you to reach new levels of efficiency, productivity, and innovation. Many organizations are quickly realizing that their legacy technology makes it a challenge (if not impossible) to meet customers’ ever-changing expectations.

If your organization is still using on-premises equipment, you’re spending significant money on maintenance throughout the lifecycle of the asset. When a device or equipment breaks, you have to deal with repair or replacement costs as well as business disruption. Upgrading requires purchasing new hardware and cards every time. Employees also have to take time away from customers and other projects for regular maintenance and upgrading, which significantly increases the overall cost of ownership.

There’s a better way.

Communication networks provide foundation for digital transformation

The answer to staying competitive in today’s ever-changing technological landscape is digital transformation, which involves moving to digital processes throughout all workflows – both internal and external facing. A recent Stratoflow survey projected US spending on digital transformation technologies will grow 40% and reach $2.8 billion by 2025. With VoIP services expected to be a big part of that with expected growth of 10%, you need a strong reliable network at the core to keep your communications and mission-critical applications running.

However, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every organization has unique goals, workflows and customers. When you have a partner like Frontier — a partner that focuses on your organization’s specific needs — your communication network provides the foundation needed to meet customer expectations today and quickly adapts as your needs evolve.

The process starts by understanding both your current infrastructure and your goals for how you want to use your communication network.

Frontier offers multiple solutions to enable your digital transformation

By using a cloud platform that integrates voice, video conferencing, chat and file sharing, your organization can bring people and information together with unlimited flexibility. However, legacy technology cannot keep up with current requirements, much less the technology needs that will only continue to grow in the near future.

To meet these needs, organizations are increasingly replacing their legacy communication technology with cutting-edge technology such as Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) or Frontier|RingCentral Service.

Businesses turning to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) with an expert partner like Frontier are able to keep moving forward, regardless of where they are physically located. UCaaS provides a cloud-based unified platform that connects your workforce across devices, from anytime, anywhere. And with the Frontier Direct Calling product, employees can make external calls from within Microsoft Teams — allowing all voice communications to happen within Teams.

With UCaaS, your teams can connect and collaborate efficiently with on-site and remote coworkers and customers using any device at any location. This increased access across multiple devices, platforms, and applications typically results in significant productivity increases. As your business grows, UCaaS improves customer touchpoints which, in turn, improves operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Instead of purchasing complex communications infrastructure, your organization can control costs with predictable monthly per-user pricing.

Another benefit to working with experts like Frontier is the industry connections and partnerships they bring, such as Frontier | RingCentral. With a distinct unification of your messages, video meetings, phone calls and more into a single user-friendly platform, RingCentral unifies business communications, brings teams together, and makes it easy to contact customers through their preferred communication channel.

RingCentral saves your organization time and improves efficiency. Through real-time insights, you have simplified IT administration and powerful call controls, which enable seamless collaboration. As your company expands or business needs change, you can quickly meet evolving communication needs. Adding a new line, device, office or remote team takes minutes — instead of days or weeks.

With RingCentral, you can create a personalized communication network with over 300 Application Program Interface (APIs). By integrating an API into Microsoft Teams, RingCentral makes it possible for your team to make both inbound and outbound calls with a fully integrated API. When an inbound call comes in, the directory lets your team know who’s calling. Additionally, RingCentral APIs can create an on-premises call recording platform in addition to the call recording platform available in the cloud.

Enabling Cost Savings with Hosted Cloud Communication Networks

Moving your communication network to the cloud eliminates many often-unpredictable expenses, typically resulting in significant cost savings. Organizations no longer must replace faulty equipment or spend hours troubleshooting issues. With no physical infrastructure on premises, organizations no longer have the expense of upgrading legacy equipment. Instead of managing many vendor relationships, organizations work with a single vendor and pay predictable monthly fees based on their usage – no more paying for equipment sitting in a corner collecting dust.

Hosted cloud services also improve productivity. Your IT team no longer must spend hours managing vendor relationships and technical management tasks. Employees previously responsible for these tasks can now focus on other projects that add value to the business and improve the customer experience. Organizations paying for managed services now have additional funds available.

Organizations often mistakenly assume that they increase their risk of business disruption without the redundancy of multiple vendors. However, the opposite is true with hosted cloud communication services. Because hosted cloud uses general internet connectivity, your business continues operations even during an outage – with a little creativity. By adjusting the portal settings, which are easily accessible from any browser, your administrator forwards calls to a cloud-based app so your organization can continue communicating with customers. Your team can make phone calls from an app on their phone. Other employees can conduct video meetings on tablets.

Enabling Seamless and Consistent Communication with Customers

Technology is just the beginning of how Frontier enables your organization. Through 24/7 support, your team gets the assistance they need, when they need it. Frontier provides training to get your team up to speed on your communication network. With free web-based training, employees get the answers they need to any question — from the network to using a specific phone — through an online portal.

Frontier also provides security and compliance. Through encryption on both RingCentral and UCaaS, your data is secure both at rest and in transit. Both solutions are HIPAA compliant, allowing healthcare systems to communicate freely to provide the best possible care while also ensuring patient privacy.

Regardless of where you are in your digital transformation process, Frontier can meet you where you are and help you get to where you need to be. Our team supports fax machines with our analog devices as well as overhead pages, which are transparent sheets shown on overhead projectors. Frontier supports organizations moving from a TDM experience to a copper environment by providing the PBX, maintenance and license as part of the engagement. Additionally, you can access new features delivered in the future without additional charges.

The future is bright for technology, but it can also be expensive. Working with a trusted partner to bring your voice service to the cloud allows IT leaders to focus on future challenges and provides cost savings to give them the money to address those challenges. Security and reliability are rated at the top of C suite worries every year, and simplifying, modernizing, and strengthening your network with a trusted partner like Frontier empowers your teams to connect and collaborate efficiently and securely while creating seamless communications with customers.