In recent years, new communication and collaboration platforms have become popular, and new licensing models have emerged to give companies the opportunity to purchase software applications in their preferred mode. Let’s analyze together the current scenario.

In order to understand the massive success of Unified Communications as a Service, we should take a step backward, to piece together the most significant changes that happened within the UC market in the last couple of years.

Since 2020, having their entire workforce working remotely, companies faced a breaking point with respect to the past: this unexpected change of working habits has highlighted that the previous communication and collaboration solutions weren’t appropriate for the remote and the hybrid work reality. In order to continue carrying out their daily activities efficiently, employees needed applications integrated together in a unique hub, accessible from different devices and not bound to the “old” enterprise UC infrastructure. 

Decision Makers and IT Managers were suddenly forced to face this new working reality that, in a short time, turned out to be a real breakthrough. They started to take into consideration cloud-based UC platforms, like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. These two platforms, originally created for communication and collaboration purposes, then evolved into more complex and complete ecosystems integrated with a number of third-party software applications, to allow employees to gain access again to the software they needed. 

Being both Teams and Zoom purchased as Software as a Service after the Pandemic, SaaS started to be perceived as “the option” for businesses to access cloud-based applications. It goes without saying that when scouting for UC applications to add on top of these platforms, businesses were encouraged to maintain the same approach.

What is UCaaS?

The Unified Communications as a Service is a licensing model that allows companies to activate subscription-based Unified Communication services, paying a fixed monthly or annual fee for using the software. UCaaS infrastructure lets businesses personalize their modern workplace by choosing between telephony and voice, video and audio conferencing, and real-time messaging solutions. 

What are the main advantages?

The benefits for businesses are many. Here we have summarized the most relevant ones:

• Easy transition to a cloud-based UC platform – UCaaS supports companies in moving their voice communications to the Cloud allowing them easily to integrate the new UC system within their cloud communications platform, be it Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Setting up the new UC system will be very very fast, and also adding new products or features at a later date will be really easy.

• Flexibility, scalability, and affordability – UCaaS ensures a flexible, scalable, and cost-saving approach to let companies make the most from their UC because: 
  • Firstly, with its monthly or annual operating cost, UCaaS allows companies to rapidly increase or decrease the number of licenses or add/remove UC applications as needed, avoiding cost/service inefficiencies. This scalability, for example, will not be possible buying perpetual licenses, due to the higher activation costs. 
  • Secondly, some solution providers allow companies to decide whether they want the services to be hosted in the company cloud, or in the solution provider’s cloud. This is an attractive alternative for companies that do not want UC applications to be hosted in a cloud space managed by a third party. This may be for several reasons, including security or accounting reasons, or internal policy regulations. Buying UCaaS hosted in the company cloud may be considered “the cloud evolution” of the old on-Premises, while retaining all the advantages of the pay-per-use approach.

• Less technical expertise required – With the UCaaS, companies can focus their efforts on their core business because this licensing model off-loads software safety, updates, and maintenance to the solution provider. This means that the company’s IT staff has fewer technical aspects to take care of. This approach is a good alternative for companies that do not have an internal IT team or do not want them to be responsible for the new UC system setup, implementation, and maintenance.

For all these reasons, activating UC solutions as a service for Microsoft Teams and Zoom environments can be very beneficial for companies purchasing new cloud contact center or recording applications. Do not hesitate to contact us to talk with our experts about how to implement UCaaS within your business.