8 mins read
Gone are the days when desk phones and telephony tools were the only means for business communication. Today, businesses demand a solution which is handy, cost-friendly and easy to scale. UCaaS, here is the perfect solution that rescues the company from a complex communication system.
UCaaS expanded as Unified Communications as a Service, is a cloud-hosted service which streamlines all the business voice solutions by centralizing it over a single platform. Let’s break the term “UCaaS” to understand its functioning better.
Unified Communications in ‘UCaaS’ refers to the unification of communication channels including social media messaging, chatbots, voicemail, calls, email, video conferencing etc. It unifies all the communication on a single platform to ensure hassle-free management.
The fragment ‘as a Service’ (aaS) refers to the unified communication software hosted over the cloud, which is accessible from anywhere at any time. As the software is hosted on the cloud, it eliminates the need for dedicated infrastructure or maintenance team. Instead, the cloud service provider takes care of all the purchase and maintenance for you.
Types of UCaaS Architecture
UCaaS offers two types of models
i) Single-tenant Model
As a client of the single-tenant model, you get a personalized PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system in a data center. In this model, the client only shares the hardware and gets his personalized software.
Concerns over shared infrastructure are significant for clients who like to stay accountable for data they share and customize. Hence, the single-tenancy model is favoured from a security viewpoint.
ii) Multi-tenant Model
Being a customer in the multi-tenant model, you won’t have the option to roll out any necessary improvements in the software application like, modify the code or scale the capacity. You can only perform little touch-ups, such as altering the colour scheme or display of the menu.
Here multiple clients are served by a single system which means you have to share the same system assets and cloud computing capacity. Multi-tenant systems are usually cheaper to deploy and operate.
Why Go for UCaaS?
By deploying a unified communication system for your business, you can establish your brand in a short time. With the ongoing digital transformation, UCaaS has gained immense popularity in recent years. Small businesses are adopting UCaaS due to the shortage of resources to manage and maintain the communication system. Not only that companies are leveraging UCaaS in many other ways.
1. Reduces Capital Investment
In earlier days, when small businesses wanted to upgrade their system, they had to make a lot of capital investments. From purchasing equipment to installing them, every step demanded effort and cost investment along with the maintenance hassle.
UCaaS reduces the cost of capital investment by a considerable margin as everything got managed by the cloud service provider. It also relieves the business from the hassle of employing a dedicated IT team that spend hours on configuring and maintaining the equipment.
2. Saves Office Rentals
The most significant advantage of UCaaS is that it makes communication possible from any device with a stable internet connection. Communication can be initiated and regulated from anywhere, whether office premises or remote location.
Consequently, you do not need to establish a new communication setup for every location you plan to expand. This helps you save office rentals and improves your initial setup cost.
Let’s suppose you are currently operating a business in Delhi and plan to expand in Bangalore.
Will you invest and set up a dedicated communication team in Bangalore?
With unified communication software, you wouldn’t. You can purchase a dedicated phone number for Bangalore operations and divert calls to the Delhi center, that means, you can regulate all the communication from Delhi itself.
3. Scales Easily
If you plan to expand your business at multiple locations and scale your infrastructure to meet the rising customer’s demand, then UCaaS is the right solution for you. As a unified communication system is hosted on the cloud, it is easily scalable. That means an administrator can easily add or delete users as per the changing staffing needs.
As the system is easily scalable on the cloud, you do not need to worry about the infrastructure needs. You can sit back and focus on other pressing issues at hand that require your immediate attention.
4. Promotes Remote Working
The trend of remote working has become the choice of many millennials these days. The latest report by Upwork stated that recruiting managers expect 38 per cent of their staff to work remotely in the upcoming decade.
Sticking to the legacy of the desktop-based interface might have repercussions. Here arises the need for a mobile communication system such as UCaaS operates it efficiently. UCaaS allows the employees to use their mobile devices to communicate with customers, collaborate and generate leads by working from any part of the country.
5. Empowers Updated Technology
With UCaaS you need not deploy any bulky hardware for your system as well as the updation is not your job. This is managed by the UCaaS provider who ensures that you get access to the latest technological updates automatically.
Summing it Up
As the no. of communication platform expands, it becomes difficult for a business to manage and toggle between the various platforms. UCaaS makes it easier for the business to manage the communication by centralizing it over a single platform. Also, the added benefits of the cloud such as scalability, remote working, disaster recovery and more, makes UCaaS a one-stop solution for all the communication issues.
