Businesses and IT decision-makers often remain dependent on siloed communications tools that hamper productivity, are costly to deploy and maintain, and don't offer the flexibility needed to stand out in a resolutely mobile and multi-channel world.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing new communication tools for your business.

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The cloud isn't just a way to cut costs

Many IT managers see the cloud as little more than an opportunity for financial arbitrage. Certainly, the economies of scale achieved by cloud service providers enable them to offer attractive rates, but moving to the cloud can offer other benefits that are just as important for the business: agility, scalability, cost transparency and predictability, reliability and the elimination of financial constraints linked to hardware investments, to name but a few.

All these criteria need to be taken into account when deploying unified communications and collaboration tools, which must be available at all times, regardless of location or terminal, and adapt to the real needs of the company and its businesses - a major challenge for IT teams.

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The cloud provides customizable solutions

The cloud offers a wealth of possibilities for companies looking for a platform that can be adapted to their specific needs. Whether it's the ability to access configuration parameters from a single portal, application interfaces or integration capabilities with information systems, CRMs and call centers, many cloud solutions offer greater customization potential than traditional software. What's more, the cloud model often makes it possible to integrate specialized solutions, essential for improving productivity, at lower cost.

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The cloud offers multiple deployment possibilities

Solutions can be deployed in the cloud in several ways:

• Based on a private cloud model, where companies own and manage the software and hardware themselves,
• Based on a public cloud model, i.e. outsourced SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solutions, which provide the company with functionality for a monthly or annual subscription fee,
• Many hybrid models also combine public and private cloud solutions.

If the solution is suitable, it will enable the system to evolve over time, adapting to changing requirements. To make the right choice, ask yourself the right questions:

• Which parts of the solution are you prepared to invest in, and which would you prefer to procure via a managed service?
• Would you prefer to host the solution in your own data center, or outsource it to a service provider?
• Do you want your teams to take charge of operations, or do you want this service to be outsourced?
• Do you want to finance the tools from your capital budget or allocate them to operating expenses?

The cloud offers the performance guarantees needed for voice and video processing

While in the past it was difficult, if not impossible, to process information in real time in a virtualized environment, technological advances now enable call control and communication flows to be handled differently, as in the case of voice or video.

Class-of-service control techniques, SDN network architectures and edge computing, to name but a few technologies, enable flows to be distributed between a company's data center and that of a hosting provider, without compromising communication quality.

Not all solutions have the same capacity to guarantee communications quality, regardless of the conditions of connection to data networks, particularly the Internet. Choose a solution whose technical sophistication will enable you to manage these contingencies.

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The company retains control over solutions deployed in the cloud

With the right cloud solution, IT departments and decision-makers can control services more easily, free themselves from the intervention times often imposed by their service providers, and act in real time.

With the cloud, it's easier to create new users or modify the profile of existing users according to their real needs, revise capacities upwards or downwards, or implement new functionalities.

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The cloud is safe

Attacks on the cloud are more widely publicized than those on the enterprise, because they are harder to keep out of the public eye. But the hype doesn't mean the vulnerability is stronger.

Cloud providers generally call on security professionals to monitor their environments at all times. In most cases, they impose far more robust security measures than those generally found in a corporate data center. It's worth noting that a data center hosting a large number of customers is certainly more heavily guarded than a corporate data center.

Solutions can be deployed in a private cloud, either on-site or in a secure hosting infrastructure. Companies shouldn't deprive themselves of the benefits of the cloud just because security is an issue.

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The cloud doesn't necessarily lock companies into an exclusive relationship with a service provider

Whatever the technology, its adoption requires a long-term commitment. In any case, conventional solutions pay for themselves over many years. On the other hand, the contractual terms and conditions of cloud providers generally make it easier to anticipate a change of supplier.

By choosing the right contract, companies can maintain their desired level of control and independence.

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The cloud is no longer a novelty - it's proven its worth

From an architectural point of view, the cloud doesn't really bring anything new.

Resource sharing in a shared environment dates back to the days of mainframe computing, and telecom operators have been hosting real-time shared communication services for many years. In the field of unified communications and collaboration, innovation lies in the way solutions are deployed, using proven architectural models and virtualization technologies. The aim is to offer a complete set of IT and telecoms functionalities, in a model that is simple to deploy and configure.

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And finally

It's true that today's IT departments are faced with a number of pressing issues, such as :

• Protect yourself against the growing virulence of cyber-attacks,
• Promote user mobility and teleworking, notably through BYOD programs,
• Deploy analysis tools to optimize the company's marketing strategy and customer satisfaction.

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All this must not be achieved at the expense of long-term strategy. By placing communication tools in the cloud, companies will also be able to increase their agility and efficiency, improve interactions with customers, partners and service providers, and free up resources to mobilize on important business challenges.

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