The modern workplace is more reliant than ever on digital technology. This makes us stronger and more efficient, but it also creates a new potential for vulnerability.
If the technology we depend on fails, business is interrupted. This can happen for reasons beyond our control, from power cuts to extreme weather. The resulting downtime always costs time and money, but the consequences can be even worse. If your infrastructure is not secure, this could lead to data breaches, reputational damage, and even legal problems.
The goal is to harness the power of new technology, while creating contingencies in case of failure. This is why every organization must have a BCDR (business continuity and disaster recovery) plan.
The unstoppable rise of digital technology
In the age of the internet of things, interconnectivity, automation, and globalization make our economies more advanced and interdependent.
Increasingly complex networks connect people, devices, and offices across borders and continents. Even the smallest businesses depend on connectivity, for processes ranging from customer relations to administration and point-of-sale.
The need to be prepared
While we live in an age of digital transformation, we also live in an age of disruption. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted economic life worldwide, while also showing us the possibility of remote work. Post-pandemic, supply shocks and inflation have brought new uncertainties.
Many businesses were unprepared for these shocks and had to improvise to adapt. Some did not survive. In the United States alone, COVID-19 caused an additional 200,000 business closures, according to research from the Federal Reserve.
In the coming months, energy shortages could bring power cuts and other problems. Businesses must be agile and prepared.
The need for robust technology
Business continuity is essential if we are to continue to deliver for customers. This is why resilience should always be a consideration when you are building your technological infrastructure.
Communication technology is a core part of this. If we cannot connect with customers, suppliers, or colleagues, we cannot do business at all. Cloud technology is bringing new levels of resilience to this vital part of business.
iPECS Cloud: bringing reliability to business communication
Our iPECS Cloud is a unified communications (UC) solution that is built with resilience at its heart.
Traditional on-premise business phone systems are vulnerable to any outages or other problems affecting your location. iPECS Cloud solves this with geographic redundancy.
The entire platform is hosted in secure data centers away from your site. If there is a problem at one data center, it automatically fails over to another. Geo-redundancy makes businesses significantly less likely to suffer downtime, so that you can continue to deliver for customers.
Business mobility is business continuity
If you do have problems affecting your site, it is essential that business continues. From power cuts to severe weather, there are all sorts of reasons why the office might have to close. Business mobility allows your team to carry on.
With the right technology, remote working has many benefits, which have become well-understood since the pandemic. These include improved team morale, wider recruitment pools, and improvements in productivity. But there is a less well-known benefit too. This is resilience.
If you can work from anywhere, this can form part of your broader BCDR strategy. Problems on your site do not have to prevent your team from working. But you will need technological solutions to support them.
Agile, flexible communications
iPECS ONE is a UC app supported by the iPECS Cloud platform. By putting all the power and features of a modern business phone system in an easy-to-use app, it brings business mobility to new levels.
It offers full UC features, with voice, video, and instant messaging in one place, along with options for CRM and email integration. This allows you to bring the office with you, wherever you need to be, with no loss in productivity or professionalism.
Better still, thanks to WebRTC technology, users can access iPECS ONE through a web browser, with no downloads at all. If you cannot work in the office, your team can still provide the highest standards of service from anywhere.
Everything is still possible, from collaboration and team meetings to administration and customer contact. With add-ons like call recording and iPECS Analytics, it is even possible to run an enterprise-level contact center remotely.
The cloud: working any time, anywhere
Cloud technology is one of the main engines behind the digital revolution. It enables us to work anywhere without compromise on quality, service, collaboration, or productivity.
The risk of disruption to business is significant, and is with us every day. Cloud technology offers resilience through geo-redundancy. It also helps to make businesses agile and prepared for trouble, whether in the form of local outages or larger macroeconomic shocks.
iPECS: your communication solution
At iPECS, we recognized the power and potential of the cloud early. This gives us experience and expertise in realizing its benefits, from productivity to resilience. Your communication solutions should form a core part of your business continuity plan.
iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE are designed and built with this in mind – to give businesses worldwide the resilience, agility, and efficiency to face the challenges ahead and thrive. To find out more, speak to your nearest iPECS Global Partner.
The digital transformation has revolutionized the world of work. With each year that passes, we can do more and more jobs remotely, and this is a trend that will only accelerate. But while so much has changed, certain fundamentals remain constant.
All businesses must find ways to be efficient without compromising the service they offer. Communication is at the heart of this – whether it’s allocating tasks, collaboration, project management, trouble-shooting, or customer relations.
Every business must have an effective communications infrastructure. But this presents dilemmas around cost. They could invest in hardware, but this is costly to maintain and hard to scale, and may demand extra expenses like IT support teams.
For businesses that face these dilemmas, unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is a solution that helps you build financial and operational efficiency into everything you do. We have written this blog to explain how.
What is UCaaS?
UCaaS combines two cutting-edge concepts in ICT. The first is unified communications (UC), which boosts productivity by integrating all business communications into a single platform. This includes everything from instant messaging to videoconferencing, eliminating the need to keep switching between systems. This allows your team to collaborate and communicate efficiently at all times.
“As a service” simply means the platform is hosted on the cloud and paid for by subscription. This means that businesses can enjoy all the benefits of UC without tying themselves to the expenses of hardware and in-house IT support.
Boosting efficiency and reducing costs are in the interests of every business. Next, we will explain how UCaaS makes it possible to achieve both.
Save on hardware
Traditional on-premises solutions have advantages, but also drawbacks. You have to invest in hardware that can deteriorate and be costly to maintain. You also may need technical support when something goes wrong. By operating on the cloud, UCaaS eliminates those costs. Maintenance and support are the job of the host and provided as part of the service.
In addition, users can access UCaaS on any device with an internet connection. This allows the cost savings of a BYOD culture within the office, along with the opportunity of remote and hybrid working. With UCaaS, companies no longer need large, expensive offices or the equipment that goes with them. With cloud communications, you can work any time, anywhere.
At iPECS, we offer a powerful range of productivity-boosting cloud solutions, from specialized and industry-specific applications to comprehensive business phone systems.
Scalability
Business growth is not always predictable and managing expansions can be a strain. If you over-invest in new infrastructure, you risk waste. If you under-invest, you risk compromising your operation. Scaling down is similarly tricky if you have a lot of hardware and equipment.
Thanks to cloud technology, UCaaS platforms can be scaled up and down with seamless ease. You can simply add or remove users any time on a pay-per-user basis. This is perfect for startups and growing businesses, as well as any operation in volatile and unpredictable markets. Business can change at a moment’s notice. UCaaS gives you the mobility to adapt without unexpected additional costs.
Our latest UCaaS platform, iPECS ONE, offers new levels of flexibility. Through WebRTC technology, it can run on a web browser. This gives users a full UC experience without even needing to download software, while administrators can add and remove users with ease. By taking the cost and operational complexity out of scaling, you can focus your efforts on what matters: your business.
Collaboration
As remote working becomes more popular, some business leaders feel that collaboration will suffer as a result. In fact, thanks to cloud communication platforms, collaboration can be enhanced. Video conferencing allows face-to-face meetings from anywhere. You can share screens and documents in real time or use quick instant messages to provide quick updates on your projects.
All of this is logged and accessible in one application, making remote collaboration as effective as in-person teamwork. This means greater efficiency without any additional hardware.
Our product range is designed with collaboration in mind. In a single, easy-to-use interface, iPECS ONE enables group chat, instant messaging, voice and video call, and file sharing. In the age of hybrid working, this not only enables but enhances teamwork.
Analytics
Analysis is fundamental to any business. In order to manage workflows, plan ahead, and assess strengths and weaknesses, you need to understand your current performance levels. UCaaS can be enhanced by analytics suites, offering rich insights into your operation.
This includes call metrics and other KPIs, allowing you to make informed decisions about how to use your time and resources in the most efficient way possible.
Integrations
Another benefit of UCaaS is its ability to integrate with other tools. You can use it together with CRMs, APIs and other third-party applications, providing a further boost to productivity. There is no need to be slowed down by constantly switching between different systems.
This also means that you can enjoy the benefit of UC without having to spend extra on the rest of your ICT infrastructure.
Our UCaaS solution, iPECS ONE, is one of the market leaders for integrations. These include most third-party CRMs, and many other customization options.
iPECS ONE
iPECS ONE is a cutting-edge UCaaS solution from one of the most trusted brands in the business. It is a feature-rich digital workplace that combines all business communications in one application. With call handling, video conferencing and messaging in one place, teams can collaborate from anywhere.
Best of all, thanks to WebRTC technology, there is no need for users to download a single plug-in or any software at all – they can simply open a link and access the entire service in a web browser.
If you would like to find out more about our cloud solutions, speak to your nearest iPECS Global Partner.
Changing communication practices and working environments have left some businesses disconnected from their employees. Maintaining team collaboration was a reason for the shift toward cloud services and that global businesses took over the past eighteen months. Voice communication has always been preferred for business’ customer interaction, but for team collaboration there has been an increased demand for video, messaging, analytics and integrations. This is where iPECS services have allowed businesses to thrive.
With businesses now seeing the benefits that effective team collaboration has on productivity and customer service, there is a drive to find solutions that provide this. iPECS ONE and other iPECS Cloud services help businesses manage collaboration and keep their entire team productive and motivated.
Creating an effective collaboration environment
iPECS ONE promotes collaboration in the office. Being powered by WebRTC technology means that iPECS ONE allows you to access video conferencing in real time on a Chrome browser, no matter where your team are based. This is useful for teams in the same office, working across multiple offices or working remotely. The WebRTC framework makes initiating meetings between staff faster and more accessible than ever before.
Part of the push towards cloud services involves staff using personal devices for their work. iPECS ONE is compatible with a wide range of these devices. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and Macs are all supported. iPECS ONE supports video conferences of up to 15 participants. This can be either members of your team or 3rd party users, each using a device of their choice. This makes effective collaboration more accessible to a wider range of users without the need to download additional software or applications.
Presence displays whether individual colleagues are online and ready to collaborate, away from their workspace, or busy on a different call. This ensures there is no confusion when it comes to arranging meetings amongst staff. iPECS ONE also includes instant messaging, that allows you to reach colleagues and share information in a fast and professional way.
Facilitating teamwork from any location
One of the greatest challenges for any business looking to adopt a remote working policy is how they maintain collaboration amongst their team. If users cannot effectively reach their colleagues and customers, then they will feel isolated and unproductive.
The iPECS range of mobile apps counters this. iPECS ONE mobile delivers a consistent user experience on both Android and iOS devices. The Mobile client contains all the UC features users have come to expect. From call management services to instant messaging and video conferencing.
When users are working on the go, they still need to be able to contact their team. We understand that not every role is static, and iPECS Cloud support this. When making calls on an iPECS Cloud system, users can switch devices instantly, meaning they can stay on calls even when they are on the move. This enables better collaboration amongst users in sales or support roles who travel frequently.
Analytics supports staff
Team collaboration is not just about hosting calls and video conferences, it also means guaranteeing that your team are always supported. The new iPECS Analytics suite has features that make this possible.
A live wallboard shows how many calls each member of staff handle every day. This allows management teams to understand who is performing well and can easily identify where added support is needed. This extends to remote staff as well. Without the right analytics tools, it can be a challenge to see when staff working away from the office require extra support. iPECS Analytics allows you to identify remote staff at risk of being overwhelmed and offer them additional training or resources when required.
Integrations improve workplace efficiency
iPECS ONE integrates with over 60 major CRMs. This revolutionizes the way that you and your colleagues can collaborate on customer projects. With iPECS ONE you can update CRM details for individual clients, and that information will instantly be added to your communication service. This means your system is always up to date with the most important customer information and your staff can respond in a more personalized way to each client.
When customers call in to your business, Inbound CRM Record Population quickly displays customer details, added by your team. This data helps you to provide a bespoke service for each customer.
When staff are working across many different roles or locations it’s difficult to schedule meetings that everyone will reliably attend. iPECS Cloud integrates alongside scheduling and productivity software such as Outlook. This ensures staff have a clear view of when meetings are taking place and who else is attending.
Collaborate securely
Collaboration is crucial for business success, but it needs to be handled securely. This is especially true when staff work remotely and are using personal devices. Video Conferencing & Sharing among your teams is done on encrypted media by sRTP/DTLS so your teams can communicate visually and share contents securely using WebRTC.
All our Cloud services at IPECS are market orientated and designed to facilitate team collaboration. If you would like to find out more about our cloud solutions, speak to your nearest iPECS Global Partner.
Working remotely has had a huge impact on the effectiveness of customer service teams across the globe. Powerful analytics systems that can integrate with the latest cloud platforms are often overlooked as a contributor to successful remote management. In this blog post we will explore some of the ways in which iPECS Analytics can help you improve your brand’s reputation.
Analyze call flows
Advanced analytics tools like iPECS Analytics, the new companion module for iPECS communications platforms, are designed to help you reduce your average call handle time.
Call flow analysis helps identify bottlenecks and obstacles in your call flows. By taking a deep dive into your call records, you can identify whether callers consistently reach the correct team on the first try, how long they spend on hold, how long it takes for each call to be answered and many more indispensable data points.
This allows you to continuously improve your call handling processes, tweaking call flows to maximize staff productivity and customer satisfaction. iPECS Analytics gives you the data and insights you need to act confidently and decisively.
Remote management features
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses were forced to adapt their customer services operations to a new remote environment.
Those who were most successful made the best use of cloud systems and analytics tools to connect with and monitor the performance of remote staff. Cloud systems like iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE ensure your phone lines remain manned even when your office is closed. iPECS Analytics gives you the powerful tools and information you need to track performance of your remote staff and teams.
This approach has helped countless businesses around the world revisit and tweak their customer service processes to better suit a newly remote workforce. Allowing them to maintain and even improve customer service levels throughout the pandemic. iPECS Analytics takes it to the next level, allowing you to monitor stats in real-time and providing the deep insights. You need to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and reputation of your customer services team.
Track customer interactions to gain a better understanding
Tracking customer interactions with your phone system, and therefore with your staff, is a crucial benefit of the advanced capabilities of iPECS Analytics.
iPECS gives you the ability to adjust the operation of your phone system to better match the needs of your clients, reacting rapidly to the insights given by the intelligent analysis of detailed statistics for every call by iPECS Analytics.
Perhaps more than any other factor, this is the key benefit of call flow analysis. Tracking and analyzing how your customers interact with your business is crucial to success. Naturally, you already pay attention to your marketing campaigns and the impact they have on your brand’s reputation. So why not apply the same thought processes to your phone system?
iPECS Analytics makes it simpler than ever to monitor, track and improve your reputation among your customer base.
React and adapt to changing situations
The Covid-19 pandemic has been more disruptive to businesses globally than any other event in living memory. It has been the greatest test of business adaptability we have ever seen.
This makes the success of iPECS all the more impressive. At a time when businesses rely more than ever on their communications systems to keep them operating, iPECS has continued to provide innovative, reliable and accessible cloud solutions. Keeping businesses operating smoothly and efficiently.
This ethos has been extended to the remarkable iPECS Analytics module, which provides management with the confidence to make informed policy decisions. Every call provides a phenomenal amount of data, helping businesses track performance and transform customer service.
Plan staffing levels
Tracking your average caller wait time, abandoned call rate and call handle time, among other stats, allows you to plan your staffing levels with unprecedented accuracy.
iPECS Analytics makes this process simpler than ever, giving you the confidence that you’ll always have enough staff to handle expected call volumes.
iPECS Analytics can also help identify your busiest times of day, giving you the insight you need to plan accordingly. This can give an enormous boost to the efficiency of your operations by helping each agent to answer more calls in less time. The resulting reduction in the average call answer time and customer wait time goes a long way to giving your business the reputation for customer service excellence that it deserves.
iPECS systems provide far more than remote access and powerful analytics. As Unified Communications systems, iPECS ONE and iPECS Cloud act as your business’s central collaboration hub, combining all of your collaboration tools into one platform. Complete the picture with iPECS Analytics, the new tool from Ericsson-LG Enterprise and revolutionize your customer insights.
Disaster recovery and business continuity are incredibly important to modern business. In this blog post we will explore how modern technology can make business continuity simpler.
What is business continuity?
Business continuity planning is the process of identifying and planning responses to scenarios that could be a danger to your ability to keep working.
Of course, these vary depending on how and where you work, but usually include planning for power cuts or other interruptions to service at your office.
Being able to recover from these and other disasters is a crucial requirement for long-term survival in business, so business continuity should be a key consideration when you’re looking to deploy new technology in your organization.
What tools do you need?
– Data and backup
The latest cloud-based data and backup solutions are designed to support remote and flexible workers. Many modern backup and data recovery services can be installed on any device in use across your company. Ensuring that your staff’s work is protected, wherever it was created or stored.
– Accessible data storage
A huge part of protecting your business against device failure means deploying a resilient and highly available storage solution. Cloud storage solutions make your work and other business data accessible to all your staff. No matter where they’re working from, through a simple web application.
– Communications systems
The most important element of business continuity planning is ensuring that your phone lines remain manned and operational in a crisis. Most businesses still rely on their phones to attract new business, and collaborating internally in a remote scenario is practically impossible without a modern VoIP phone system or Unified Communications platform.
How can iPECS help?
– Cloud communications
At their core, iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE are built around the latest VoIP PBX technology. As well as giving you industry-leading call control features, iPECS Cloud solutions can finally remove the last remaining link between your physical premises and your phone numbers.
By routing calls over the internet, VoIP systems allow your phone numbers to ring anywhere. In the event you’re unable to get to the office, an on-site ISDN or PSTN system would force you to configure costly call forwards to your staffs’ mobiles or home landlines. This typically has horrendous effects on your carefully configured call queueing system, and can leave staff isolated and lacking information.
iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE allow you to sign in to your phone system over the internet from any location without needing any re-configuration or costly call forwards. This creates an ideal business continuity and disaster recovery solution, giving your business the agility it needs to thrive in any situation.
– Every tool under one umbrella
iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE are Unified Communications systems. This means that they combine all of the business collaboration tools your staff use into one simple service.
iPECS includes video calling, instant messaging, file and screen sharing, and of course enterprise-grade voice calling features. Combining all of these tools into one service increases the value of each individual feature. Launch a video call from an instant messaging chat, share your screen and any supporting files in a single click. Minimize customer wait times with state-of-the-art call handling features.
This approach also has obvious benefits for business continuity. Instead of ensuring the compatibility and survivability of half a dozen or more separate services, iPECS gives you a single system to work with. This makes creating a disaster recovery or business continuity far simpler, and gives you the confidence that your staff will be able to collaborate in any situation.
– Device independent
iPECS Cloud and particularly iPECS ONE offer support for practically any device. iPECS ONE uses the latest WebRTC technology, allowing you to sign in and use all the features of iPECS from a web browser.
There is no better tool for business continuity and disaster recovery. There’s simply no need to consider whether a particular PC, laptop or smartphone is able to connect to iPECS. This ensures that your staff can pick up their work from any device. Not only does this enable remote and flexible working practices, but it also ensures that your phone lines stay open and your staff can continue to collaborate in a crisis.
– Single click provisioning
Pre-provision disaster recovery or backup devices in just a few clicks, or respond in real time to an ongoing situation with the powerful hardware and app provisioning features of iPECS.
This means that, unlike the cumbersome and complex on-site phone systems of the past, iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE are assets to disaster recovery and business continuity plans. IPECS’s communications platforms give you the ability to rapidly respond to a disaster, ensuring your staff can keep working uninterrupted in any situation.
– Resilience
iPECS Cloud and iPECS ONE offer un-matched reliability and availability. With a global infrastructure operating across dozens of datacenters, IPECS’s cloud communications platforms give you the confidence that they will always be available for you to work.
iPECS Cloud solutions provide far greater resiliency and fault protection than even the most complex on-site systems. The scale of the global iPECS infrastructure ensures that your communications platform is snappy, responsive, and most importantly of all available, no matter what happens.
