Picture this: Your IT department is already overwhelmed with helpdesk requests, and now has to deal with the overnight impact of COVID19 on remote communications needs. On top of that, you’re experiencing quite a bit of network slowness, but your IT staff are bogged down with other problems that persist in the background as they struggle to meet the demands of the business. Sound familiar?
In today’s world, it is common for certain services—telecoms, cloud, networking or security services—to be managed together. In responding to the growing customer demand in this arena, BT and RingCentral partnered to create BT Cloud Work, a UCaaS product wrapped with the reliability, professional services and end-to-end cloud migration support you’d come to expect from BT. BT offers a range of value-added services such as on-site visits, remote management, consulting services, customer on-boarding training or out-of-hours support to help customers on their digital transformation journey.
Below we outline seven reasons customers are migrating with the joint BT and RingCentral proposition to cloud communications.
1. Cost effectiveness through bundling IT projects
BT allows businesses to focus on their core strategic initiatives, instead of the day-to-day maintenance. This saves money in the long run to go with BT if you are doing multiple upgrades at once. Through BT Professional Services, you will have access to 30-40 experts in various areas of the IT, including networking, storage, virtualisation, compliance, network security etc. BT Professional services will plan your digital transformation project from an end-to-end perspective and consider all your new technology needs. They create a migration path that is optimised specifically for your current environment, your new tech stack and your unique business needs.
2. Saves time—more focus on your core business
Leave IT to the BT specialists, so that you can also focus on what your core business does best. This means that there is more time available for things that are really important for your business, such as good customer service, new marketing campaigns and the development of new products and services. While BT can manage the IT for you, the beauty of the BT Cloud Work product is that it comes with extremely robust admin controls – such as adding users yourself from a few clicks from your mobile device – that are intuitive, easy to use and manage. We give you the option to outsource IT management but also easily manage it if you choose.
3. Improved IT vendor management
BT’s main proposition is that they can interface with many vendors on your behalf. Your BT Account Manager will serve as the main point of contact for you and will escalate issues to the appropriate vendor (including RingCentral) while tracking the process through to resolution. Outsourcing vendor management to BT removes the pain of working with multiple vendors, and having a single, trusted partner as a coordinator streamlines operations and avoids unnecessarily burdening with a task that is best left to subject matter experts.
4. Double up on application + network security
Security is critical. Many business owners live in fear that they will fall victim to a cyber security breach. While RingCentral has a highly regarded 7-layer application security architecture built in, we always encourage customers to also consider network security as an important part of your cyber security practice.
BT security experts will take the time to make you aware of any security risks that could be present in your overall security practice, sharing examples that have been highlighted in the media and explaining how their data and compliance practices activate when such an event arises. BT have a team of 2500 security specialists, whose entire job is to do just this. It is also crucial to address concerns about compliance, especially in industries such as health and legal, where regulatory compliance is a major concern. BT can be very helpful in guiding you through all of these facets.
5. A proactive approach to maintenance
This is a major and important benefit to managed IT services. C-suite have little to no time to spend thinking about their IT infrastructure, worrying about the dependability and speed of the network connections etc. By working with BT they are afforded the luxury of all-day, every-day, around-the-clock coverage. Security solutions are always working to detect potential threats, vulnerabilities, or disturbances. When you opt for a fully managed IT model, bugs and issues can most often be troubleshot and remediated by RingCentral and BT before they are ever a concern to the business owner. Owners are happy to pay for such a service. When businesses work with BT they are able to take advantage of proactive business continuity solutions.
What’s unique about BT Cloud Work is that it also automatically updates itself every 12 weeks with new features, enhancements, bug fixes and tools so you never have to worry about manually managing your communications tech stack again. Say goodbye to the “end of life / end of maintenance” tasks from your to do list!
Watch below a thought leadership interview with RingCentral UK’s Sunny Dhami and BT’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Fotis Karonis on COVID19 remote working strategies, digital transformation and more.
6. Prevents expensive downtime and breaches
Security breaches and extensive downtime can turn expensive fast. BT customers avoid these financial risks by receiving consistent updates to their network, security, and cloud products as well as risk assessments and fast responses when their network goes offline. BT Cloud Work has 7 layers of application security built in so you can rest assured that your cloud communications application will not let you down. But a cloud application can still go down if the network is not optimised or a network security breach occurs (outside your RingCentral communications stack). This is where an MSP like BT would step in to provide you network security add ons to keep your digital commerce safe.
Moreover RingCentral’s active-active redundancy model builds multiple layers of redundancy into a vendor-agnostic, commodity-based architecture. In the event of a failure, RingCentral’s automated systems, in conjunction with an always-on, world-class network operations centre (NOC), ensure rapid transition to back up systems as needed to maintain uninterrupted service availability.
7. Peace of mind
BT gives many customers the peace of mind they need to continue to run their business at full steam. BT is a secure, reliable and trusted brand that has helped thousands of UK businesses through end to end digital transformations. This sometimes is enough a reason to opt to work with a company like BT for your first transition to cloud services or a complicated IT transformation initiative that seems overwhelming to handle.
RingCentral and BT sell two products together called BT Cloud Work and Cloud Work Contact Centre. BT Cloud Work is a cloud optimised, mobile first communications platform for voice, video meetings, messaging, presence and team collaboration. BT Cloud Work allows you to future proof your business communications while maintaining tech stack freedom and leverage cloud cost optimisation for your business.
Cloud Work Contact Centre is a cloud-based contact centre solution enabling today’s businesses to provide personalised and differentiated customer experiences. Built for your entire company, BT Cloud Work combines with Contact Centre, making it easy for companies to manage the entire customer experience in the contact centre and beyond. Engage with customers on the channel of their choice and connect them with the right resources anywhere, every time so you can resolve cases faster and sell more.
For more information visit the BT website.
Originally published May 27, 2020, updated Apr 10, 2023
