UC Summit 2020 has been live for almost a month now, and has hosted thousands of visitors in its first weeks. That’s no surprise – with the variety and quality of content available, it’s a golden opportunity for businesses to learn about the present and future of communications technology. How we communicate is how we do business, therefore our methods impact directly on our bottom line.
Communication in partnership is the theme of a talk given by Amritesh Chaudhuri, RingCentral’s SVP of Product and Solutions Marketing, at the Gartner Symposium in November. It’s a fitting keynote for UC Summit as it posits communication as the cornerstone of effective collaboration. Amrit invokes the industry-defining moment of RingCentral’s partnership with Avaya to illustrate the concept.
Suzanne Simard, in her TED talk on How trees talk to each other, explains that “a forest is much more than what you see.” Trees are the foundation of a forest, but much of the symbiotic dynamics are happening beyond what is immediately apparent. “You can take out one or two hub trees, but there’s a tipping point,” says Suzanne. “You take out one too many and the whole system collapses.”
Suzanne found that trees were not competing but collaborating, sending nutrients and even distress signals throughout their network. She explains that trees share vital information about sunlight and water sources across their root system. This, together with the nutrients they share, contributes to the resilience of the forest ecosystem.
Businesses are no different, says Amritesh. Your business’s ability to connect, communicate and adapt over vast distances is critical for growth. This drives survival and makes a business thrive. How well you do this determines how well you do in the market.
How we communicate in our personal lives is changing how we communicate in our work lives. Amritesh argues that our modes of communication are completely different today from how they were only five years ago. The threads of multi-device, work from anywhere capability are coming together across the whole workplace.
How we communicate in our personal lives is changing how we communicate in our work lives. The threads of multi-device, work from anywhere capability are coming together across the whole workplace. Click To Tweet
The same trend is manifest in external communication. Our customers are no longer just calling us – they also use social media and other channels to get in contact. Customers expect their interactions with product or service providers to be effortless across every channel – not just chat and email. In B2B interactions, says Amritesh, the way we talk to our vendors is completely different now from five years ago.
This increase in mobility is also reflected in our infrastructure. Investment in premises-based UC infrastructure is waning because future cloud UC offerings will be far ahead in terms of features, functions, portals, analytics and dashboards.
The scales have tipped: Cloud is enabling constant innovation.
Transition to the cloud is being driven by the need for agility and faster innovation. While on-premises fixed systems take time and effort to adapt, cloud gives businesses that infinite scale.
One effect of the digital shift is that CIOs have to constantly change to meet employee and customer expectations. For the CIO, it’s no longer just about managing software and hardware and being the broker for the business. It’s much more than that.
Gartner predicts that by 2021 CIOs will be as responsible as HR for workplace culture. Through the implementation and management of technology, information and ‘nutrients’ can be shared throughout an organisation. Business communication is becoming much more about human connection. It’s not just about video meetings; it’s about driving business outcomes. Implementing customer service tools isn’t just about adding a contact centre; it’s about making sure your customers are being heard.
Find out how this can be achieved successfully and sustainably: visit UC Summit 2020 to watch Amritesh’s presentation in full. There are many more excellent talks from a variety of technology providers available at UC Summit 2020 – simply register for free to get access to all that quality content.
Originally published Feb 18, 2020, updated Jan 17, 2023
