Welcome to Ringside. This series invites insights from business leaders in the communications space both within and beyond our walls. In partnering with others to help create the future of work, we’re curious to uncover a broader perspective on business communications. This episode welcomes Simon Jones from Atos.
Simon, what’s your role at Atos and what do you love about your job?
I head up the UCC Sales Division in the UK. This covers all aspects of how we present ourselves to the Markets in the six core industries:
- Financial Services & Insurance Industry
- Health & Life Sciences Industry
- Manufacturing Industry
- Public Sector & Defence
- Resources & Services Industry
- Telecom Media & Technology Industry
My primary focus is to ensure that we are presenting the best Atos has to offer in the area of unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) and contact centre applications to our customers. Our offerings range from the more traditional areas of premises-based PBX where we support our existing customers and then how we work with them to map their individual journeys to the cloud.
Working with our customers is definitely the best part of my role. Getting to know them personally, understanding their objectives, how they work, their culture and their operation all helps to inform and shape our approach.
What are your thoughts on the post-pandemic economy and how the UK public sector can overcome the challenge?
Our public sector customers’ priorities have changed rapidly in 2020. Just look at the areas of business continuity, remote working, security and customer experience. These are all now operational priorities with budget. For local government pre-pandemic, home working or agile working was often limited to certain roles and work styles; now they are considering how they maintain service levels, staff wellbeing and service management when more and more of their resources may need to be distributed and working from home for long periods of time.
Why did Atos choose RingCentral as their technology partner of choice for the evolution of the Unify brand?
Atos has a responsibility to our existing customers to provide them with a route to the cloud that is smooth, mitigates risk and also maximises our customers’ investment in Unify technology already. In addition to this, the ethos of Atos is to bring the best of breed solutions to the table for our customers, new and old. Partnering with RingCentral enhances what we can do for our customers, not just in a technological sense but also in a customer centric, partnering for the best outcome sense. I really enjoy working with the team in RingCentral and I suppose that is where the best outcomes come from; our ability to work together as partners for the common goal of bringing the best solutions, service and outcomes to fruition.
Why do you think Unify Office by RingCentral is unique in the over-cluttered UCaaS market?
Unify Office is not just a solution set, it is an end-to-end approach. We take time to get to know and contribute to the customer’s overall strategy. There are many options for our customers to choose from and we recognise that. The market is very crowded and there are varying differences in the quality of the services being offered. Our uniqueness comes from our perspective. We generally get to see the bigger picture and Unify Office as a platform enables us to tailor the experience user by user, feature by feature, all combined into a secure, easy-to-use communications platform powered by the global leaders in this space: RingCentral.
The common factor for all customers looking to invest in services is to get value for money. That is not just around the per month per user cost, but also what it leads to with business efficiency, improvement in process and staff productivity. Our approach is to structure the commercial agreement around the customer journey, where we enable transformation by the deployment of new service but then manage the risk of decommissioning old technology.
What is your advice for public sector technology leaders and CIOs today?
Take time to share your vision with your suppliers; we have lots of knowledge and insight to share and in turn help shape direction. This is what we do and do very well at Atos. Taking time to see the big picture and from that help steer direction enables us as partners to digitally transform the enterprise. Our entire approach is not just about addressing the immediate need, it encompasses the now, the near and the long term aspirations and we set out that journey. Each milestone has its own set of measures and is clearly aligned for the journey as a whole.
Additionally, have the confidence to embrace change. Change can be positive and if managed properly where risks are mitigated and service is ensured can bring about an evolution in the workplace.
Have the confidence to embrace change. Change can be positive and, if managed properly, where risks are mitigated and service is ensured, can bring about an evolution in the workplace. – Simon Jones, Atos Click To Tweet
As we thank Simon for his time and advice, it’s worth reminding you that Unify Office is available right now. And remember, to get more expert insights on UCaaS, the cloud, and improving communication and collaboration in the new workscape, keep looking out for new episodes of Ringside.
Originally published Dec 11, 2020, updated Jan 16, 2023
