Uc Today - Out Loud

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee Zoom Video Communications about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. Daniel Creigh, Head of the UK and Ireland for Zoom, joins Patrick on the podcast to take use through some of the huge growth that Zoom have been experiencing around the globe as well as discussing the additional functions and features that they are constantly adding to the platform. 

We have launched our inaugural UC Awards 2018. The awards will be recognising the most disruptive and innovative companies and solutions across the Unified Communications and Collaboration industries. An industry esteemed judging panel will evaluate the applications and crown the winners in each of the seven categories. The winners, and those deserving of a special mention will be announced in November. As part of the submissions we spoke to award nominee Five9 about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. 

Call analytics and reporting can provide huge benefits to customers around the world who want to better understand and enhance their service provision. But often this information is in a format that is difficult for customers to understand and interpret. Node4 the UK based managed service provider are aiming to change that with the launch of their call reporting and analytics feature.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are two technology areas that raise questions about the legitimacy of various human jobs roles moving into the future. Many people have postulated that developments in AI and ML will lead to the redundancy of humans across many industries in job roles that can be easily assimilated by machines. But is this the case and will machines be taking our jobs? In this episode of Out Loud we hear from an expert in the field who explains more about this very topic. 

With modern networks transforming at such a rapid speed it is critical for enterprise organisations and service providers to be able to ensure security throughout every network layer. What are the most useful tools that enable companies to do this? In this episode we are joined by Ribbon Communications and Nectar who have partnered to offer a centrally located unified communications diagnostics (UCD) system to monitor multiple, geographically dispersed SBCs and identify network issues affecting communication systems.

As the financial year draws to an end at Cisco we review all of the latest news and updates from the summer in their world of collaboration. Next month Cisco have their annual sales conference GSX and we examine all the features that will be discussed during the event. Normally the FY year end brings some restructuring so it will be interesting to see what will unfold. We look at updates to the Webex meeting platform including expanded device support and democratised meetings. 

We are living in the age of technological revolution. There are a number of new innovations that are affecting organisations tech strategies around the globe. What are these different megatrends and how can the world, and industry utilise their innovations to transform? Century Link join the podcast today to examine the trends, such as the rise of IoT, Cloud and Big Data, and try to understand how enterprise organisations are reacting. 

Collaboration is one of the biggest rising trends through the technology world, enabling organisations to work together more efficiently across geographical locations and internal departments. Have the established players taken the best approach to enable the most effective collaboration? Unify have a fresh approach with their collaboration tool, Circuit. Circuit has a number of unique features that differentiate it within the market. In this episode we hear all about it and how effective collaboration is needed to create a self-service culture. 

Everyone who has worked in an office knows that the way in which different people use technology varies dramatically according to their personality. Leading hardware solutions provider, Plantronics, have looked at this in depth with their research into the effect of personas. Would you work best with a desk phone or maybe just with a headset that is compatible with a mobile device? Plantronics have mapped seven different personality types and examined how technology can best be used to enhance each users working efficiency. 

Collaboration platforms are one of the hottest areas of technology that we examine at UC Today. Enabling effective communication and teamwork the platforms are becoming a vital business system within industry and professional environments. With the enormous rise in their uptake, the security of the platforms appears to have taken a back seat. Shadow IT is another aspect of business communication that organisations need to address to combat the use of consumer collaboration and communication tools. In this episode we discuss security with Wire who are arguably the world's most secure collaboration platform. 

Omnichannel communication now forms the basis of customer to business interactions across the globe with the days of single communication paths behind us. But why is omnichannel communication so important and is it getting harder for organisations to offer viable omnichannel customer experiences? Zendesk are one of the world's leading providers of customer service and support software and they examined why companies are looking to omnichannel to improve their CX provision. Their benchmark report analysed data from more than 45,000 of their customers in 140 countries and today we talk to them about the findings in detail. 

One of the most important aspects of any business are its communication systems. Connecting the organisations, often, global workforce, enabling communication with customers and partners is critical to operational success. How can you be sure that your systems are working as well as they can be? In this episode we examine the sort operational efficiency goals that organisations should be setting themselves and how best they can achieve those.

Contact Centre is one of the fastest developing areas that we cover at UC Today. We hear from leading provider Five9 to examine their full portfolio. The world of the contact centre is changing so we wanted to understand how different products and services suit different customer requirements. As one of the leading providers of customer contact centre solutions we asked to break down their full product portfolio for us in this episode.

It has been a record breaking summer around the globe weather wise and the scorching temperatures have been mirrored in the hot bed of news and gossip within the unified communications and collaboration industries. The UC Today team look back over the last few months to summarise all the latest news for you. The team look back at the recent events, provide a news round up and look ahead to the next couple of months. 

More and more businesses are looking to the cloud to host their next communication platform. The enhanced feature availability, flexibility and resiliency offered by cloud platforms is becoming more and more appealing to organisations. The landscape in terms of provisioning is transforming rapidly and with the greater spectrum of options now available the decision on which path to choose is undoubtedly a difficult one. Avaya have made a huge effort to transform their offerings to specialise in cloud platforms and today we hear from some of their experts to break down the options available so that navigating the cloud course can be a little bit more simple. 

The explosion in the amount of data available is transforming our ability to analyse business interactions throughout industries. This explosion is only expected to continue with the rise and onset of IoT. But how can organisations utilise this data for their benefit? Not all data is good data and being able to clarify the relevant sources from the background white noise is critical in enabling the most enhanced analytics. With the developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, optimisation of analytics is not so much a future concept as it is with us right now. Workforce optimisation and analytics specialists Calabrio join Patrick on the podcast to discuss the topic. 

Augmented, mixed and virtual reality are some of the most exciting technologies emerging at the moment. But what are the different realms of reality? This episode of Out Loud explores the differences, benefits and practical applications of each realm. Our expert guests explains the nuances of each and provides some examples of how these can we used within industry and business.

Cavell Group is the thought-leader in the European future voice and VoIP marketplace providing analytics and insights across the industry. In June this year they hosted their Cloud Comms Summit in Washington DC and we were there to bring you all the news and themes from the event. Along with the Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA), Cavell hosted the summit which is the leading event for Service Providers in the cloud communications industry to share best practices, discuss key trends and meet the industry vendors. One of the attendees were 2600Hz, whose business is founded on the premise of open source communications.

8x8 specialise in cloud communication and customer engagement solutions and they have just announced the general availability of their next generation platform, X Series. Up until now there has been no offering within the industry boasting to combine one cloud solution for voice, video conferencing, contact centre, team messaging and collaboration but now there is. X Series is available across mobile and desktop devices and 8x8 are aiming to change the game with this all-encompassing new platform. We hear all about it in this episode of Out Loud. 

The cloud telephony market is a crowded and competitive one. The market itself has grown more slowly than other markets where other applications and business functions have been migrated more readily to the cloud. It does appear now through that the cloud communication market is catching up and demand within organisations is growing. Within the UK the traditional channel market has already started to change. From the original setup of ICT resellers and voice specialists the lines are now blurring and the most resourceful and successful providers can provide all aspects of a business's technology needs.