Founder & President
UCaaS migrations have moved into hyperdrive in 2020 because of Covid-19. Companies who were waiting for their migration to UCaaS have pushed this initiative to the forefront of their projects.
In addition, organizations who were on lackluster UCaaS solutions with limited features are now looking at top UCaaS providers to supply them with the feature functionality they need to keep communication and collaboration going. With much of the workforce still “at home”, it is fully understandable why UCaaS is more important than ever.
The list of suppliers competing for this business continues to change and evolve. Cisco purchased Broadsoft in 2018, which generated shockwaves across to the UCaaS industry as there are thousands of UCaaS providers using the BroadSoft platform as the backbone of their solution. However, one of the largest announcement as of late has been Zoom Conferencing, who officially entered the UCaaS arena in 2019, just in time for the Covid-19 lockdowns. The other latest announcement is 8×8 purchasing Fuze in 2022.
If you have Zoom today
Zoom “Enterprise Cloud Phone System” has provided the ease of use that we enjoy from Zoom Meetings and has applied it to a UCaaS solution. This is backed by a solid backbone and scalable/redundant platform that has successfully absorbed the tremendous number of new Zoom Meetings and UCaaS since 2019.
There are plenty of features that Zoom provides on their platform. However, being relatively new to the UCaaS solution there are gaps. The Zoom application that is used on smart phones and desktops has strong feature/functionality.
Pro’s and con’s
For most SMB clients, they expect their UCaaS or phone system to also act as their contact center solution. With Zoom, there are limitations in how this solution can be configured for contact center services and it also lacks the omnichannel feature set that most CCaaS solutions are known for.
To combat this, Zoom has partnered with Five9, Genesys and others to supply clients the integration between CCaaS and UCaaS. While not the same platforms, there is a decent level of integration.
Out of the gate, Zoom appears to have a strong offering with their UCaaS product, but it is important to weigh all the requirements for your solution and make the right decision. Each supplier in the UCaaS arena has aspects of their solution that are stronger than others. Looking at all the relevant suppliers will give you a full scope of what the industry has to offer. My team and I look forward to helping you make this important decision.