Podcasts about comms dealer news

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Customer Contact Week is arguably the biggest and most important contact centre, CX and customer care event on the planet. UC Today attended the event this year which took place in Las Vegas in June. One of the most disruptive players in the communications market has been Twilio. Their innovative development based platform has captured the imagination of a huge amount of customers. As a CX focused event CCW's main premise suits the Twilio proposition so well as their platforms are hugely flexible, allowing organisations to tailor solutions to enhance their customer service as much as possible.

Customer Contact Week is arguably the biggest and most important contact centre, CX and customer care event on the planet. UC Today attended the event this year which took place in Las Vegas in June. Genesys were one of the most visible brands at the event with various presenters and speakers taking part in the conference itself. One of the most interesting ideas we heard at CCW18 was the use of storytelling within CX experiences. Not fanciful tales to mislead customers but using narratives to ensure the customers get the best experiences possible.

Call routing has always been considered a dark art with little or no recognition within businesses, despite the crucial role it plays within system functions. From Automatic Call Distributors through the development of CTI systems, the development of routing has come a long way. Queue based routing was the original premise with skills based routing a later enhancement. Now we have reached the age of predictive routing where AI can be utilised to maximise potential.

Customer Contact Week is arguably the biggest and most important contact centre, CX and customer care event on the planet. UC Today attended the event this year, which took place in Las Vegas in June. Five9 was the main sponsor and one of the most visible and prominent brands at the event. Patrick is joined by some of their executive team to discuss the event from a Five9 perspective but also review their position in the industry.

Workforce behaviour is changing dramatically, the rise in remote and flexible working is dictating the requirements for employers. The youngest members of the workforce have very different ideas about how they are most productive, the traditional office setup and the tools businesses provide may not align with that. We also need to consider the next workforce generation who are not yet in employment but will be the graduates of the future in the next 5 to 10 years as their ideals might be even more radical.

RingCentral have commissioned some research in their Zen Survey examining collaboration, where they try to establish the most efficient ways of working. The huge amount of communication and collaboration platforms available has increased the complexities for organisations when trying to optimise their workflows. Communication and collaboration methods vary according to various factors, including industry verticals but also within the different generations of an organisation's workforce. We take a look at the best ways to avoid disruption and ensure productivity.

Ribbon Communications are one of the largest communications equipment and software manufacturers after the merger of GENBAND and Sonus Networks. Their annual event 'Ribbon Perspectives 2018' took place in Los Angeles and UC Today were there to hear from some of their senior executives and bring you a summary of the event. We hear about the importance of the gathering and also about some of their innovative new solutions that took centre stage during proceedings.

Customer Contact Week is arguably the biggest and most important contact centre, CX and customer care event on the planet. This year's event starts on the 18th of June in Las Vegas and UC Today will be there to bring you all of news. One of the biggest and most exciting brands attending will be Five9 who provide leading cloud contact centre software. In this episode we speak to them to preview the event to find out why it is so important for providers of CX enablers.

Unified Communication platforms are some of the most important business systems utilised by organisations. Providing the vital links between departments, colleagues, partners and customers they are the lifeblood of nearly all industries. But are they working to their full potential? Research conducted by UC management specialists Virsae indicates that many are not. Over provisioning, inefficient design and underutilised capacity are just some of their many findings which could be costing businesses millions worldwide. We hear from Virsae about the research and look at the best ways for businesses to try and improve their systems.

Emerging technologies like AI are really creating a buzz within the industry, but how do customers take advantage of the benefits? Pure-cloud communications provider Dialpad are here to help. They have added a specialist AI business TalkIQ to their platform and plan to enhance their existing proposition by adding further AI features and tools to their three main business offerings.

RingCentral were one of the biggest brands at UC EXPO 2018, we hear from them about their attendance at the event and some of the main trends from this year. Once we hear about their expo exploits we then move on to get their take on the current communication industry.

UC EXPO is Europe's biggest communication and collaboration event and 2018 did not disappoint. UC Today attended the event as media partners so in this episode of the Out Loud podcast we take you through all of the main news from the show. From Cisco through to Microsoft and stopping off on the way to discuss the emerging technologies on show at the event, we cover off all of the news for you if you weren't able to make it to the Excel in London.

GDPR comes into force on Friday the 25th of May and the hugely anticipated deadline has created so much buzz in the industry. A set of regulations that further enforce and tighten the restrictions around organisations and businesses managing the personal data and privacy of EU citizens. There are threats of huge fines for those who don’t comply with the new regulations. We speak to Five9 about how they have been preparing and helping their customers to be as ready as possible.

Slack recently announced they have reached an impressive 8 million daily users. So in this episode we speak to them to get their take on the current collaboration market. Since their inception the market has changed dramatically and many new players have entered as competitors. Not only has the competition increased but the market dynamic has changed with a much greater uptake of collaboration tools, like Slack, rapidly expanding the available market for providers.

There have been some major changes within Cisco's collaboration unit recently with the rebrand to Webex and some senior staff departing. During a partner collaboration event in London we caught up with Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's collaboration unit Snorre Kjesbu. Snorre was presenting at the event, which took place on the top floor of the Shard building in London and we had the chance to discuss all things collaboration.

There have been some major changes within Cisco's collaboration unit recently with the rebrand to Webex and some senior staff departing. During a partner collaboration event in London we caught up with Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's collaboration unit Snorre Kjesbu. Snorre was presenting at the event, which took place on the top floor of the Shard building in London and we had the chance to discuss all things collaboration.

Deployment and management of IP devices has been a headache for organisations, resellers and distributors historically. Solutions that can assist with this often time consuming and inefficient process are invaluable. In today's podcast we hear from Swoop Datacom and Westcon about ForgeServe a solution that can revolutionise device deployments.

Omnichannel communication is one of the hottest trends within unified communications and collaboration technology but in today's episode we focus on voice. The most traditional communication method between customer and organisations voice is still the most important tool in customer service. Red Box Recorders specialise in voice capture and understand the use of voice more than most so we put our questions to them to try and understand more about how it has developed historically.

April 2018 has proved to be one of the hottest months in Unified Communications and collaboration with loads of breaking news. Publisher of UC Today Rob Scott joins Patrick for a review of the month where they discuss all the biggest and most popular stories. The pair also look ahead to the month of May to speculate about what may occur and examine some of the upcoming deadlines such as GDPR.

Has the realisation that customer service and CX is the most important factor within business finally dawned on global industry? One of the buzz phrases within UC and C currently, it appears that many organisations have realised that the customer and their experiences are so critical to enable business success. Today on Out Loud we discuss the provision of customer service and how technology platforms are important but not the most vital factor in providing great customer services.

One of the fastest growing cloud platforms is CCaaS and one of the leading providers for workforce optimisation is Calabrio who understand the benefits. This podcast explores the importance of customer service and how cloud platforms can enhance an organisation’s ability to provide great service.

The modern workplace has changed dramatically since the turn of the century. From the traditional idea of a workplace 20 years ago in the archetypal office to the modern idea of remote working, the environment has transformed completely. In this episode we are joined by Mike Adams who is Channel Manager for Zoom Video Communications. Mike and Patrick discuss the new ideology of the workplace and how modern technology can enable much more innovative design when it comes to the 'office' wherever that might be.

The qualities of a successful entrepreneur are often hard to define and quantify, especially within the technology sector. Dave Dadds undoubtedly has those qualities. He spoke exclusively to UC Today about his industry history and how he managed to move from being a BT engineer in the 1980s to now being CEO of various successful technology businesses. Founder of VanillaIP and Uboss, Dave was one of the first to recognise the potential value in cloud communications and capitalise on this by providing great services to customers.

Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things are all hot topics within business, but does anyone fully realise the practical applications? LogMeIn have a real understanding. Making use of these emerging technologies within organisations is key to their success so we discuss some of the practical applications now and the future possibilities.

The last few months within UC and C have certainly been eventful. Publisher of UC Today Rob Scott joins Patrick for a review and round up of all the news. From last week's breaking story of Plantronic's Polycom acquisition to the confirmation of the Cisco BroadSoft deal's ratification we review all of the goings on and what might be to come in the next few months.

Collaboration technology and tools are often lorded as the best way for organisations to increase efficiencies for their end users, quantifying that efficiency is often more difficult. Realising those productivity gains is critical to proving value and providing accurate information in relation to ROI. With companies using a variety of different collaboration and communication mediums the issue of data analysis is made even more complex. We look at the correlation between accurate data analysis and providing great customer services

Often one of the lowest priority mediums within collaboration and meeting technology, sound is sometimes overlooked. Enhanced video capability and a simple user interfaces seem to be the number one targets with little attention paid to the quality of the audio. We spoke to Andrew Border from Dolby and he explains why this should not be the case and that sound and audio quality should be the number one priority for enabling functional and effective remote collaboration.

Earlier this week during Mitel Next 2018 in Munich we were lucky enough to speak to a host of senior Mitel Executives to hear their thoughts and opinions on the technology world and how Mitel fit into it. VP for UK & I and EMEA Channels Richard Roberts, CMO Wes Durow and EVP of Mitel Solutions Bob Agnes were all guests on Out Loud live giving us their opinions on all the latest trends.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Koldo Loidi, Avaya’s Global Data Privacy Officer, to discuss upcoming GDPR implementation. A specialist in the field Koldo explains some of the steps that Avaya have taken already to ensure their internal processes are up to the new legislation and how that will protect their customers.

Kira Makagon is on the pod today. Kira is the Executive Vice President of Innovation at RingCentral so has a great insight into the UC marketplace. Kira looks ahead into the rest of 2018 to examine some of the emerging technologies that are shaping the industry. We also discuss their focus on simplicity for users and their development plans for the rest of the year.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Vishal Brown from Yorktel to discuss the potential workplaces of the future and how they can be achieved with Unified Comms and collaboration. Vishal explains that to achieve the agile and mobile workplaces organisations demand, work is required from all factions from end users to systems integrators.

On Tuesday during Avaya's Edge World Tour we were lucky enough to speak to Fadi Moubarak, VP of International Markets at Avaya about their world tour and how they want to boost their partner's Avaya offering. We also spoke to some Avaya partners to find out how the event helps them and what they expect to happen with their Avaya business going forward.

Whilst attending ISE 2018 in Amsterdam last week we asked all of the vendors that we spoke to about why they go to huge amounts of effort to attend events. We tried to find out their main drivers for attending and if that justifies some of the huge costs behind the scenes.

André Hordagoda, co-founder of GoInStore, told us all about their proposition and how the future of online customer services and ecommerce might be drastically different in the future. With over 10 years' experience on the retail technology sector Andre is very familiar with the current systems in place and how these might develop in the future.

With a long history in the UK channel, working within data centres and cloud service providers, Karl Roe of Nuvias is perfectly placed to give his Cloud Service predictions for 2018. Through the importance of IP and AI as a default for businesses, listen in as Karl gives us his breakdown for the year ahead.

Irwin Lazar joins us on 'Out Loud' as we look at the emerging market trends within the collaboration space. Currently Vice President Service Director at Nemertes Research, Irwin has a broad range of experience across the market sector and is currently working on analysis of the data relating to market trends within Unified Communication and Collaboration.

For the first episode of Out Loud I thought who better to speak to than the founder and publisher of UC Today Rob Scott. Rob gives us an insight into the history of UC Today, his plans for its future and insight into the UC World.