Podcasts about telecoms industry news

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee GCI about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. GCI are a leading converged IT and communications supplier who have been well established within the UK for over 20 years. They are also one of the fastest growing managed service providers within the UK with a suite of possible support and maintenance options for all manner of businesses. In this episode their CEO, Adrian Thirkill, was available to give us all the information on their position within the industry and plans for the future.

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee Natterbox about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. Natterbox provide cloud communications solutions that embed in the Salesforce platform. During 2018 they have experienced some remarkable growth and their Sales Director Ian Moyse is on hand to take us through all of the news.

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee Crestron about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. It has been an incredibly busy time for Crestron and not without its challenges. Robin explains that the European market has transformed dramatically so the away Crestron work has also changed. Industry demands from customers are shifting hugely with the greater onset of cloud technologies and the rise in popularity of collaboration platforms.

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee ZaiLab about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. Asonele Kotu, Head of PR and Events for ZaiLab, is Patrick's guest on the podcast to discuss an incredibly busy year in one of the world's most innovative and disruptive companies. ZaiLab launched their 100% cloud-cased, pay-as-you-go contact centre platform earlier this year so expanding their footprint and raising brand awareness has been their main focus. ZaiLab have ambitious plans for the future so we hear what they have instore for 2019 and beyond.

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee Red Box about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. Their CEO Richard Stevenson joins Patrick on the podcast. Richard gives us a brief history of Red Box and explains how they have transformed into one of the world's leading voice capture and analytics specialists. The use of voice data is changing and Red Box are at the forefront of the new frontier in terms of analytics and insights.

As part of the submissions for the inaugural UC Awards we spoke to award nominee Tollring about their year so far, the main industry trends impacting them, and their plans for 2019. Tony Martino who is the CEO of Tollring joins Patrick on the podcast to take us through all of the latest Tollring news as well as discussing the increasing importance of security and compliance across industry. Shifting work patterns are also impacting the requirements for organisations to be able to monitor and analyse data.

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.

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.

Our expert guest Tom Arbuthnot takes us through July's monthly update for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. As always there is loads of news for Microsoft Teams with a host of new features that Tom runs through for us. The biggest news however is that Skype for Business Server 2019 has been made available in public preview. It will be the next stage for customers looking to continue their Skype for Business use on premise and Tom updates us on any new features and changes from the last version.

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.

Emerging technologies and the changing consumer landscape have transformed what customers expect from their business interactions. The traditional model of the contact centre has to transform too. In many cases it already has. With the massive increase in cloud based contact centre platforms many would argue we have already reached a new era. Brain Solis, author of Contact Center 2.0: The Rise of Collaborative Contact Centers, is the expert guest on the podcast today to provide an overview of his report which was commissioned by RingCentral. The report focusses on the premise that digital transformation is making contact centres more unified, collaborative and intelligent.

UCaaS and CPaaS platforms are some of the most innovative within the communications market and can enable some real benefits for organisations that leverage them fully. One of the most desirable attributes for a business is that of agility, allowing them to react quickly and decisively in their often competitive industries. UCaaS and CPaaS platforms can really assist to create agile structural models for business and in this episode we look at how they can do this. Ribbon Communications have an intense focus on helping their customers and partners to achieve agile processes so are the perfect guest to join Patrick on the podcast for a deep dive into how they do this.

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. Mitel are one of the huge players in the communications landscape. They have made an enormous effort when it comes to transitioning their customers into the cloud. At the event they were showcasing their latest cloud contact centre solutions and we were there to discuss them and take a look.

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 and the cloud communications industry to share best practices, discuss key trends and meet the industry vendors. As the industry is in flux it provided great insight into the main changes and trends that will be shaping the landscape in the future.

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. In this episode we hear from Talkdesk who is a leading cloud contact centre software provider. As a provider of customer contact systems events like CCW are vitally important for Talkdesk for a number of different reasons. We examine the main themes from the show and also look at some of this year's biggest industry trends.

Unified Communication systems seem to be the last bastion of an organisations infrastructure to move into the cloud. This can be the result of a number of factors but Avaya and their partners are keen to ensure the industry is fully prepared in all aspects. They have shifted their focus over recent years to their cloud portfolio. Today we hear from one of their specialist cloud partners, Formation Tech, about how their business started and why they chose Avaya's cloud platform as the foundation for their solutions.

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.

Deploying a new communication or collaboration system across a business is undoubtedly a huge undertaking. How can you be sure your network is capable of successfully managing the traffic required? Today we look a tool from the experts at Modality Systems which can enable businesses to ensure their network environment is ready for such a large system change. Their Impact Assessment is specifically designed to test customer networks prior to deployment to mitigate any potential risk when a Microsoft Skype for Business or Teams project is initiated.

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.

As usual loads has been going on in the world of Cisco collaboration. Our monthly update for June brings you all the latest news and updates for the platforms. Webex Teams has a new user interface (UI) and our Cisco expert takes us through the main changes. The changes all tie into Cisco's drive to make the platform as simple to use as possible. Further integration with the WebEx meetings platforms has also been enabled.

As usual loads has been going on in the world of Cisco collaboration. Our monthly update for June brings you all the latest news and updates for the platforms. Webex Teams has a new user interface (UI) and our Cisco expert takes us through the main changes. The changes all tie into Cisco's drive to make the platform as simple to use as possible. Further integration with the WebEx meetings platforms has also been enabled.

Security threats continue to grow, evolve, and multiply, continually threatening organisations with a variety of undesirable outcomes. Now more than ever it is vital to clearly establish the most efficient and effective way of protecting your business systems. As organisations adopt more collaboration and communication solutions the risk of breach potentially increases with more access points for intruders. Security cannot be an afterthought it must be present through all stages of planning, deployment and usage.

Our expert guest Tom Arbuthnot take us through June's monthly updates for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. It's been another busy month in the world of Microsoft collaboration and communication news. Teams is now available on US government tenants, meeting the compliance standards required opens up a new landscape of public sector users to the world of Teams. There are also further updates in terms of Teams availability on the Microsoft Surface Hub and some news about Skype for Business and Teams calling plans.

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.

Organisations spend huge amounts of money on their public image. Branding, websites and marketing materials all play a crucial role in amplifying and enhancing a company's public image, but what about your telephony on hold systems? For too long phone systems have had unprofessional and inefficient on hold systems, often considered to be unimportant they actually play a huge role in the frontline of customer services. In this episode we discuss these systems and how they can be enhanced.

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.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular collaboration platforms on the planet. We wanted to understand more about how it's growing with customers on a global scale. Modality Systems is the world’s largest Microsoft communications practice so they are perfectly placed to explain more about how Teams is being deployed and used by their customers. They join the UC Today team for a group discussion focusing on Microsoft Teams on the frontline in terms of deployment and the most critical factor, adoption.

PeterConnects offer a variety of innovative solutions to enhance Microsoft’s Skype for Business and Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager platforms. Their customer contact centre solutions comprise an Attendant, ServiceDesk, ManagerAssistant, OmniDirectory and a ContextManager. We hear from their CEO where we discuss the penultimate leg of their European partner tour and the future of their portfolio.

The traditional sales landscape is changing. The different purchasing models used by businesses and also within the consumer environment require a shift in sales approach. Many more services are moving to consumption models. Historically a sale for a particular product or service might have been made only once every few years before an upgrade. Now though with the rise in the consumption economy and with increased buyer power, flexibility on the behalf of the buyer is enhanced. We consider these changes and how selling may need to morph to reflect changing industries.

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.