Why CIOs Should Adopt Cloud Telephony Services CIOs need to perform the unenviable task of balancing information usage in a manner which keeps delicate information secured.

We all know how Cloud computing has simplified the worlds of CIOs & IT Heads. It's emerging significance is all the more evident with big cloud service providers establishing their Data centers in India. These providers include global big names such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Digital Ocean and more.

The job of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) involves various dynamics. In this era of information overload as well as warfare, CIOs need to perform the unenviable task of balancing information usage in a manner which keeps delicate information secured. At the same time, it also needs to be distributed regularly and in ample quantities to not hamper day-to-day functioning.

What keeps CIOs awake at night-

• Security concerns
• Downtimes
• Upgrades and Migration
• Licenses & Regulations
• Hardware upgrades and redundancies

What keeps CIOs calm-

• Reliability
• Service-Level Agreement
• Elastic Scale
• Provision on Demand

Instead of talking about 10 Reasons why CIOs need cloud telephony, let us take real examples of enterprise grade companies who have chosen cloud telephony under different circumstances, the process they have undertaken and the success achieved while doing so-

Cloud Telephony employed in different industries- A sketch

CASE 1

Two wheeler manufacturers managing communication across various channels of distribution network spread throughout India regularize communication through central control with virtually no hardware. In such a scenario, Virtual Numbers are a blessing as through them, companies operating in aggregation or dealership model can have complete control over their channel or salesforce.

The manufacturer in this case simply provisions a unique number provided by the cloud telephony company to each of its dealer/distributor and uses these numbers for advertising. When prospects call, it will automatically identify and connect the customer to the right dealer.

Furthermore, all the conversations are now accounted for with an option to record the conversations too. Comprehensive solutions such as these almost eliminate the need of "Expert technical resources' for auxiliary items. This helps to allocate resources to and focus on your core business problems.

It also eases IT planning because cloud telephony allows you to operate virtually from anywhere and any device such as Desktop, Laptop, Mobile phones. No need for fancy VPN or special privileges as virtual numbers can also get integrated with your default authentication system.

CASE2

Various eCommerce companies are managing their call center line without worrying about any on-premise software. On a regular day, the call volume might be X, while it may be 100x on your big end of season sale, which brings with it a host of peak period challenges. Cloud telephony reduces your anxiety in these situations as you do not have to worry about lost customers.

Cloud telephony tools record every conversation, ask for the details of the customer and as soon as an agent is available, automatically connects them to pending calls to ensure minimum wastage of time.

One of the greatest advantages of cloud telephony is the reduction in operational costs. While at the onset, it might appear to be the exact opposite with higher price points, an increase of 10-20 per cent in rentals etc. but in a longer run, it cuts down on various expenses such as maintenance, AMC for hardware servicing, license fee renewals for proprietary software etc.

Moreover, it offers great flexibility in operations as small changes in cloud telephony messaging do not require the huge amount of time, money and efforts that they earlier warranted in a conventional communication system.

CASE 3

Large real estate companies are launching an outbound marketing campaign at will without worrying if it is to reach out to 100 or 100,000. They had started using cloud telephony for lead generation, presales engagement, and post sales service all of it, within 3 months from starting the first trial. How is such a thing possible? Well, these applications are connected and totally integrated with Salesforce CRM on which their whole business runs.

The Virtual telephony software is the representation of a gradual movement from an App world to an API world. With a mini Internet-on-Things setup, every product can talk to every other product via APIs & everyone is on cloud.

Why is it important for a CIO? Well, to start with there is no need to worry about provisioning resources for daily functioning from various teams, no need to worry about scale, security and capex costs. Needless to say, team's focus shifts to optimizing the business process and not maintaining the tools used to facilitate the workflow.

CASE 4

Food delivery companies are operating at a scale of few tens of thousands of orders a day mostly via App. Sourcing food and managing the deliveries, however, are a different deal. The workforce involved in fulfilling such orders has little or no loyalty towards specific employee.

Imagine the hassle involved in managing the inventory of telephone communication conducted by barely verified employees using it both for work and personal calls. With cloud telephony click-to-call solution, companies can directly register new employees into their system with their personal phone number which serve as their work phone simultaneously during delivery hours.

With the employment of cloud telephony services, CIOs can easily measure the total cost of ownership (TCO), one of the most important matrices in present-day tightly run organizations. Realizing agility of an individual employee or a digital service becomes easier since performance metrics are recorded efficiently and systematically.

Risks Involved with Cloud Telephony:-

It's not that there are no risks involved in choosing Cloud telephony over conventional on-premise EPBAX solution. A few of them include:-

• Transfer in Telephone numbers, which is your company's identity
• Deviating from NDNC & DND registry and attracting penalties
• If you deal with credit card information, adherence to PCI DSS standards.
• Healthcare must follow HIPAA regulations as they relate to the protection of patient information
• Cloud provider shuts down

It is very important to partner with a vendor who is not just someone to bring the solutions that you need on the cloud, but more importantly has the required expertise & experience in providing such services under approved regulations. "Safeguarding your business interest along with helping you grow', that is the mantra you need to look for while scouting for the ideal cloud telephony service provider.