UC cloud interoperability: the new way of the world

When it comes to modern business technology, one theme continues to prevail: business processes are highly unique to every company.

As such, the old-school idea—that one vendor, one platform and one approach can address all business challenges—is no longer viable.

To begin with, business now resides firmly in a software-based world—superseding the hardware approach of the past. Putting it bluntly, the antiquated climate of compromise, forcing organizations to bend to the will of a manufacturer’s hardware-defined vision that dictated business processes, is gone. Hallelujah.

In its place, we are now shown a world of infinite possibilities—a software-defined world of cloud applications and integrations that allow for any process, any experience, all at any desired speed of implementation. This ecosystem now represents a far more solid foundation for business as a whole, and it’s all due to interoperability. The evolution of cloud technology is now enabling virtually any application from any vendor to work in unison—something hardware never allowed with ease.

Along with inherent interoperability comes vastly reduced costs. The massive budget allotments of the past allocated to tackle integrations have also gone the way of the dodo. Now, cloud-based interoperability is so expected by everyone that it is simply built-in. Whether you have Cisco infrastructure, RingCentral, 8×8 or Microsoft—paired with any host of apps that make up the entire infrastructure, all combinations can now work together.

However, let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture. The positive implications of this are far more important than the technology itself. Improved collaboration, better business intelligence and analytics, and streamlined user adoption, to name a few, also result in the newly-formed connection of IT and executive management, whereby all goals cross all business silos.

As the cloud emerges victorious in the battle of owning UC business infrastructure, customer experience mandates are also now at the top of the list. If all employees are seamlessly connected through UC applications, the next logical, natural progression is to extend that same experience to the outside world. Now, through the built-in cloud magic of interoperability, customers can connect through any channel, including social media, chat, SMS and text, video, email—the list is endless.

But this is far from where this story ends. UC cloud interoperability has also spawned a new way of looking at the management of unified communications infrastructure. What was once a disparate collection of tools and platforms can now be seamlessly managed through a UC management platform (UCMP)—a single pane of glass that enables the management, automation and control of all aspects of the UC environment.

It’s these UCMP features and functionality that can offer advanced built-in business intelligence (BI) modules, out-of-the-box processes to accelerate and simplify provisioning, and the ability to customize based entirely on individual process needs.

In all, UC cloud interoperability now represents the totality of business innovations and possibilities. The real question is, how far can you take your vision? The answer: as far as you can imagine.