Go hybrid: Services from the cloud, technology on the ground

Xavier Martin

February 06, 2019

Hybrid cloud lets organizations bridge the gap between today and tomorrow. Companies can benefit from existing investments while accessing new innovations.

Innovative collaboration tools – also known as unified communications (UC) – can ease the way people communicate inside a company. Unfortunately, however, UC complexity can limit adoption, especially for small- to mid-sized organizations. With hybrid cloud solutions, connecting the ground to the cloud to get the best of both worlds is now possible.

Solving problems

Hybrid technology can help to address some of the challenges that companies have traditionally faced when adopting new technologies. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) delivered in a hybrid environment allows companies to continue using their on-premises infrastructure while accessing the latest technology as a service. With a hybrid solution, organizations can deliver UC to provide employees with better tools, which in the past would have been costly and difficult to maintain using on-premises UC.

Additionally, Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), which helps integrate business applications, can become a digital hub to connect the people, applications and objects that a company needs to thrive. CPaaS can also help reduce latency in business processes, and accelerate decision-making.

Toward the cloud

The path to a hybrid solution will depend on the needs of the business. For cloud-focused companies a hybrid solution is just a step in the digital transformation journey. However, for others, hybrid is the destination. Some companies start their hybrid experience by moving directly into UCaaS, whereas other deploy UCaaS as a separate instance and gradually make the connection to their system. Hybrid UCaaS is most popular among small-to-mid-sized companies in the market today, while CPaaS hybrid solutions are more appealing to larger companies looking to enhance their business processes and to integrate with business applications, or connected objects.

Digital engagement is also high on the radar for companies today. CPaaS can certainly benefit those looking to boost their digital engagement with customers. CPaaS allows them to implement chat bots and integrate with CRMs so that they can learn more about their consumers. As the customer conversation continues to change, and clients demand more than just the standard phone conversation from customer service environments, CPaaS paves the way for innovation and creates an opportunity to deliver a superior digital experience.

The catalyst for change

Technology has become a catalyst for businesses. In the past, communications vendors might have worked directly with a small business manager to sell a phone system for employee use, but today’s vendors are challenged with an entirely different selling experience. Employees are used to being empowered, active online, and communicating in many different ways. They decide whether or not they will use a service. IT no longer has the power it once had. As a consequence, companies need to catch up with these experiences and offer services that align with individuals’ expectations while bringing tangible business outcomes.

Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™ is an open communications platform as a service (CPaaS) with a set of APIs and SDKs that enable companies to integrate powerful collaboration tools into existing in-house applications and business processes. On-demand services, such as those provided by CPaaS, enable companies to leverage social, mobile, cloud and big data, to add context to their customer conversations and deliver and the experience that customers expect.

Discover how Rainbow can unlock insights into buyers, and help deliver an enhanced customer experience.