Communications Blog

Anyone who's anyone in the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) world has Enterprise Connect on their radar each year.

For more than 28 years, it’s been the leading conference and exhibition for enterprise UCC, bringing together IT decision makers, vendors, analysts and consultants to focus on the issues central to enterprise networks and communications. There are always great insights that come out of the event that help frame...

In 2018 I wrote about the usefulness of unified communications and collaboration (UCC) in driving successful digital transformation (DX). Today I'm going to dip into the developing area of digital customer experience (DCX). But with a twist.

In January, Nemertes Research published a new report entitled, Solid Customer Experience Relies on Well-Managed Communications, and I wrote a blog drawing on one of that paper's main points, being UCC...

Communications platforms often form the fundamental basis of the most critical business systems. The conversation about UCC (Unified Communications & Collaboration) has long-since moved on from why it should be implemented, to how it's being implemented and how it's performance should be managed.

Most large enterprises have Cisco products in one form or another. On their journey to transitioning from a traditional hardware outfit to a software, cloud and services provider, Cisco have developed an extensive product reach.

Communications systems are one of the most important aspects of any business, connecting often global workforces with each other, customers and partners. Ensuring your systems are working as they should be is critical to operational success. By setting operational efficiency goals and implementing strategies to achieve them, organizations can become more proactive in this constantly evolving space.

Service Provider UC ecosystems are complex

Hybrid Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) environments, involving both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure, are increasingly prevalent, so the challenges for Service Providers (SPs) are growing. In fact, in a survey of over 1,000 global enterprise IT decision-makers, Broadsoft Inc. found that cloud-based solutions will continue to expand, becoming a growth point that cannot be...

The latest version of Path Insight is now available together as part of the Prognosis 11.5 release, and contains a lot of exciting updates that can be used for deeper dive network troubleshooting. In this blog post we cover some of the key highlights in the latest version of Path Insight.

If your organization is running Microsoft UC and Collaboration tools, like Skype for Business or Teams, it is critical to have visibility in to - and the ability to manage and troubleshoot - the entire endpoint ecosystem, to ensure a good end-user experience. It's also important to be able to identify where non-approved endpoints may being used, as these can not only impact that one user – but everyone who is trying to engage with them also.

We are excited to announce Prognosis 11.5 is now generally available (GA). There are numerous enhancements made available in this dot-release, read below to learn more about the new features and updates.

Microsoft Ignite took place in Orlando last week and I had the privilege of being there. I have been to many Microsoft events over the years (I spent almost 17-years working there), but this was my first time at Ignite. So, as a newbie to the event, I thought it would be a good idea to share my thoughts on what the key takeaways were - especially given many of our customers and partners from around the globe may not be able to attend in person.

One of the most common problems that Cisco users mention to us is the simple inability to place or receive calls. The predicament is not an easy one because of the large number of potential issues, and teams using Cisco Prime monitoring sometimes do not have all the information they need to for quick resolution. 

Moving to the cloud is an important strategic decision that requires the appropriate consideration and planning. That's why so many companies adopt a hybrid approach and use it as a stepping stone to moving all their UC to the cloud.

In most business environments today, people can join calls and video conferences from different devices; they are no longer limited to simply a traditional handset telephone sitting on their desk.

Speaker diarization is an important and dedicated domain of speech research in which the number of speakers involved as well as the intervals during which each speaker is active is determined in an unsupervised fashion. It has a utility in a majority of applications related to audio and/or video document processing. We are interested in its application in financial services where the automatic detection of the number of speakers during phone...

Since Microsoft announced that Teams would replace Skype for Business Online at Microsoft Ignite in September 2017, the race has been on for Teams to be feature comparable with Skype for Business Online. However, this race was always going to be more of a marathon and changes wouldn't happen over a short period of time. 10 months later, at Microsoft's key partner conference Microsoft Inspire, various officials stated that there was now feature...

UC and collaboration tools like Skype, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Teams, Google Hangouts and Workplace by Facebook are all mechanisms powering more efficient working practices. When they're used right, these tools can bring greater productivity, quicker knowledge transfer, stronger teams, and happier employees. 

A common question our teams are asked when attending Cisco events or other multi-vendor unified comms events such as Enterprise Connect is; what's the difference between Cisco Prime Collaboration and IR Prognosis? IR is long-standing strategic Cisco partner, and since we became part of Cisco SolutionsPlus, the question has become more frequent, especially from Cisco sellers and partners. This blog is all about differentiating unified...

This is an excerpt from the UC Optimization Guide for Pros available download here. This extract is taken from the chapter on Energizing your UC team and elevating productivity. 

As the U.S. Federal Government and Public Sector increasingly adopt cloud services for the flexibility and efficiency that they can bring to their agencies, a challenge has emerged: these services must align to government standards for security and risk management, while delivering the performance and user experience expected by their government customers. Therefore, they look for Unified Communications (UC) technology solutions that provide...

Microsoft launched its vision for Intelligent Communications in September 2017 and celebrated the 1st anniversary of Microsoft Teams 6 months later, in March of this year.  This bold vision describes a world beyond that of traditional unified communications to one where Microsoft seeks to enable people to complete tasks more efficiently with minimal context switching, to participate in more productive meetings that cover the entire meeting...

This is an excerpt from the UC Optimization Guide for Pros available download here. Q: How are your clients' performance objectives for UC different to other environments? How does that impact your client management strategy?  

Video conferencing adoption continues to grow in the workplace year on year. Yet the user experience might not always be as easy as picking up a phone and dialing a number or clicking a link in a calendar invite.  

If unified communications troubleshooting was easy, everyone would be successful at it. But with the right tools and training, you can effectively combat your unified communications issues. This blog will identify where you should start, the simple step model for all UC problem solving and finish off with a few more advanced tips on troubleshooting.

This is an excerpt from the UC Optimization Guide for Pros available download here.

At the 2018 Collaboration Summit, Cisco announced the convergence of Cisco Spark and Webex to become Cisco Webex Teams, and will go into effect June 2018. This means Webex Teams is now the primary Cisco brand for cloud-based modern team collaboration, file sharing, screen sharing, white boarding, meetings and much more. 

When it comes to the overall strategy of upgrading and moving collaboration architecture toward the cloud with Cisco, many organizations have decided that upgrading to Cisco's new flex licensing makes the most sense from a business value standpoint. This license allows a gradual transition to cloud-based components (e.g., Communication Manager) down the road for hybrid environments that still have many on-premise components.

This blog was originally posted on the new IR Community.

This is an excerpt from the UC Optimization Guide for Pros available download here. 

When managing a complex UC environment, a fundamental requirement is an overview of the current state of the complete ecosystem and an effective alerting system that identifies when issues are occurring, or ideally before they occur. This requires a dashboard that provides an end-to-end visual representation and drill-downs to aid fast troubleshooting.

There are no technologies in use that don't come with a certain level of risk. Unified communications are no different. On the contrary, one could argue unified comms technology is riskier than most because it's so crucial to everyday business activity. If you can't communicate – how can your business operate?

Digital transformation doesn't just happen. It requires a concerted effort and people need time and space to work through it. While it might start as a side project serious transformation can quickly snowball.

With the vast array of UC options and deployments out there,how do organisations know what to move to the cloud and what to keep on-premises?Many environments are a mix of vendors and solutions, and moving everything to the cloud becomes a daunting prospect. But is this even the right approach to take?

Digital Transformation (DX) as a trending phrase (and actual activity) is hotter than ever before, though the late 1990's mid-2000's saw their own share of talking heads waiving the DX banner. That said, the digitization of those times was largely applied to existing analog processes, and while analog-to-digital conversions can be incredibly powerful, calling that progression truly transformational is a bit of a stretch. We predicted that 2018...

The unified communications (UC) market made huge strides in 2017, with UC deployments powering the digital transformation initiatives within many modern enterprises, and radically improving the way that business professionals communicate. So what new innovations and developments can we expect for the coming year? Here are eight trends that will define the UC market in 2018.

2017 has been a great year for IR; we've been building out our cloud platform, seen continued growth in monitoring and troubleshooting Skype for Business, Cisco and others. Our Call Recording Assurance increased in prominence and looks set to play an even bigger role in 2018, with the enforcement of MiFID II affecting anyone trading with or within the EU.

Early this fall Microsoft announced that 125,000 organizations in 181 markets use Microsoft Teams, its group-chat tool that competes against Slack. That's up from 30,000 organizations in 145 markets at the beginning of this year.

A decade ago, unified communications wasn't a feature-rich technology field. Remember the flip phone? UC was kind of like that -- no interactive video calling, real-time chat, or even enterprise VoIP. About the only thing organizations had to manage relative to communications was dial tone, to ensure employees could make phone calls over the PSTN.

You don't have to move mountains to optimize your UC. Small changes can make a big difference. Consider your UC optimization potential in three veins: people, technology & process.

Most organizations today rely on disparate UC platforms from any number of vendors. One of the real challenges with UC systems management is interoperability between these multiple vendors.

In October, at the beginning of BroadSoft's annual Connections conference, Cisco announced their plans to acquire the UC powerhouse, which would give them the top spot in the UC and UCaaS market, a smart move for anyone trying to leapfrog the competition.

Customer community, engagement and training are core pillars of IR's customer-first approach. To that end, in 2016 we created IR Prognosis Summit, IR's official Prognosis users conference, to deliver best practices, hands-on training, new innovations, and more.

Too often insights get overlooked. We look to reports and analytics for answers, forgetting they are garnered when we dig a step deeper into the analytics – the insights are the answers we seek. Think of it as a funnel; at the top sits a mass of data, we make sense of data through reports. Then a layer of analytics starts to identify the good stuff; the stuff that raises eyebrows and questions. Delving deeper gives you answers and information...

Implementing Skype for Business into your organization is one project; maintaining and ensuring high performance of Skype for Business is an entirely different ask. Troubleshooting Skype for Business sits at the center of maintaining high performance. Recently we described where the main Skype for Business challenges lie and we also helped identify where you should start troubleshooting Skype for Business. Now let's look at more advanced Skype...

2017 has been a huge year for UC with a lot of change and disruption. One of the industry leaders entered into Chapter 11 which destabilized the market and created some concern. Microsoft Skype for Business continues to grow in market share and popularity and Cisco are evolving their collaboration offerings and license modeling to meet this pace of change.

When organizations are deploying, or looking to deploy, Skype for Business there are many variables to take in to account. Skype for Business challenges are unlike other UC solutions. For example, Cisco largely makes all components of the ecosystem whereas Skype for Business relies on a myriad of technology, from multiple vendors. When you consider endpoints, routers, SBCs, servers and so on, the complexity can cause a challenge for the teams...

VNR – a Metric to Determine Intelligibility of Voice Recordings

Richard Gagnon once said, “An untested plan is only a strategy.” If a plan exists that can test whether your system will work as expected but you don't actually use it, you're taking an unnecessary risk. We've seen customers go live prior to a busy period like Black Friday or open enrollment only to encounter a problem that was entirely preventable. For instance, their carrier made a change that left them with only half of the active lines they...

MiFID II is part of the EU's revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive impacting any organization providing financial advice leading to trade or investment throughout Europe. The UK is still obliged to comply with the changes, despite Brexit looming on the horizon. MiFID II comes as part of the reaction to the previous 2008 financial crisis aiming to provide investors with greater protection. It's designed to restore investors...

I belong to an amateur soccer club that could raise enough funds to purchase Automated External Defibrillators (AED's) for all its teams that compete in the Over 35's Leagues. For those not familiar with an AED, it's a portable electronic device that can be used to treat cardiac arrest for heart attack victims. I recently attended a training session on how to use the AED and was impressed by the way it provides prescriptive verbal instructions...

Spending all your energy and time in the workplace on today's task of busyness will not drive your organization, department, or career forward. Spinning plates isn't progressive.

Should you put your unified communications systems in the cloud or should you take a hybrid approach, keeping some UC systems on premises while moving others to the cloud? There are dangers and rewards on both sides of the standoff, so choose your weapons carefully, not quickly.

Business models are changing and technology is being used unlike ever before to disrupt existing marketplaces; transportation with Uber and Lyft, hotels with Airbnb, retail with Amazon, and music with Spotify and Pandora. Work is also more interconnected than ever—two out of three people say they have to collaborate with others more than in the past to get their job done and 62% of employees now carry three or more devices (e.g., laptop,...

Under the "UCC Management" umbrella there are a variety of projects happening. Two such projects are the de-risking of UCC and optimizing UCC. While they're both part of the same initiative, they should be treated separately. De-risking mitigates against challenges whereas optimization drives greater performance and maximizes the impact of high performing UCC.   

Cloud Unified Communications presents an enormous opportunity for organizations and enterprises. According to IDG, 90% of CIO's have UC-related investments planned in the next year. ZK Research concluded that 83% of companies intend to adopt a hybrid cloud model for UC because it gives customers the best of both worlds and provides greater flexibility in deployment models. Unfortunately, the deployment of unified communications can present some...

Call Recording Assurance checks that all calls that are required to be recorded for legislation and regulatory purposes are actually recorded. It ensures financial or trading based businesses are compliant with call recording regulations and mitigates reputational risk. Ideally, it also checks whether the media file contains audible content.

Contact center agents in 2017 must communicate with customers not only on the phone but via social media, instant messaging, video conferencing and web chat. How can humans do it all? Increasingly, they can't.

Skype for Business is new to many organizations, and for many IT leaders deploying Microsoft's unified communications tool, it will be their first time working with it. When we are working with organizations to optimize their Skype for Business deployments, we regularly see the same questions around troubleshooting. Issues will arise in Skype for Business, as they do in other vendor platforms, such as Cisco and Avaya, but a typical issue in...

Most organizations today are not on a single, unified communications platform. They're on disparate platforms from any number of UC vendors - Cisco, Avaya, Genesys, Microsoft, and others.

How much is UCC downtime costing your business? UCC downtime is when your unified communications channels; websites, phones, emails, video conferencing, instant chat, collaboration tools, etc. are not up and running. When these channels are down work comes to a halt, your customers can no longer contact you and your team is restricted to face to face communication - not an ideal scenario for a workforce operating in this century.

Robin Gareiss is president and founder of Nemertes Research, overseeing research product development, conducting primary research, and advising leading enterprises, vendors, and carriers.

Optimal unified communications and collaboration (UCC) management can be the gateway to enabling successful digital transformation. In early 2017 Nemertes Research surveyed over 700 IT leaders and found there are a number of barriers stopping companies from optimally managing their systems. Considering 70% of companies are currently undertaking digital transformation initiatives it's surprising that so many IT leaders sidestep third-party...

Arguably, one of the most overused technology buzz-phrases is “digital transformation.” It means many things to many people, and often the so-dubbed project doesn't result in anything transformative. So we advise IT leaders frequently on a.) what qualifies as a digital transformation; b.) how to make sure a transformation actually happens; ie, how to get there, both from an organizational and technological perspective.Learn more about digital...

Would You Trust an Untested System?Would you board an airplane that had never actually gone on a test flight? Where the decision to put the plane into service was based solely on how it feels to sit in the passenger seat and whether or not the engine turns on when we flip the switch? A rational person would not put their trust in a plane that hadn't been fuelled up, loaded with the appropriate weight, flown for the intended distance and landed...

Contact center technology can be a beast: powerful, difficult to control and if there's something wrong with it, it can be tricky to figure out what exactly it is. Monitoring contact center technology helps you tame the beast and understand it's behavior better. This enables you to predict reactions based on previous patterns and ultimately resolve issues before they ever even happen.

We're often asked to help customers when they're migrating their UC to the cloud as part of a larger digital transformation movement. It is critical to get this process right to see ROI. To help with your migration we have pulled together 5 key mistakes to avoid.

Skype for Business is a relative newcomer to the enterprise unified communications world. Taking on experienced incumbents Cisco and Avaya wasn't and isn't an easy task. To gain market share any disrupter requires a fierce range of features to make customers sit up and pay attention, enter Skype for Business. 

The contact center technology landscape is changing to reform old technologies in 2017. The ultimate goal is to seamlessly combine disparate systems and create an omnichannel experience, providing people with the ability to talk with a single agent across multiple interaction methods. Not only is this Utopian ideal expensive, however, but all these different systems don't actually fit together as cleanly as intended.

Technology is supposed to make our lives better, not take control of our lives and make us miserable. To stay in control of the situation, you must think and plan ahead of time, which includes planning failure into the process. That means going through a testing procedure not assuming that it's going to pass, but instead assuming that it will fail. Planning to fail results in a schedule that accommodates issue identification, remediation and...

This is the fourth blog post in the series where we take a comprehensive look at transitioning your unified communications to the cloud. Last time, we looked at the key areas to consider when it is time to deploy your unified comms to the cloud. To conclude the series, let's delve into the operation and optimization phase where your organization will provide ongoing support, refine tools and processes and gauge the progress of your solution.

A project-based test is performed when implementing a new application on an IVR, changing carriers, or something else along those lines. It's a compelling event driving you to test your system one time. The test may take place over a month in which you're testing in stages (which is what we suggest). Once completed, you'll be confident that the system is working as intended. Strategic testing, on the other hand, involves different tests that a...

With the launch of our UC Cloud Migration Checklist identifying the best practice steps to follow to have a successful UC move to the cloud we looked at the biggest pitfalls companies fall into that can ruin an otherwise smooth transition.   Click here to download our UC cloud migration checklist.   

Unified communication systems enable your workforce to carry out their jobs, talk to customers and suppliers and collaborate with their colleagues. To say it's important that your UC systems are always running properly is an understatement. It doesn't matter whether you use Avaya, Cisco, Skype for Business or others or whether you use a mixture of them, they still should always be working. Here are some compelling reasons why you should monitor...

This is the third of four blog posts in the series where we take a comprehensive look at transitioning your unified communications to the cloud. Last time, we talked about defining necessary features and setting clear goals during the UC migration planning phase. This time, let's delve into the key areas to consider when it is time to implement your plan.

This is the second of four blog posts in the series where we take a comprehensive look at transitioning your unified communications to the cloud. Last time, we gave an overview of the UC migration process from beginning to end. Now let's go in depth about what is involved in the planning phase.

Depending on the industry, contact centers experience peak loads during certain key times of the year. For instance, in the U.S. we have an open enrollment period associated with insurance changes, typically the latter months of the year into January. During this time, insurance industry contact centers handle 10 to 20 times their average traffic on a given day.   Look at an interesting case study of one company's journey through Black Friday. 

CeBIT 2017, one of the largest technology events in the world took place last week in Hanover with thousands of visitors over the course of the week.  

Transitioning UC to the cloud, whether completely or using a hybrid approach is a big undertaking. Teams responsible need all the help they can get. Following the launch of our UC Cloud Migration checklist we are putting together a series of blogs to support and help your organization make a smoother UC transition to the cloud.  

Managed service providers (MSPs) are uniquely positioned to give support and advice to companies that are driving toward digital transformation. They can help their customers navigate the process, connect more seamlessly and work better.  

IVR explained

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is the automated technology that allows interaction with a human caller by way of DTMF input (Dual-tone multi-frequency). In today's business world, IVR systems are used by almost all industries and their respective applications like banking, insurance, utilities, telecom, travel, retail etc. to process a customer's phone call, rather than connecting to an actual human agent. Through interactive...

Unified communications is influencing changes in many industries; banking, manufacturing, healthcare, retail and more. It's a catalyst for digital transformation across many industries. In this blog, I look at three pillars of traditional retail and how they're impacted by unified communications.   

BroadSoft's recent research predicted cloud UC market penetration would jump from 7% percent today to 41% by 2020 of the overall UC space. 

Unified Communications is transforming many industries; manufacturing, banking, retail, healthcare and more. It could be argued, connected data is having the biggest changing impact on healthcare allowing remote consultations, guided operations and access to medical records anywhere, on any device.

Last fall we hosted over 120 IR customers at the refreshed and restructured IR Prognosis Summit (formerly called IR Executive Customer Council).

If you're contacting a business for any reason at all, the success criteria for that moment of truth can be extensive:

Today's unified comms and collaboration tools are responsible for many banking transactions; over the phone renewals, online contracts, email confirmation receipts, general phone and internet banking to name a few. As such unified communications has come under scrutiny for its ability to enable banks to not only be compliant but also to support security concerns.

In a recent blog, I discussed how call center stress testing ahead of peak season was an essential for any businesses relying on sales from their busy periods to tide them over throughout the year. But what is the impact of failing to carry out sufficient contact center stress testing?

You've decided to transition your unified communications to cloud; you've taken all the recommended planning steps to ensure you have your ducks in a row for the delivery and now it's time to press the “Go” button, so what happens now? This blog identifies the roll out steps you should follow to have a successful implementation phase of your UC transition to the cloud journey.

Although it might not seem like it at first glance, manufacturing is one of the most highly impacted industries when it comes to collaboration and UC. There are several components involved when it comes to developing, manufacturing, selling and supporting a product. Pertaining to design and manufacturing, I've seen examples where the design team is located in the US and the manufacturing team is in China. Once a prototype was designed, it had to...

If you look at business trends across the globe, you'll see no shortage of organizations getting disrupted by new business models. Taxi services are disrupted by Uber and Lyft, retail stores are disrupted by Amazon, music companies are disrupted by Pandora, and hotels are disrupted by Airbnb. For organizations to remain profitable in a landscape full of disruption, they need to become agile.

The satisfaction from finding easy ways to be more productive in the office can be enormous. Having a snappy unified communications tool like Skype for Business gives me back more minutes every day and it got me thinking – can I be even more productive with it? After a little research I found the answer was yes. So here are the 12 little tricks I found that skim off precious minutes from my workday. 

The start of a new calendar year is a great time to rethink tactical plans and update knowledge on growing industry trends; wiping off the cobwebs from 2016 and starting afresh. The unified communications (UC) market will make strides in 2017 as a myriad of advanced technologies will shift how businesses and consumers converse. Here are my seven 2017 predicted trends in UC that will come on your radar - I'd love to hear what yours are in the...

As a UC Partner your number one priority is ensuring that your customers achieve their goals when they implement a new unified communications system. Unified communications technologies are an essential part of any organization's digital transformation strategy. And, as is the case in any large-scale implementation, organizations need assistance from an expert. This is where a trusted partner with a proven track record is indispensable. Your...

What does digital transformation mean?

Digital transformation is about using digital technology to better connect and collaborate with co-workers, customers and partners. It's about reaching more people in more ways, whether through video calls, real-time chat, mobile channels or social media. It's about doing business better, faster and more cost-effectively.

2016 has been a year of acceleration. Widespread adoption of wearable devices, continued growth in virtual and augmented reality technologies, developments in machine learning and AI and an unprecedented spike in cyberattacks.

When changes to your organization's website, IVR and other customer impacting communication technologies are made you would think comprehensive testing goes without saying. Yet time and time again we see contact center testing get cut from the rollout plan.

The ease of transitioning to the cloud is foggy territory – transitioning unified communications (UC) to the cloud or taking a hybrid cloud approach is often stormy. Moving UC is more complex than moving other functions because it encompasses end-to-end infrastructure, systems, vendors, teams. The costs of getting the UC cloud/hybrid transition wrong is also greater: sales, customer loyalty and maybe even your job are at stake. 

For retail, travel and many other industries December is the busiest and most important time of year. Having systems stay up and running over the peak capacity period is crucial. 

The latest IDC report, IDC Innovators named IR's Prognosis solution as an Innovator in unified communications and collaboration management solutions. Prognosis provides business critical insights and ensures continuity-critical systems deliver high availability and performance. Here's what it took IR to get the badge of honor.

Why would I want to degrade my Windows network?

To investigate how apps behave with a poor network connection, it's useful to be able to introduce controlled amounts of latency, jitter, and packet loss in a test environment.

Unified communications systems are sophisticated, with complexity that can vary depending on the organization and industry. These systems also change on a regular basis with upgrades, improvements, changes to network infrastructure, applications, and more. So how do you know when changes affect the overall experience for users and customers? Are you testing the system regularly? On an hourly, daily, weekly basis? Even though you may be testing...

Halloween is an interesting tradition. There is some conjecture over the origins of whether it is a Celtic festival, with pagan roots, or a Christian event on the eve of All Hallow's Day. Either way, it has grown in popularity over the years and now provides families the opportunity to go 'trick-or-treat' dressed up as all sorts of characters. This year, however, it got me thinking, what are some of the unified communications horror stories I've...

In this post to the UC Podcast, Skip Chilcott discusses the importance of the planning phase in Unified Communications projects. Like any good building, if the foundations aren't solid, then things are likely to fall over. However, in many cases, organizations are rushed to implement projects and the lack of up-front planning can come back to bite down the track.

Airlines long ago recognized instrumentation is vital to the safe and efficient operation of their aircraft. And yet corporations to this day manage their unified communications systems - many of which are just as complex as an airplane--with no instrumentation at all, flying blind from one white-knuckle incident to the next.

If you haven't already, be sure to read Part I of this blog post, where I talked about the different types of customers who might want to implement a Skype for Business communications service and how the Skype Operations Framework helps provide useful guidance. Here in Part II, let's dive into the importance of assessing your network's readiness to make the switch.

Thomas Poett, Microsoft MVP shares his thoughts on Skype for Business in the cloud from the Ignite floor.

Skip Chilcott provide a wrap from day 2 at Microsoft Ignite

I am spending this week with the IR team at Microsoft Ignite, the biggest Microsoft show on the planet. Today IR was pleased to announce Prognosis UC Assessor is the first Microsoft certified solution for Skype for Business Online Network Assessment in the Skype for Business IT Pro Tools partner program. 

The Skype Operations Framework was launched at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, and the momentum has really started now training has begun. We've had extensive documentation providing guidance for complete on-premises systems for quite some time now. Once you start to think about how you can combine on-premises with the cloud, though, the situation begins to change somewhat.

Being able to deliver a delightful customer experience can be the difference between the success or failure of a business - and that makes a 360-degree view of contact center performance management an imperative, as discussed in my previous post, Delivering Omnichannel Experience in Multichannel World. Exploring this idea further, it's also important organizations get the customer perspective on how the contact center is performing.

A Case Study on Computation of Very Large Matrices using Theano.

In this day and age, direct human-to-human interaction between an organization and its customers is a rarity, which makes it important to deliver an outstanding experience when it does occur. As the critical customer service hub, the contact center must provide the best experience possible, or risk losing customers.

Planning is probably the single most important aspect of a unified communications or contact center deployment. Whether converting from a legacy system, upgrading a solution, or adding functionality, your organization must pay careful attention to what should be done to ensure a successful outcome.

Deploying a UC solutions can be a complex and hazard-ridden enterprise for channel partners. But with a little planning, Walter Monasterio from IR says you can streamline implementation and build a successful UC practice.

In this latest podcast we discuss the impact WebRTC will have on the way we communicate and the capability it provides organizations to deliver an improved customer experience through the contact center.

Microsoft's Enterprise Voice offering continues to grow at a rapid rate, with the company's intentions very clear to enable voice communications for all of their users. The recent announcement of the E5 licensing (to be discussed in an up-coming post) provides a clear path for organizations to migrate from their existing PBX, to a hybrid solution and, eventually, to a full-blown Microsoft deployment.

There are a multitude of different ways to interact with a brand today. It could be social media, email, smartphone app, web, or talking to a call center agent by telephone. When you've got so many different channels in place, it's really important the information from each of those interactions is consolidated and made available in a reliable manner. That's where omnichannel communication comes in. But get it wrong ... and it can go very wrong.

When Microsoft announced Lync would become Skype for Business, there were many questions around what it would mean for their unified communications services. In the first episode from the IR-Podcast, Eric Bauer shares his thoughts on why Microsoft made the change.

It takes extensive testing to ensure that your automated features are working properly. Automated Feature Function Testing (AFFT) is a way to make sure that every single possible combination of inputs and data results in an application are tested to verify that it's adhering to specification.

Google recently reorganized itself under a self-created parent company called Alphabet. The announcement left many of us scratching our heads. Google is a well-known brand — what do they have to gain by creating Alphabet? Focus. Google will make investors happy by growing its traditional search business. At the same time, Alphabet will be able to keep shooting for the moon with new ideas.

The Microsoft Lync SDN (Software-Defined Networking) API allows developers to build applications and services to monitor, isolate and correct issues that affect the user experience on Lync / Skype for Business. 

If you were to ask your IT manager whether they have customers or users, what would they say? Though somewhat subtle in nature, this simple fact is an area that's overlooked way too often. If you think about it, when you are trying to acquire B2C or B2B sales, you consider them customers and treat them in the best way possible - we're all familiar with the mantra that the customer is always right.

When it comes to optimizing the customer experience, it's important to strike a proper balance between technology and human interaction. It all begins with gaining an understanding of why a customer might want to reach out to your brand to have an interaction. There is no better example than the one recently presented at a healthcare contact center event I attended.

The rush of holiday season is just around the corner - with Thanksgiving looming large in the US - companies are bracing themselves for the deluge of traffic in the lead up to the end of the year and the busiest shopping period on the planet.

Optimizing performance of Microsoft's UC platform requires a holistic view of and the ability to manage the entire Skype for Business ecosystem proactively.

“Please be advised that your call may be recorded”. With those words I was put through to an operator to help sort out my latest phone bill. We've all heard this before, contact centers have been recording calls for many years, whether for quality and training purposes or to record contractual agreements, but what happens when that recording doesn't actually work?

Imagine a situation where you're trying to buy an item from an online retailer like Amazon. You'd like to speak with an agent and ask a few questions about the product. By clicking one button, you're connected with the agent and are able to have a real-time, one-on-one voice conversation. Gone are the days where that kind of collaboration required many complex systems behind the scenes. Now only minimal back-end software is required to complete...

There is an old tale about a young man who continually longed for the past. He was so convinced things were better back then, he completely missed the here and now. As a result, his life simply passed him by. Much the same can be said about organizations using reports, rather than real-time analytics, to manage the performance of their unified communications environment.

Back in November when Microsoft first announced its decision to re-brand Lync as Skype for Business, the level of chatter went through the roof. Some were saying it was the best move ever. Others were saying it was the worst move ever. To me, I really saw this as Microsoft adopting an Apple-like approach to consumerize the platform.

Skype for Business is forcing organizations to rethink their whole approach to unified communications. And not just because of improved work practices. The fact it's a software-based system is making everyone sit up and take notice.

Microsoft has made their vision of universal communications very clear: anybody should be able to talk to anyone else using the device of their choosing. While this is a compelling concept, it can become a challenge in actual practice. Microsoft is bringing their vision to fruition by moving the end user's entire workload into the cloud. It began with IM, chat and internal PC to PC calling. Now they're starting to roll out full PSTN connectivity...

Monitoring enterprise voice, a component in Skype for Business or Lync which is most important. Not only collecting information about the servers and their services. Since there are users directly involved with their end devices, like phones, headset or computers. In between those components sits the network and routing devices.

The transition to Microsoft Office 365 E5 means that you'll be able to have true enterprise voice delivered through the cloud. This includes the ability to dial in and out through the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). You'll be able to use your smartphone or desk phone in your enterprise to call right into a conference.

IR Prognosis for Unified Communications certified IT Pro Tool for monitoring

Great news just in from Enterprise Connect, where we have been advised IR Prognosis for Unified Communications (UC) has completed certification as an IT Pro Tool in monitoring for Skype for Business. Below is an excerpt from the news release put out today.

It could be reasonably argued every organizations wants, or tries, to provide an optimal customer experience. As the saying goes - your competitor is only a mouse click away. A direct result of the ever increasing focus on customer experience has been the development of a number of metrics to determine just how well a company is performing.

The Microsoft Lync / Skype for Business SDN API is a robust, continually evolving capability that brings insight and control of your Microsoft communications environment.  Generally speaking, there are three key roles where the SDN API provides value:

Voice recognition is a technology that has made a big impact to our lives over the past few decades. What was once fanciful star-gazing - like the voice activated machines in the popular Hanna-Barbera sit-com the Jetsons - today, voice recognition is found in devices all around us. From your smartphone to your car radio - it is an ever evolving technology.

In my last blog post, I wrote about the importance of a network pre-assessment to ensure success for UC deployments. Well, exciting news to just come out of Microsoft's WPC, where IR was announced as one of the IT Pro Tool partners to support Skype for Business Online Network Readiness in the new Microsoft Skype Operations Framework (SOF).

Skip Chilcott live from Microsoft WPC in Toronto where IR has just been named as Skype Operations Framework Network Readiness and Assessment Partner

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) is a capability built into modern desktop browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Microsoft Edge (Windows 10's new browser). It brings access to fantastic features that easily let consumers set up voice, data, and video interactions with companies at the click of a button. Smartphone users are also able to take advantage of WebRTC right from within downloadable apps.

Skype for Business continues to change the unified communications landscape. In the majority of instances Skype for Business needs to work effectively with legacy equipment. In his first session on the IR-Podcast, CEO Darc Rasmussen discusses tips on how to effectively manage Skype for Business in a multi-vendor environment.

Imagine you're trying to book a flight. You call the toll-free number and use the interactive voice response (IVR) to get through to bookings, but instead you are put through to the baggage area. You hang up and try again, but this time you wind up speaking to the airline lounge. Do you try a third time or call a competitor? I know what I would do.

Skype for Business and Microsoft Cloud are redefining collaboration. Forming the cornerstone of Microsoft's Universal Communications strategy, to enable real-time collaboration across any device, the next step is to introduce full PSTN functionality in Skype for Business. In this recent interview posted to the IR-Podcast, Eric Bauer - Head of Product Marketing, shares his thoughts on how Microsoft is working toward their vision of modern...

IT Service Management (ITSM) refers to the activities – directed by policies, processes and supporting procedures –  performed by an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services. Traditionally this has excluded the UC side of the business, with separate teams in place to look after the voice technologies. In this latest release from the IR-Podcast, Eric Bauer - Global Head, Product Marketing discusses why ITSM has previously...

Big data is an ambiguous buzzword that means different things to different people. At its core, it's primarily a broad term for datasets so large traditional data processing can't handle them. Big data is often an obsession for both the media and entrepreneurs, with billions of dollars being poured into software development on a yearly basis. In this blog post I discuss how big data is helping change the unified communications landscape.

IT service management (ITSM) is a broad category encompassing supporting procedures an organization performs to plan, deliver, operate and control the IT services it offers to internal and external customers. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, involving companies such as ServiceNow, which is a cloud-based ITSM platform and one of the leaders in this space.

Across 44 countries performance management in a multi-vendor environment is the biggest deployment concern for organizations.

Enterprise Connect 2016 took place end of March in Orlando. IR was there in the thick of the action for what proved to be an excellent event. In this podcast, Skip Chilcott - Head of Product Marketing - shares his thoughts on the highlights from the floor, what was hot and what to keep an eye out for. Enjoy.

Enterprise Connect - Mean Time to Ownership

Enterprise Connect - Journey to the Cloud

Enterprise Connect - Day 1

There have recently been high profile companies receiving media coverage after delivering poor customer experience as a result of a 'cloud outage'. In fact, it may seem like we're seeing more and more cloud outages leading to some organizations questioning whether the cloud really is stable enough to trust with your key customer interactions. I can assure you it is. What we're actually witnessing is a record number of end users being affected...

Making sure your call center monitoring solution is working properly is an ongoing challenge. Whether it's legal, healthcare, or financial services, large organizations need recordings to satisfy compliance requirements and to resolve legal disputes with customers.

A series of recent cloud service outages has impacted people across the globe. In this latest podcast we talk about the underlying causes, why there seems to be a greater number of outages, despite reassurance the cloud is sage, and what your organization can do to mitigate the risk.

Cloud communication isn't a new concept. Companies like Vonage and 8x8 have been successfully delivering cloud-based communication for over 20 years. With that being the case, why is Microsoft just starting to deliver enterprise cloud-delivered PSTN connectivity now? If you didn't know any better, you'd get the impression the technology isn't quite ready for primetime.

Think about what happens when a skyscraper is about to be built. The construction crew obviously wouldn't begin by making the observation deck. Building a new contact center is a lot like the construction of a new building. It all starts with a plan, along with a solid foundation.

Contact centers are often made from best-in-class components. Many contact center implementations have elements that come from as many as 18 to 20 different vendors. Each one of those discrete elements—whether it's the CTI routing and hunting package, the speech recognition technology, or the interactive voice system—is built to perform at peak levels by its vendor. In a sense, the process of building a contact center is similar to building your...

Depending on what industry you're in, there are a few critical dates each year when your UC or Contact Center system will be put to the test. Critical events that impact your system may include the economy, weather events, peak retail season, open enrollment for insurance, marketing promotions, tax season, or a multitude of others. Here in North America, we know the devastation that hurricane season can bring, broadly impacting public safety,...

Much of the development effort in enterprise voice communication technologies has traditionally been focused on helping large enterprises, which can have over 50,000 end-users, become more efficient. The real question is whether or not smaller enterprises can also benefit from these advancements? In fact we are actually seeing it happen right now, however, it's not without some challenges and complexity.

We can connect and collaborate like never before, but it takes careful planning and management of the entire ecosystem to reduce time lost in unproductive meetings.

As enterprises turn to the cloud, they must address issues around ROI, management, and deployment model.

Watermelons are beautifully green on the outside. But if you had never seen one before, you might be deceived into thinking the whole fruit is the same color. It wouldn't be until you cut it open that you'd come to find the inside is a deep, juicy red.

Testing your organizations unified communications and contact center eco-systems is critical to delivering end-user and customer experience. In this latest podcast, Skip Chilcott - Global Head of Product Marketing - discusses why testing before issues occur can save a lot of time, money and reputations.

In a recent podcast I discussed the importance of running regular tests to ensure unified communications eco-systems are performing as intended. This is just as important prior to any deployment, as it is to ongoing health.

This is the first of a two-part series exploring why throwing more manpower at problem resolution no longer works for managed service providers.