Communications is more than just connecting people. The right communications technology helps businesses connect the dots between where they are today and where they want to be tomorrow. In this chapter, you explore the future of emerging cloud communications technologies and how they can help your business today and into the future.
Tighter mobile integration Predicting the need for tighter integration between business communications systems, core business applications, and users’ mobile devices doesn’t take a crystal ball. The mobile workforce of today and the future expects its mobile phones to work everywhere, so productivity can happen anywhere.
Emerging technologies for tighter mobile integration include the following:
Voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) networks: This is a specification that enables more efficient use of available bandwidth and tighter integration with apps over an LTE network. All IP‐based communications: Carriers move voice services from 2G/3G circuit‐s..

In a global study on connected enterprises, Dimension Data found that only four percent of companies viewed return on investment as the main measure of success for collaboration technologies, while 25 percent of IT departments measure success of collaboration software in terms of ease of implementation.
Collaboration tools tout productivity gains as a no-brainer, and most of us take it for granted that our tools help our teams. But are you actually measuring whether your tools are helping or hurting?
Instead of measuring effectiveness by looking at success of implementation, which is backward-facing at best, we need to look forward, to the user experience and its ultimate effect on revenue.
1. Do you have a training program in place? First things first: no matter what collaboration software you’re using, if there’s no consistent onboarding process for new technology (or new people to the technology, as in new hires), your employees are wasting time. To alleviate IT help desk tickets..

Bluetooth originated in Sweden back in 1989 as a ‘short link’ radio technology to facilitate wireless headsets. The word evolved from the Scandinavian Blåtand/Blåtann, the nickname of the 10th Century King Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormsson who united dissonant Danish tribes into a single kingdom and introduced Christianity.
A lot has changed since 1989, and we now find Bluetooth has become well established in everyday life in a myriad of applications that we take for granted.
Consumer experience creating expectations For instance, many modern cars now come with Bluetooth connectivity to connect your mobile phone to your entertainment system, for making and receiving hands-free phones calls and playing music. With wireless portable speakers, we can connect phones, tablets and PCs to play music and movie audio tracks. Headphones and earbuds are increasingly becoming wireless for phone calls and entertainment. Popular fitness devices connect to phones or PCs wirelessly.
In short, there are ..

We saw a lot of changes to the call center and customer experience landscape in 2016. Cloud communications and virtual agents were on the forefront of everyone’s minds, and social media was more important than ever. 2017 is shaping up to be the year of strategic thinking: better analytics, more intentional social media conversations and innovative ways to involve artificial intelligence. To help you stay on target for 2017, we’ve identified nine of the most influential trends affecting centers so far.
1. Digital transformation Businesses have always tried to differentiate themselves on price or product quality. Today, however, we’re seeing that customers are more frequently looking for something more: a rewarding experience that leads to a long-lasting relationship with a business. Customer interactions are no longer stand-alone activities, and customers are demanding a more comprehensive and consistent experience.
Digital transformation, the application of advanced technologies that..

We saw a lot of changes to the call center and customer experience landscape in 2016. Cloud communications and virtual agents were on the forefront of everyone’s minds, and social media was more important than ever. 2017 is shaping up to be the year of strategic thinking: better analytics, more intentional social media conversations and innovative ways to involve artificial intelligence. To help you stay on target for 2017, we’ve identified eight of the most influential trends affecting centers so far.
1. Better contact center analytics Gone are the days of relying on supervisor skill and know-how to get the most out of a contact center agent. Now, even smaller businesses are taking advantage of sophisticated analytics to turn data – like call and screen recordings, chats, SMS messages and more – into truly useful feedback for their agents.
It’s not enough to rely on manual observation and monitoring—there’s just too much information.
More omni-channel call centers are starting to ..

We previously looked at why the stability of your business communications vendor matters, as it’s important to ensure that your communications technology is in good hands—that is, dependable hands that will be there for you tomorrow. How do you assess the stability of this kind of vendor? Glad you asked.
Here’s what to look for.
Does your phone system vendor have history? New technologies are exciting and tech companies can grow up overnight in today’s environment. But they can fall just as fast. That flashy new player may look great today, but will they stand the test of time? Or are they a one-trick pony?
Vendors who have been around for decades may not draw as much Silicon Valley buzz around them, but that longevity signals an important truth—they’ve demonstrated that they can survive massive disruption to their industry because they’ve already done so, possibly multiple times, and come out on top. Younger vendors may not fare so well when a new disruption comes because they’ve n..

In this video blog post Tony Pereira explains the uses cases of the internet of things and how Mitel uses IoT technology to power the future. This is part 2 of our IoT video series with Tony Pereira. Be sure to check out part 1 titled: Internet of Things: Giving Machines a Voice.
From the Video Let me give you a couple of, three examples. So example number one, let's take the airport environment. Are you all familiar with these luggage trolleys? Where they put the luggage and then drive it around to the plane. And very often these luggage trolleys get lost, maybe the plane doesn't find the luggage trolley in time so the plane gets delayed. Imagine a world, and this is actually real life, because one of our major partners is doing this. That actually have IoT geolocating sensors on those trolleys, those locating sensors basically track and send messages exactly where they are.

If they go beyond a certain fence, a geofence, it sends an alert. So you could say, okay, Trolley A..

When it comes to choosing a DECT network or voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) network, the needs vary by industries—for some industries, DECT is a natural fit. Other industries may benefit from a WLAN network.
Whether DECT or VoWiFi is the best fit for your company is largely determined by your company’s industry, as each industry has unique, distinct requirements. Healthcare and hospitality need the resilience, mobility, and security a DECT network offers. DECT is also a natural fit for manufacturing. Here’s why.
Getting signal through thick and thin In the manufacturing industry, signal needs to penetrate multiple buildings, floors, trucks, warehouses, and the like. Regardless of how many layers of material you find between an employee’s handset and the signaling apparatus, the signal needs to stay strong.
Wi-Fi is notorious for being spotty around the kinds of materials and construction found in manufacturing environments. However, the reserved radio frequency band used by DECT phone tech..

When trying to determine which communications option – on-premises or cloud‐based – is right for your business, ROI (return on investment) and TCO (total cost of ownership) comparisons inevitably come into play. Which type of solution drives better value for your business? Unfortunately, this can be a difficult question to answer.
ROI and TCO models are typically designed to compare similar options—for example, two similar on-premises communications systems built by two competing vendors.
On-premises and cloud‐based communications solutions are NOT similar options. Plus, there are lots of costs and assumptions that you must determine when evaluating your options. Ultimately, the answer to the question “Which solution is better for our business?” may depend on more subjective measures, like the value your organization places on flexibility and risk avoidance.
It’s somewhat analogous to purchasing an airline ticket: Which is better? A non‐refundable $325 ticket, or a refundable $466 ..

When assessing vendors for any major IT purchase, you’re making a big commitment in time, energy and budget. You’re putting trust in your vendor to deliver certain benefits and functionality. If your vendor doesn’t deliver, you and your company could suffer because of it.
For business phone system and collaboration vendors, you have to take into account things like value for cost, features and benefits, integrations and interoperability, deployment models and more.
Lately, one seemingly innocuous factor has become increasingly important—vendor stability.
The reason vendor stability has become so important in business communications today is twofold.
First, the speed of change and quick rise of new technologies are changing the communications landscape at a blistering pace, shaking up the traditional order of things. Old vendors may be displaced, but fast-rising vendors may fall just as quickly as they ascended. Second, vendor stability actually affects a huge number of other fact..