This article was originally published on Enterprise Talk.

ET Bureau: What are the challenges enterprises are experiencing with today’s communication and collaboration platforms?

Jim Sullivan: When it comes to supporting today’s distributed workforce, customer’s challenges are multi-faceted and they are increasing in complexity. Employees expect the same or similar communications experience whether they’re working at home, in the office, or on the road. Their customers also expect a world-class and consistent experience when communicating with their end-users, whether that be through messaging, video meetings, calling into a cloud contact center.

Delivering that end-to-end experience for an enterprise, their employees and customers in a safe, secure, and highly available way is extremely challenging in today’s environment. Typically, technology professionals must take a do it yourself (DIY) approach to integrating cloud apps, physical infrastructure, while managing and monitoring a wide variety of vendors and Telecommunication providers and services. And this was just for when they’re managing a physical office space vs. hybrid distributed styles.  Now that employees and customers are at home, mobile, and soon back-to-office they’re planning how to leverage integrated offerings for:

  • How the AV/Office setup will need to be redesigned to support hybrid work styles to promote a Safe and Trusted Work
  • How new integrated device options can be optimized and delivered for security, flexibility, and collaboration services
  • What infrastructure investments are needed (Networks, Security, etc.) to support new work styles
  • How can IT management be simplified to provide an above industry SLA for employees and customers with self-service, self-care, and cloud management?

ET Bureau: What steps can enterprises take to increase their employee engagement in today’s remote work environment?

Jim Sullivan: I think the word ‘Remote’ doesn’t really describe what enterprises are challenged with right now.  They need to increase engagement wherever their employees and customers are working from – in the office, mobile, or at home or even on vacation.  The biggest step that organizations can take to increase their engagement is to ensure a world-class experience – from the office they’re working in, to the device they’re using to communicate/collaborate, to the business communications apps they’re using, to the backend infrastructure, it’s delivered on, to the management tools they’re levering to administer the end-to-end services.

ET Bureau: How can organizations elevate their customer and workspace experience in an increasingly dynamic enterprise landscape?

Jim Sullivan: Organizations can elevate these experiences by delivering more holistic services for their work-from-anywhere environments.  They can do so by integrating devices, with business communication apps, with supporting infrastructure and real-time visibility and control over these services.  Choosing a Cloud Communications Service Provider who can provide all of this as a simple set of integrated services is one way to elevate their customer and workspace experience in today’s dynamic landscape.

ET Bureau: What trends related to remote working that will transform the enterprise landscape? 

Jim Sullivan: The transition from traditional on-premise based communication services to the cloud is the biggest shift witnessed by enterprises in the last 30 years. This is having a huge impact on everything from how the office is designed, to the devices that are used to collaborate (think Smart boards everywhere) to the tools used to manage it, to the networking and cybersecurity infrastructure that’s required to deliver these mission-critical services.

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Jim Sullivan is President and CEO of NWN Carousel, a leading Cloud Communications Service Provider (CCSP) focused on transforming the customer and workspace experience for commercial, enterprise and public sector organizations. With 30+ years’ enterprise technology industry experience, Jim has a track record of scaling both emerging and established companies for rapid global growth.