Many companies have been forced to go to remote work almost overnight without a lot of planning or long term vision. What was expected to be a temporary solution seems to be here to stay. It’s time to start setting up a solid platform for your employees to be as productive as they can be at a lower cost.
Regardless of where your employees sit, it is still important to have reliable communication. In fact, it has become more critical. The phone has been at the heart of business communications since its invention. But as technology has evolved, the phone is just a small facet of what is needed to be productive.
The term UCaaS is short for Unified Communications as a Service. It blends internet-based phone and messaging into a full-featured communications platform. Companies adopt UCaaS to provide staff with collaboration tools that allow them to easily work anywhere. UCaaS solutions function across a user’s computer, desk phone, and smartphone. A popular communication tool for this platform is Microsoft Teams (Teams). It is designed to allow for seamless business communication and enterprise collaboration,
It’s no secret why companies are using Teams—at its core, it is all about “collaboration!” As hybrid and distributed workforces
have become the new norm, a central location where all team members can collaborate only helps a company’s bottom line. In remote environments, real-time tools support collaboration across multiple groups. Teams makes it easy to set up different collaboration channels.
Even with all the communication applications that have become popular, the phone is still vital to business. Teams recognized this and has integrated phone service into its platform. Once it rolled out voice capabilities, Teams became a viable solution for making and taking calls over the Publicly Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) from their Teams platform. Most importantly, Microsoft has been working with leading communication service providers to ensure quality telecom services.
An additional benefit of Teams is that its basic version is free. A Microsoft 365 subscription gets additional integration with the Microsoft Office Suite. It is also a part of the stand alone office suite applications. As you can see from this link to Microsoft’s Teams hardware requirements, it works on Windows, Mac IOS and Linux computers. It also works on Android and Apple mobile devices. As far as functionality goes, Teams is designed to give the best audio, video, and content sharing experience regardless of the network conditions. However, when bandwidth is insufficient, Teams prioritizes audio quality over video quality. This Link has additional information on the minimum network requirements that users need for Teams to be an effective tool.
Teams has proven itself as a reliable tool to support the communication and productivity needs of today’s business environment. I do encourage you to look into it further to see it is a solution that will take your business communications to the next level.
Teledata Select offers a whole range of services that will help you meet your business goals. Starting with a complimentary review of your current telecommunication bills to identify errors and find opportunities for savings, better service and more functionality. We also offer project management for new service implementation and infrastructure installs, including fiber and low voltage cabling. Call us at 404-257-1502 to discuss your current Telecom Service Solution and what you would like to get out of it. Or send us a note via This Link to start a no obligation discussion of your specific business technology needs.
John Hagan is President of TeleData Select, a Telecommunications Consultant located in Atlanta, Ga serving customers throughout the US and overseas. His company provides business solutions for voice, data, mobile and cloud solutions for both large and small businesses. Contact John or his team for a complimentary telecom audit to make sure you’re getting the best value for communication services. The savings you receive could offset the cost of purchasing a new Hosted or Premise based solution.
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