Jul 11, 2014 By Martyn Etherington

Why All Your Departments Should Be Cloud-Bound

in Cloud, Featured

From sales to customer service to management, delivering unified communications in the cloud can help address a host of common collaboration and communications challenges.

With the ability to radically lower up-front investment and ongoing maintenance costs combined with flexible delivery options, many organizations seek to migrate business communications to the cloud. But not all cloud solutions are equal. There are private, public and hybrid options. And even within the cloud, there are there are options to manage cloud-based resources in-house or get unified communications as a service with pay-per-use pricing. It is not a one-size-fits-all proposition anymore.

In fact, the question is no longer whether an organization should migrate to the cloud, but rather how it should maximize that cloud infrastructure to deliver value. Deploying a cloud model enables you to leverage the method of your choice for optimizing communications and address other pertinent business needs, such as time management, productivity and budgetary requirements. Here are three strategies to consider for effective migration of business communications to the cloud.

Sales

Because the sales department is the foundation of any thriving business, critical everyday tasks like managing contacts, setting appointments and monitoring marketing campaigns shouldn’t be performed through physical, in-house hardware. According to Gartner, cloud-based sales performance management has the highest compound annual growth rate of any CRM category.

Customer Service

Customer service is one of the four fastest-growing areas of enterprise sales applications on Software-as-a-Service. In fact, Gartner estimates that 35 percent of all CRM implementations now use SaaS—a figure slated to grow to over 50 percent by 2020—for better campaign management, increased productivity and more targeted client engagement.

Management

For a C-level executive, business manager or decision maker, the cloud is a must-have for keeping the workforce constantly connected. Advanced mobility and presence features can ensure that your remote workers—road/corridor warriors, at-home and virtual employees—are constantly getting the “in-office” experience. Even better, you can customize your cloud deployment model so that it accommodates your specific budgetary needs.

About the author

As Chief Marketing Officer and Chief of Staff for Mitel, Martyn Etherington is responsible for all aspects of the company’s corporate marketing strategy, brand, and digital programs globally. As Chief of Staff, he is responsible for the execution and follow-through of the CEO and Mitel’s business priorities. Prior to joining Mitel®, Martyn served for 11 years as Tektronix Vice President of Marketing. In addition, he had responsibility for business operations and general management of the Latin America region. In this role, he provided leadership for all Tektronix marketing and business operations worldwide and was responsible for the development and execution of the company’s go-to-market and marketing growth strategies.

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