Securing business communications in the agile workplace

In today’s digital world, businesses need to balance getting ahead of the competition with making sure their data is protected from the increasing number of cyber threats. Because of this, there’s a growing requirement for organisations to update their legacy on-premise solutions — and quickly.

With that in mind, Mark Thomas, Client Management, reflects on the business and security benefits of cloud-based UC (also known as ‘UCaaS’) solutions, and why they’re now essential in the modern workplace…

How have working practices changed over recent years?

We’re all well aware of the impact of the pandemic, with employees no longer bound to the physical workspace. Three years on, and with the rapid rise of cloud-based solutions that allow employees to stay connected from any location, it’s clear these practices are here to stay. For this reason, we’re seeing many of our customers transition from legacy telephony platforms to modern UC.

What are the benefits?

Two of the main benefits are simplicity and agility.

Legacy telephony solutions require constant manual updates and patches, which can take up a lot of time for IT teams. On top of this, they also usually have multiple invoices for software assurance, lines costs, call costs and support costs, which can make budgeting difficult. With modern UC, updates and patches are applied automatically, and the solution is billed per user, per month, simplifying the task — all freeing up internal resource.

And then there’s agility. If there’s one thing the pandemic showed us, it’s that no one knows what’s going to happen next. From organic business growth to mergers and acquisitions, it’s clear that telephony platforms need to be able to adapt quickly to changing business requirements. Cloud-based UC can address this, from ease of deployment to scaling as needed without requiring significant investment in hardware and infrastructure.

But one of the most important benefits is actually security.

So, how does this support cyber security?

Modern UC providers prioritise security, making major investments to protect their customers’ data. And with teams of dedicated experts and access to the latest tools and technologies, in many cases, they can be better equipped to secure your data than your own IT team.

Data loss can, of course, occur in any number of ways, not just from a cyber security event. On-site hardware can be vulnerable to things such as intrusion, human error, and disasters, including fires, floods, and power failures. In comparison, cloud-based systems offer a range of redundancy features to minimise risk and ensure business continuity.

By the very nature of the shared responsibility model of the cloud, when you use cloud services, you delegate some security responsibility to the cloud provider. This means modern UC applications regularly receive automatic patches, so your IT team no longer has to manually apply out-of-hours updates and is freed up for more strategic projects.

It’s also important to remember that last year’s major Cyber Essentials overhaul introduced the requirement for all updates to be applied within 14 days of being made available to a business. With cloud-based UC, this can be achieved with minimal input from busy IT teams.

To find out more about our modern UC services and drive your cloud journey, talk to our expert team today on 03330 11 22 55.