Corona Virus Shows the Value of UCAAS

​How to work smartly from home

by Joel "Dr Wireless" Saltzman

For years I tried to convince my clients that the days of buying on-premise servers, monthly equipment maintenance contracts, and paying IT dudes on staff to manage this stuff were over. Ironically, many of those company owners brought in their IT managers to evaluate whether to embrace this exciting new UCAAS (Unified Communications As A Service) platform which has now become the industry standard.  If you were an IT expert responsible for supporting your company's critical onsite servers and a new technology came along that made your job obsolete, would you embrace it, even knowing it would benefit the company? Probably not! Many IT experts saw the handwriting on the wall and did not want to be out of a job. My recommended solutions to business owners were often ignored. You know... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

The reality though is UCAAS technology has made on premise communications equipment as obsolete as fax machines, VCRs and those Information Technology dudes on your company's payroll. Take a quick look at where the Cisco's, Avaya's, and other on-site incumbents are today. If they did not purchase up and coming UCAAS voIP providers and modify from on-premise only, to Hybrid (on-premise and cloud) or Cloud-only, they went bankrupt.

The Internet has made it possible to have everything your office provides but in the cloud with far more security. That means there is no reason to go to an office as everything can be performed remotely as if you were in the office. Think about your internet services, cell phone services, and cable tv services. If you have a problem, you call the company who comes out and fixes it, gratis. Of course, larger businesses employ IT consultants to fast track this stuff

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Five years ago, I informed my doctor clients that they would now have the ability to call a patient from their cellphones and have their office number be displayed instead of their cellular number. Their office was now any where in the world that they could access the internet. That meant if they were playing 18 holes, on travel, or shopping at Costco, they could get a call from their office to call a patient and do so remotely immediately. Previously, the problem was either your personal cellular number was displayed, or if you you blocked the caller ID, the patient probably would not take the call. With internet phone systems, it became possible for a doctor to make the call from his cell and display his actual office phone number. UCAAS providers also include lots of other cool features like video conferencing services, mobile faxing, HIPPA complaint messaging and the redundancy of knowing a fire or local internet connection disruption would no longer cause any downtime with phone system connectivity.

UCAAS technology is here to stay and has made it much easier for many businesses to transition to the Covad-19 "STAY AT HOME" mandate. If you're still using ancient technology, now is a great time to bust a move to the future. Otherwise, the future and your competitors will leave you in the dust.

Now that we get hit with the COVID 19  pandemic which is "the perfect storm" for a UCAAS solution, I am now semi-retired and no longer taking on any new clients. As I still receive a residual for all of the previous accounts I established though, I stay on top of this stuff and will continue to support my existing clients. If you are still using old school business phone systems, contact me! I'll be more than happy to provide some free professional IT advice and guide you to the right provider in your market, gratis.

Stay safe, be as productive as possible and we'll all get through these times.