As your Unified Communication (UC) contract nears its expiration, you might feel overwhelmed by the many providers in the market. Choosing the right UC solution is critical for maintaining seamless communication and collaboration within your business, so making an informed decision is essential. This article will help you explore the best unified communications providers and give you a brief overview of the key factors to consider when selecting the top solution for your needs. Key Factors To Consider When Choosing A UC Provider Choosing the right unified communications provider can have a significant impact on your business operations. When evaluating potential providers, here are the key factors to keep in mind: Cost: Assess different pricing models (subscription, pay-as-you-go, bundled services) and ensure they fit your budget. Scalability: Look for providers that can grow with your business and offer flexible plans. Security: Ensure they have strong security protocols, including encryption and compliance with industry standards. These are just a few important aspects to consider. In a follow-up blog, we will explore each of the above factors in more depth, offering more detailed guidance to make your decision easier. Leading UC Providers In The Market Zoom Zoom stands out for its simplicity and user-friendly experience. It integrates phone, messaging, and video functions while utilising AI-powered features to enhance communication. Zoom is ideal for companies looking for simplicity, reliability and cutting-edge technology in their communications. RingCentral With over 20 years of experience in the UCaaS space, RingCentral offers robust solutions, including full UK & EU data residency and coverage in 46 countries. Its features fall under three categories: messaging, video, and telephony. Offering 99.9% uptime and integrations with Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, RingCentral integrates effortlessly with platforms like Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace and Salesforce, enabling businesses to maintain existing workflows while enhancing their communication capabilities. RingCentral delivers flexibility and reliability, making it ideal for businesses with international operations. Dialpad Built on the Google Cloud Platform, Dialpad is a smart, secure, and scalable option, seamlessly integrating with key tools such as HubSpot and Microsoft Office 365. Endorsed by Google, Dialpad integrates with the Google ecosystem, making it a perfect solution for teams using Google tools like Gmail or Google Workspace. This is a great choice for businesses that prioritize security and smooth Google integrations. GoToConnect With over 20 years of experience, GoToConnect excels in scalability and IT management, making it perfect for businesses that need advanced IT management and collaboration tools. With the ability to support up to 250 participants and 50 webcams in a single session, GoToConnect provides robust analytics and scheduling tools for better decision-making during busy periods. This makes it a solid choice for larger teams and enterprises needing scalability and operational insights. Feature Comparison Here are some common features offered by UC providers, which you can evaluate based on your specific requirements: Voice and Video Conferencing Instant Messaging Collaboration Tools Mobile Support In an upcoming article, we will take a closer look at these features, discussing how each provider implements them and what additional functionalities they offer to enhance business communications. Making The Decision Choosing a UC provider requires evaluating features, support, and integration capabilities that align with your business needs. As your current UC contract approaches its end, take this opportunity to thoroughly assess options from providers like Zoom, RingCentral, Dialpad, and GoToConnect, each offering unique features to suit diverse business requirements. Start by identifying your priorities, conducting demos, and gathering team feedback to make an informed decision that not only meets current needs but also supports future growth. This careful approach will help you select a UC provider that enhances communication and collaboration within your business. This is a complicated and important process and decision. At Fortay Connect, we are experts in the procurement and implementation of UC solutions. We offer detailed requirements analysis, vendor selection and implementation. So, if you need help choosing the best-unified communications provider for your business, please get in touch. Image Source: Canva
3rd Feb, 2023: Fortay Connect is pleased to announce that they are recognised as a RingCentral Reach Gold Partner. As a Gold Partner, Fortay represents the Top 1% of RingCentral's Global channel partners and are best equipped to help European organisations use RingCentral to create an enterprise-grade communication platform. As a RingCentral ReachTM Gold Partner, Fortay Connect is recognised as one of the partners most familiar with RingCentral’s industry-leading UCaaS and CCaaS products.That means when it comes to helping move your communications to the cloud, our consultants and engineers have the expertise, experience, and relationships to ensure a seamless transition. With our long track record of success with RingCentral, we know how to design the perfect cloud solution for your needs. RingCentral Gold Partner Requirements Gold Partner status recognises the top 1% of RingCentral Partners globally, owed to the significance of their knowledge, expertise and impact on customers who want to move their communications to the cloud. Gold Partners have the experience to design the perfect solution for customer needs. Benefits of Selecting RingCentral RingCentral MVP is a full-featured cloud communications solution offering all of the integrated capabilities of team messaging, meetings, and contact center to address the challenges of today’s business environment. Some of the many benefits include; Unifies communications across your company Simplifies multi-location management Flexes when your business flexes Connects mobile and remote workers Instant access to the latest features Greater control RingCentral MVP offers the perfect way to move all of your communications and collaboration systems into the modern world. It unifies voice, fax, text, video conferencing, and audio conferencing into a single network. Our team is available immediately to help your organisation with any RingCentral queries or migrations.
6th Jan, 2023: Fortay Connect is pleased to announce that they are the first UK Zoom partner to receive certification the Zoom Phone Competency. Fortay's consultants are now equipped to help our clients use Zoom to create an enterprise-grade voice, video, and collaboration platform. With many enterprises today operating in a remote or hybrid work model, ensuring a seamless user collaboration experience is critical to user productivity and satisfaction. Fortay’s new Zoom credentials come in addition to the team’s expert-level certifications in RingCentral, Avaya, Mitel and Teams platforms. “Many enterprises are grappling with creating a collaboration architecture that meets the needs of a geographically-dispersed workforce,” says Mark Taylor, Co-founder and Director of Fortay Connect. “When you hire an outside consultant to help, you need an expert who can look across the leading platforms and help you build the best for your users and use cases. That’s what Fortay does. We are experts in mapping client requirements to platform architecture decisions.” Zoom Phone Competency Requirements Zoom Phone Competency enables trusted voice professionals to become certified in delivering Zoom Phone for a seamless customer experience, ensuring successful adoption and deployment of the platform. To gain entrance to this certification program, firms must have a minimum two years as a voice consultant and five customer testimonials on record. Benefits of Selecting Zoom Phone Zoom Phone is a “modern cloud phone system.” Together with their meetings platform, it provides an enterprise-grade collaboration hub for video, voice, chat, and meetings. The three biggest advantages of Zoom Phone are: The enterprise features: Zoom Phone includes traditional PBX features that enable employees to talk and interact in new ways to keep businesses moving. Centralised management: You can provision and manage users and intelligently monitor business interactions with an easy-to-use centralized administration portal. Security and reliability: The globally distributed Zoom cloud platform delivers secure HD audio with enterprise-class reliability and quality of service. For businesses interested in a cloud-first phone system to better accommodate a remote or hybrid employee geographic footprint, Zoom Phone is a leading option in the market. If you’re already using Zoom’s meeting, webinar, or room capabilities, there is even more reason to consider extending your platform to include Zoom Phone. Fortay's Professional Services Zoom Phone Competency Partner's are encouraged to develop value-added services to enhance the client platform experience. As a voice and collaboration consultant for nearly 25 years, Fortay has a deep understanding of the evolution of collaboration infrastructure in the enterprise. Today, our collaboration expertise includes architecting cloud-first unified communications platforms. Fortay's value-added services for the Zoom platform include: Platform selection and design Deployment, including integration with other platforms and systems End user training and adoption to ensure maximum system value Our team is available immediately to help your organisation with Zoom Phone or general platform integration help.
Evaluating Enterprise Telephony for Microsoft Teams While Teams includes several collaboration essentials, telephony isn’t one of them. Tools like team messaging and video conferencing are readily available, but Teams requires a separate solution to enable workers to make calls in the platform. This whitepaper will provide your clients a rundown of what to look for when evaluating a Teams telephony partner, and walk you through the benefits of RingCentral’s Direct Routing option. Download the Whitepaper Here
Fortay Connect has been recognised in RingCentral's High-Performing Partner Programme as a Preferred Partner! Fortay Connect’s inclusion as a RingCentral Preferred Partner confirms our status as one of RingCentral’s most strategic partners, and as such, means we are eligible for many customised benefits allowing us to better serve our customers, including increased training, support and marketing resources. This is a very proud moment for the team at Fortay Connect and testament to our expert knowledge and dedication in fulfilling our customers business needs. What about my organisation? Each of our customers is in a different stage of their unified communications journey, and our service offerings have been designed to help and support all of our customers. We recognise that there is no “one-size fits all” when it comes to unified communications. Each organisation's journey to RingCentral is different and our services provide you with the building blocks needed to support your business effectively. Our dedicated RingCentral services include telephony audits, feature scoring, technical demonstrations, project management, training and deployment to ensure our customers receive the full value of RingCentral’s message video and phone solution If you would like to know about RingCentral’s solution, email us on hello@fortayconnect.com
