Cavell Group, a major research firm, predicts that Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) will continue to develop at a strong rate until at least 2030.
In response to this increasing demand, Telviva, a leading unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) business, has expanded its offering in the UK, which is powered by AWS in Ireland, to include both in-country channel partners and current customers with UK requirements.
David Meintjes, CEO of Telviva, states that UCaaS is expanding rapidly on a global scale. In addition to providing top-notch UCaaS through Telviva One, he says, it was made very evident during Telviva’s most recent appearance at the Channel Live conference in the UK that channel partners have a strong demand for the kinds of solutions Telviva currently provides to sub-Saharan companies and its AWS-enabled client in North America.
He went on to say: “The growth in UCaaS globally is driven by several factors. Businesses are moving from on-premise to the cloud for various reasons, but one of the most prominent growth drivers is the increasingly important requirement of dealing with multiple channels of communication.”
Although the UK is more advanced than SA in terms of cloud usage, he notes that there is still a long way to go as the two countries are only separated by roughly 10 percentage points.
According to Meintjes, companies are quickly using text-based contact channels to supplement traditional phone conversations, such as live chat on websites or WhatsApp.
Continuing, he revealed: “To obtain a single view of customer engagements over multiple channels, a business requires a solution that aggregates that view over various channels and presents that information into the underlying business systems. Once that is in place then automation of high volume, low complexity interactions is often considered to create business efficiencies.”
The desire to switch from a reactive to a proactive service is another driver propelling the development of UCaaS. Event-driven outbound communication could be optimized for text-based channels while always providing the option for a consumer to switch to another channel, like voice.
Meintjes had this to say, regarding Telviva’s personal development: “We currently have operations in South Africa, Lesotho, UK, Canada and are busy extending the service to Australia. We largely follow a partnership model in jurisdictions other than South Africa.
“For the UK market, our focus is to service South African business process outsourcing (BPO) businesses and companies that have a UK head office or UK branch offices, as well as mid-sized UK channel partners,” he added.
He explains further how the offering functions for businesses with needs in both South Africa and the United Kingdom. For example, if a customer has a registered entity in both countries and needs services in both, they only pay for the services in the primary jurisdiction where they operate and receive the service in the other jurisdiction for free. Each employee may dynamically register to two cloud PBXs, one in South Africa and one in the UK, he explains, allowing for seamless communication at the lowest call costs while maintaining regulatory compliance. Free on-net calling between teams is also included.
In a show of support for South African technology, he claims that channel partners in the UK have reacted favorably to Telviva and its products, ranging from Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) to UCaaS.
He added: “The first response is that the competitive product offering offers great margins to partners and that they can label the offering with their own brand. Partners see it as a future-proofing decision because they are dealing with an actual operator and not just someone selling software.”
