Cloud computing is very much a reality today. Clearly visible on the radar of business and technology experts for many years, it is now delivering the cost-efficiencies and agility promised. In Denmark, Cirque – a cloud service provider and telecommunications company – has seen organisations of all sizes across all industry sectors accept cloud as a viable solution. Maturity and adoption of cloud computing
has been extended to cloud communications, where both enterprises and communication service providers (CSPs) are seeing significant value from introduction and consumption of communication needs from the cloud model.
“Nobody is buying boxes anymore,” reveals Peter Engel Møller, Channel Director, Cirque. “In Denmark, the market understands how cloud works. Our discussions with customers are not about whether to move from an on-premise solution to a cloud solution, they are about service subscriptions and how to ensure every employee has the right cloud subscription to help them work smarter.”
Cirque COO, Mads Fosselius, is seeing a rise in cloud services penetrating the Danish market. “Since the global recession started, companies have been looking at areas for improving economies. Buying equipment, maintaining SLAs and consultancy are costly, so traditional on-premise solutions are not the way forward. And since every business and every house in Denmark has a fast and inexpensive Internet connection, cloud is penetrating the market very quickly.”
Unified-Communications-as-a-Service
The cloud service provider’s comprehensive Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) platform, Business One®, enables organisations to unify all their communications – fixed and mobile – in the
cloud. Built on top of Avaya Aura®, it includes advanced features including voice, video, messaging, presence, and web applications allowing a variety of intelligent features such as an intelligent voicemail service, OneVoicemail, which notifies callers of the user’s presence based on the user’s phone and mobile status, and meetings scheduled in the user’s electronic calendar.
“We provide the same feature set for all types of user – from a user with a traditional desk phone to employees who are mobile and have a smartphone,” explains Engel Møller. “They can all communicate and they see all their colleagues, their colleague’s meetings and the status of any voice device- desk phone or mobile. And through OneNumber, users can have one number for all their devices, along with OneVoicemail – both managed through either an app or a browser tool.”
“Our service is based on the Avaya Aura® Communications Manager; we have been able to combine this solution from a worldleading communications vendor with some specific Nordic market software to produce a unique offer that’s very different from our competitors.” – Peter Engel Møller, Channel Director, Cirque.
A complete, yet simple, solution
Cirque’s experience in the Telco world puts it in the unique position of being able to deliver every aspect of its complete UCaaS solution to its customers, reducing the Total Cost of Ownership and
simplifying the overall application and infrastructure management.
“We have always been a mobile and fixed line operator so we can deliver the complete solution,” discloses Fosselius. “And since we have the mobile and fixed line subscriptions, and we have the network, we are responsible for everything and that makes it easy to manage. It is easy for us to go to our customers and give them a total subscription price for each employee.”
Not only has Cirque delivered a straightforward solution, Business One® is far in advance of its competitors. “The major telecommunications companies in Denmark don’t have desktop phones, they don’t have context, they don’t have operator consoles and they don’t integrate calendar systems,” continues
Fosselius.
Value is delivered quickly, with little upfront investment
Cloud Communication will play a vital role in ensuring Cirque’s competitiveness into the future. This is a substantial opportunity for the company with businesses of all types and sizes – established and fledgling – to be able to benefit from its hosted UC solution. Established businesses can reduce costs,
while new businesses can pay for the scalability they need as and when it comes – a great environment for growing a business.
“Cost savings are often the initial reason as to why customers look to cloud solutions,” Engel Møller comments. “The initial investment is pretty much zero and you pay per user per month – moving expenditure from CAPEX to OPEX. To start a new company you only need a very small investment and you only have to pay for the subscription that suits each individual user.”
A hosted solution also reduces the time and complexity of set up, as Fosselius reveals: “An on-premise solution may have a lead time of three to nine months and you need project managers, engineers and consultants to set it all up – it’s a big project. With our cloud solution, which consists of one platform with some self-service and automation, it takes only a tenth of the implementation time.”
Putting the focus back on IT
IT departments also benefit from Business One® – they no longer need an army of telecoms experts. Cirque is responsible for the infrastructure, the security and the software updates, ensuring the platform is secure and the latest technologies are available while IT’s time is freed up to focus on core activities.
“For the past five or six years, IT departments have been acquiring responsibility for telecoms,” observes Fosselius. “But the IT teams don’t want to handle the telecoms themselves – they just want integration that works well. We are giving them the product they want.”
Business One’s benefits go beyond cost savings
Even though cost savings are Cirque’s customers’ initial driver for adopting Business One®, longer-term benefits, such as higher productivity and improved customer service, increase the value the solution delivers. “Our solution has enabled our customers to improve customer service,” Engel Møller tells us. “With one of our customers, when a client arrives, they can see who is able to help because the system knows who is where, who is on the phone and even who has which skills. Their clients no longer have to sit and wait.
“Another customer has seen the number of internal calls fall by 40 percent since there is no reason to call a colleague if you can see that person is not available. Giving the caller the right information
means you are not wasting their time looking for you when you are not available in the first place.”
Subscriptions focused on employee needs
Cirque’s customers include organisations of all sizes and across all industry sectors. Customers value the ability to base subscription levels on the specific needs and requirements of individual users. An interesting customer such as Gallup, for example, has employees split between being office-based, making a large number of outbound calls, and being out in the field using mobile connectivity. Another customer, Carepoint, on the other hand has employees spread across multiple offices with a totally different set of requirements.
Specifically, Cirque offers four predefined user subscriptions – two IP based and two mobile based, each divided into basic and pro functionality. Business One’s self-service portal enables organisations to easily add, change and remove users according to evolving staffing needs and business requirements. “Currently 73 percent of our users have the pro functionality,” Fosselius notes. “Half of our customers start with pro subscriptions; the other half with basic subscriptions, but then nearly half of these upgrade themselves to pro once they have self-service.”
Nine months after going live, the platform already boasts 5000 users. Cirque’s ambitions are a ten-fold increase within the next nine months, even though the average company in Denmark only has around 100 employees.
Cirque’s transformation
Cirque’s move into the cloud has enabled it to increase its focus on business development. “We are not selling on premise solutions anymore – only cloud and that is a big change,” explains Engel Møller. “Today we have about 40 per cent more developers and fewer consultants. Less maintenance, support and client management means there is more room for business development.”
Fosselius concludes by explaining the impact that moving into the cloud has had on the business at a strategic level: “We have gone from 17 on-premise solutions and subscriptions to two cloud solutions – Business One® and Business 360, a mobile solution – with only four subscriptions. This has reduced
complexity both for us and our customers, and that means we now have a clearer vision and strategy.”
“We can see that the future lies in the cloud. Together we are pioneers. We have known Avaya all the way from taking its first steps and we see Avaya as a very modern company.” — Mads Fosselius, COO, Cirque.
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