Comfort & Security In The Cloud

By Author: Ruben Marcus
Total Articles: 18
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Contact center technology and operations have become increasingly complex, placinggreater demands on technology management to ensure stability, reliability, andresiliency. As companies struggle to have enough resources — staff with the rightexpertise and tools with the right capabilities — a new alternative has emerged. Cloud‐based approaches can surpass premises‐based solutions in a number of ways. They offeradvanced, intelligent monitoring, along with dedicated support resources available 24x7.In addition, proactive yet non‐disruptive ongoing management, formalized securityarchitectures and processes, and assured business continuity/disaster recoverycapabilities provide the “insurance” policies that every center needs.

Interactive Intelligence offers a Communications as a Service (CaaS) solution that is uniquely positioned through its architecture and the accompanying support services to deliver on the promise of “comfort and security” that contact centers seek.

The perfect ...
... storm?

The world of contact centertechnology today offers richness and diversity, yet brings with it a level of complexity that challenges many resource‐constrained companies.The “typical” environment leverages Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), distributed solutions with data center‐based servers and network connections, and a high level of integration with many different applications. As it has evolved, contact center technology looks more like other technology found in those data centers. Yet it differs in the vendors and architectures, as well as the mission criticality, performance demands, and hours of availability that users require. In addition, some legacy solutions have become complex as they have “evolved,” rather than been replaced, to support investment protection. These solutions can look like cracker box houses with many additions, and can have the same sorts of jarring transitions between generations and obvious “bolt‐on” characteristics. Most would prefer a solution based on a single, cohesive architectural plan. Dealing with a complex technical environment without the right IT resources is the double whammy. Most companies lack the resource bandwidth to address the spectrum of strategic and tactical business needs. All too often, contact center technology gets neglected — both because it’s different and because of lack of resources with the specialized knowledge to plan for, acquire, apply and optimize it. As contact centers focus on day‐to‐day operations, strategic initiatives suffer.

The typical Network Operations Center (NOC) or Operations Support area and the associated resources to monitor premises‐based enterprise technology aren’t set up for or well suited to monitor contact center technology. They lack the tools, resources, processes, knowledge, experience, and focus to support the mission critical contact center and its technology. The technology is supported reactively, or on an ad hoc basis, with the hottest fires getting the most attention. Some only focus on it when things start to go really wrong (which unfortunately, in a complex environment, can happen more frequently), or when there is a disaster.