Cloud For Companies, The best choice for your business in this time of great Cloud-related transformations? Relying on a telecommunications operator that deals exclusively with businesses.
The changes in the organization of work are there for all to see.
Companies are increasingly using cloud services, intending to simplify their work. No company can ignore the transformation because most of the services (storage, e-mail, management software, applications, etc.) are now provided through “virtualized” systems.
Adopting Cloud services brings significant benefits to companies because it allows you to:
- lighten or eliminate internal hardware infrastructure, reducing costs
- make company data always accessible
- scale your services to get the performance you want and pay only for what you need
- improve collaboration with colleagues and customers, even remotely.
The same reasons push companies to eliminate the old switchboards in the office to take advantage of the efficiency of the Cloud PBXs (switchboards in the Cloud). Here, too, the points in favor are numerous.
With a Cloud PBX, you eliminate maintenance costs, have more guarantees on the continuity of voice services, and make smart working easier, thanks to the possibility of converging fixed and mobile telephony (imagine, for example, the convenience of being able to use the fixed number of the office from your mobile, wherever you are).
All of these technologies have one thing in common. Their adoption is favored by the constant increase of the theoretically available internet band.
The problem for millions of companies arises precisely from that “theoretically.”
It is precisely on this aspect that great attention is needed not to receive nasty surprises. And this is where a specialized operator can make the difference.
Cloud and telecommunications: a preferential lane for your company
Today it is possible to create Cloud infrastructures for every need by choosing from many services.
Even if you create the most powerful, efficient, and secure Cloud infrastructure, you still haven’t solved the most important problem. There is only one connection between your company and the Cloud: internet connectivity. And in most cases, this connectivity is provided by a generalist operator who also serves consumer customers.
A problem not to be underestimated, It is as if all the traffic to and from your company passes through a single bridge shared with many other realities.
A bridge that could be subject to traffic jams at any moment because your data travels together with those of millions of other users. Think, for example, about what happened during the lockdown, but also about the slowdowns you experience at certain times of the day.
In the most catastrophic hypothesis, that bridge could suddenly “collapse,” for example, due to a simple breakdown, completely isolating your company.
Imagine the situation. Phones become silent, surfing is impossible, and services and Clouds become unreachable.
As is normal in these cases, you try to call for assistance.
But are you sure that your large generalist operator will answer you quickly, with a dedicated service and specialized staff? What if you had chosen multiple providers? How many phone calls, how many auto-responders, and how many liability reprimands would you have to face before identifying the cause of the problem and finding a solution?
With a business-only solution, you can turn that bridge into a fast track for your business.
The quality of the service makes the difference.
In an increasingly interconnected world, it is the guaranteed standards of service that make the difference in what we buy. The functioning of the network services affects the quality of our work, the growth of our business, and, more generally, our daily life.
For this reason, the choice of the telecommunications operator must be made with the utmost awareness.
Relying on a single operator that deals exclusively with businesses allows you to take advantage of digitization and Fixed-Mobile convergence advantages.
Plus the possibility of achieving economies of scale and the guarantee of dedicated assistance with personnel and technicians prepared to solve problems in rapid matters.
Here are some simple examples of how the service of a business-only operator differs from large generalist brands:
- A high-performance network dedicated exclusively to business customers
- Cloud accessible without going through the Internet and with reduced latency times
- Guaranteed quality of service for voice and data services
- Professional backup services to ensure business continuity
- Dedicated assistance with qualified personnel and the ability to anticipate breakdowns
- Assistance from specialized System Integrators close to your company headquarters
A network dedicated to Business Customers
An operator with a network dedicated to Business Customers guarantees the quality of the lines in any condition with a transport network capable of best supporting the peaks of use.
Unlike the access network (the so-called last mile), the transport network is always shared among several customers.
In this scenario, factors such as the overbooking that the Operator chooses to apply, the transmission capacity (i.e., the volume of useful information that the network is able to move every second), and the architecture of the network itself comes into play.
These factors actually determine the quality of the connection.
Overbooking, for generalist operators, is a question of saving resources.
The same transmission channels are thus used for business and consumer traffic. With overbooking, providers sell a greater amount of bandwidth than what the potential technological put in place allows them to support.
Regardless of the maximum speed of the access network and its type, the more overbooked it is done, the lower the line performance will be and variable over time.
Relying on a business-only operator allows you to take advantage of a high-performance network with reduced latency times and, by definition, more “download” than those used by the general public.
The Cloud? Without quality, it is nothing.
So let’s go back to the Cloud for a moment. The advantages that a company can obtain from a Cloud service with guaranteed performance indeed derive from the quality of the server infrastructure and storage systems.
The same level of importance, however, must also be attributed to the data connection that allows the company and its users to “reach” the servers that provide the services.
Companies often choose Cloud services from vendors other than connectivity providers. By opting for a large global player with an architecture distributed all over the world, the connection between the company’s systems and the Cloud inevitably occurs through the Internet.
This implies that the operation is “best-effort,” i.e., without guaranteeing service quality. In many cases, latency can reach very high levels and affect the efficiency of the business.
The problem can only be solved if the provider can create a dedicated link with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) between the company and the Cloud. This ideal condition is created only if the Cloud Provider also provides access to the network and TLC services.
For this, it is essential to choose a single provider for connectivity and Cloud.
To reinforce this thesis, there is another aspect that you will have already guessed.
The fact that the services are provided through a data network dedicated exclusively to businesses further increases the possibility of obtaining excellent performance also in terms of latency, packet loss, and round trip delay.
Choosing a single business-only operator, even in this case, allows you to create a preferential lane for your company.
Data and voice quality? Travel on separate channels
The same goes for voice traffic and collaboration services.
Ensuring separate management of data and voice traffic circuits avoids disturbances in speech and lack of quality in video conferencing, one of the most used cloud tools.
Also, in this case, the Operator’s transport network management policies make the difference.
If voice and data traffic travel on the same circuits, the risks of interference, slowdowns, and packet loss are high. This creates the typical voice quality problems – those annoying tinny or croaking sounds – often attributed solely to Voice over IP ( VoIP) technology.
A business operator should be able to make voice and data travel on distinct and dedicated circuits in order to guarantee the so-called QoS (Quality of Service) in all circumstances.
Professional backup services for business continuity
We have already said that the single bridge that connects your company to the Internet and the Cloud world could collapse at any moment. Again, your business should try to create a safe lane for itself.
This could be provided by professional backup systems that are activated automatically in the event of the main line failure.
To ensure maximum safety and work continuity, these systems should ensure:
- Internet access through technologies other than the main one (xDSL, FTTx, Radio, or Mobile)
- Possibility of using an additional router connected to an independent line
- Maintaining the same IP addresses even in the event of a mainline failure
A specialized operator knows all the needs of those who do business and can provide professional backup solutions suitable for all types of business and based on the best technologies available in the area where your company resides. So your business work is not interrupted.
Dedicated and specialized assistance
Of course, there will always be a time when your business needs assistance.
In this case, your company cannot be considered just a number, as often happens when you turn to generalist suppliers. Dedicated assistance can make a difference for you.
How many times has this happened to you? There is a breakdown in progress, or you need urgent information about a service. You try to call your carrier’s customer service, but your attempt crashes into an auto responder. Or, after a long wait, you find yourself talking to someone who can’t solve your problem.
Companies have different needs than individuals and cannot afford to end up in queues and waste time.
A business-only Operator with dedicated Customer Service is easier and faster to contact. In addition, the specialized operators are differentiated by providing employees with prepared to assist.
And what if the Operator were even able to anticipate problems, that is, identify them and perhaps solve them proactively even before the customer notices them?
Business operators with their own Network Operation Center (NOC) constantly monitor the lines of each customer. In this way, they can prevent inefficiencies and, in case of failure, they have the technical skills to restore the service promptly.
The importance of a local partner
Not all companies have an internal IT manager. And even the largest companies sometimes find it difficult to follow the continuous evolution of digital technologies.
This is why the local support of a System Integrator capable of managing all the solutions provided by the operators, providing integrated solutions (for example, cabling, firewalling, professional WiFi networks, switchboards), and providing technical assistance is important.
Business operators often rely on local partners to perform these functions.
Over time, the System Integrator becomes a trusted contact who simplifies the work of IT Managers in more structured companies and takes their place in smaller ones. In this way, the number of connections is reduced, and you can rely on suppliers that are always available – real partners – who know your business well and support your work.
Also Read : Smart Working: 10 Essential Tools To Grow Your Business
