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SHORETEL – END TO END CLOUD SOLUTION

Today’s businesses are looking to swap their legacy phone systems for modern communications and collaboration tools that help them stay connected. This in turn has caused a lot of movement in the unified communications vendor space as businesses look to unify all modes of communication like voice, IM, video and real-time collaboration. Additionally, businesses are increasingly looking to deploy this functionality as-a-service or via the cloud solution. A plethora of cloud based business communications and collaboration services – also known as UCaaS – are now available, each offering some shiny piece of the puzzle we call CONNECTED WORKSPACE.

Gartner has 20 providers on their Magic Quadrant for UCaaS. Everyone has a portal, fancy looking IP phones and an app for your smartphone. Prices are normalizing and are lower than they have ever been. How does an enterprise make the tough decision of selecting the very best and passing the rest? Over the next few years, the separation between the leaders and the rest of the pack will be clear. But the trick to picking the leader TODAY is to look for an END TO END solution. Not one piece, not a subset of features, not a glued together solution but a modern platform that provides cradle to grave communication services for the entire enterprise. 60.5% of IT report success with Unified Communications
* Nemertes, 2014-15 UC&C Benchmark By 2016, 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience * Gartner 2015 Marketing Spending Survey

Let’s look at some data points to validate why it is important to pick the right solution.
Nemertes Research reports only 60% of UC deployments are viewed as successful.
Gartner and other analysts predict the demand for UCaaS will continue to grow but the decisions will be made differently. Less focus on quantity of features, ease of administration and more focus on end-user experience and how quickly/easily the benefits can be realized. “User experience (UX)–The quality and effectiveness of the overall user experience (UX) across all devices will heavily influence the effectiveness of the solution, its adoption rate and, ultimately, enterprise productivity. While consolidated administration and management are important characteristics of a successful solution, it is the high-quality end-user experience that will drive adoption and productivity.“

Having control over all aspects of the solution from the hardware/software to monitoring/service is key for any vendor looking to provide a high quality UX. It has never been more important to ensure businesses choose the right partner.

ShoreTel Connect CLOUD:

ShoreTel is a leader in telecommunications that has developed a complete end-to-end solution with ShoreTel Connect CLOUD. Connect CLOUD is a modern cloud platform that is a phone system, a collaboration tool and a contact center – all behind a simple user interface that works across all your devices. Connect is monitored and supported by a team with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Connect makes your workday SIMPLE. There are five elements that make CONNECT an end-to-end UCaaS solution: The first is the phones.

ShoreTel 400 Series Phones & Dock:

As much as we all see the value of realtime collaboration with IM, the phones are still an integral part of the user experience. ShoreTel Connect stands out for its own hardphone line-up – true convergence of h/w and s/w for one great UX.

The intuitive user interface of the 400 series IP phones extends the proven ergonomic advantages of ShoreTel IP phones. Specifically, the display is closer to vertical for better readability with a five-way control for quick navigation through screens and menu options, and the keypad is closer to horizontal for more ease when dialing and using the function keys. The lighter handset offers more comfort, and the phones have a smaller footprint for reduced use of space on the desktop. Not to forget, hard keys for most commonly used functions (soft keys suck!), high quality voice/speakerphone and it’s delivered completely assembled for ease of deployment. The user experience is very tightly knit with the endpoint and it’s difficult to achieve with 3rd party handsets. Examples: Cisco/Polycom updating firmware and breaking features on 3rd party UCaaS software. No finger pointing between vendors where there are issues. The second element of an end-to-end UCaaS solution is the datacenter and operating software.

Connect Cloud Platform:

Based on an elastic cloud infrastructure, and architected for sensitive voice and data traffic, Connect provides a high quality, consistent experience. Few providers can show a diagram like this where everything from the back-end software to the end-user facing devices are all controlled by a single vendor. ShoreTel leveraged two decades of experience as a UC leader to create Connect.

The Connect platform is developed in-house and built to have the feature velocity of a true multi-service solution with the extensibility of open APIs for a seamless end UX. This means ShoreTel can focus solely on a high-quality customer experience since there are no upgrade or integration surprises. All of this is backed with seasoned staff, a state-of-the-art data center, best-practices security and top-notch customer service. The platform is powered by ShoreTel Connect switches with distributed intelligence and redundancy. The third element to an end-to-end solution is the applications.

ShoreTel Connect Client:

ShoreTel developed a new client from the ground-up without any of the headaches of having to integrate legacy applications. ShoreTel Connect provides IM, mobility, online meetings, call recording, ad-hoc conferencing and a robust multi-modal contact center application for customers with call center requirements. ShoreTel Connect Cloud features integrations with your business applications like Salesforce, MS Dynamics and Zendesk (just to name a few). Open API’s make integrations with other solutions possible as well.ShoreTel Connect provides an intuitive new collaboration experience that:

• Allows you to communicate according to your individual preferences Makes enterprise communications as easy to use as your personal ones.

• Escalates your conversations from an IM, to a call, to an online meeting, to a web desktop share with or without video – with the single click of a button.

• Enables you to collaborate as easily with groups outside your company as those inside.

• Eliminates the need for plug-ins, complicated set-ups, and multiple application windows and passwords before you can get your work done.

• Control over all components of the software allowed ShoreTel to design Connect so that it provides a simple, natural way for employees, partners, and customers to engage and communicate, whether they are remote or in the office.

The ShoreTel Connect Client has been designed to work seamlessly between your devices with a consistent experience & feature set. And when integrated into other business applications, ShoreTel Connect makes it easier to share insights, be more productive and grow the business. The next element for an end-to-end solution is service.

ShoreTel Connect Cloud Service

The ShoreTel Connect Cloud support experience is a differentiator in the UCaaS market.
Customers have a personal account manager for all your service and support needs. Also available is a live-answer support service for your end-users directly from the Help Button on their phone. You won’t find this level of service and ease of use in the UCaaS marketplace today. The last element for an end-to-end solution is flexibility.

ShoreTel Connect Flexibility:
Rapid innovation is driving constant changes in the way businesses work. UCaaS adoption is soaring however there is still a lot of value in what onsite and hybrid systems provide. A UCaaS solution may meet your needs today however it’s prudent to choose a vendor with options just in case. ShoreTel Connect has been designed to be a single platform with 3 deployment models. The reality is not every customer can be either onsite or cloud. We focused on Cloud today however what is coming with Hybrid should really excite some of you. Picking a vendor with only a portion of the solution is a risky proposition – “A Phased approach based on a seamless mix of on-premise, hybrid and private and public cloud reduces risk, cost and disruption and boosts agility”. Vendors that claim to have all these options have likely cobbled together many disparate technologies and applications which makes it impossible to provide a strong & consistent UX.

Conclusion:
Why choose ShoreTel Connect END TO END CLOUD SOLUTION?
A true end-to-end solution should be a key component of your evaluation into any UCaaS solution and no company is better positioned than ShoreTel with Connect Cloud.

ShoreTel is a leading provider of Pure IP unified communications solutions. ShoreTel’s IP phone system enables companies of any size to seamlessly integrate all communications-voice, data, and messaging-with their business processes. General Communications Corp. is an authorized ShoreTel dealer serving Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island recognized for World-Class Customer Satisfaction by ShoreTel’s President and CEO.