Ever since the world underwent various levels of lockdown, there has been an explosion in the use of collaboration platforms like Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Microsoft Teams’ user base has grown to 75 million users at last count and Cisco WebEx has likewise reported a 700% increased adoption rate.

Even as most industries open, many employees will continue working from home because they have proven that high levels of productivity are possible outside the office when empowered with the appropriate communications tools. In this environment, business continuity, rapid scaling and securely managing a dispersed workforce has never been more important. It is essential to have a firm grip on the financial impact of these changes and a clear view of how Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC & C) services are used in this new way of working.

Welcome to the ‘next normal’

“Work is an activity, not a place, which is why we’ve been advocating a flexible working culture for a number of years,” says Angus de Beer, head of Modern Collaboration at Dimension Data. “As long as businesses have the right tools to manage their workforce remotely, they’re realising significant reductions in costs and increased employee productivity and morale, regardless of location.”

The UC & C Analytics platform gives businesses access to rich analytics to ensure users are empowered with the appropriate knowledge for their areas of responsibility.

UC & C Analytics allows business to:

Manage communications expenses and measure ROI;
Measure how effectively collaboration services are being adopted across the organisation;
Monitor various metrics related to behavioural trends;
Determine the capacity requirements of telco services;
Detect events which impacts service quality or expense; and
Drive decisions using advanced call analytics.

The UC & C Analytics platform supports interoperability for all leading vendors including Microsoft, Cisco, Unify, Avaya, Mitel and Alcatel-Lucent. The solution road map also supports an array of cloud-based UC sources which can be included into the scope of services.

“Organisations can now bring various platforms and data into a single view in near real time,” says de Beer. “A wide range of dashboards and reports are available, and the advanced analytics outputs are customisable so customers can view metrics and indicators that are most relevant to their business. In this way the UC & C Analytics platform enables a business’s digital transformation journey and allows effective managed remote working anywhere.”

Dimension Data has implemented the solution successfully in various sectors across financial services, mining, manufacturing and government.

To find out more about Dimension Data’s UC & C analytics and expense management services, please click here.

About Dimension Data
Dimension Data is an African-born systems integrator and managed services provider that designs, manages and optimises today’s evolving technology environments to enable its clients to leverage data in a digital age.

Founded in 1983, and headquartered in Johannesburg, we are a proud member of the NTT Group, one of the world’s leading ICT companies, comprising a group of global technology companies. Employing over 10 000 employees across 15 countries, we invest heavily in innovation to bring together the world’s best technologies, from consulting, technical and support services to a fully managed service, to our global client base.

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