
UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) is still hot right now, and no wonder: by moving traditional voice, video and/or text to the Cloud, it promises better communication and collaboration, more efficiency, and better security without soon-to-be-legacy hardware dragging you down.
The problem is: which vendor and which plan? You’ll find more than 100 vendors to choose from, and even more packages and plans to weed through. Where do you start?
You’ve come to the right place. Based on our experience guiding hundreds of clients through IT upgrades, here are 3 Pro Tips to help ensure your UCaaS upgrade is successful:
Pro tip #1
The most successful projects always start with one thing:
A clear-eyed assessment of where you are and where you want to go
Or in tech-speak: the Requirements Document. Company info, stakeholders, existing infrastructure and services, security goals, and of course, what you’re looking for in your new system.
But yeah, we get it! Gathering all the data and information required for this document isn’t most people’s idea of a good time (we may be the exception!). But we can guarantee you – guarantee – that if you take the time to nail down these details, it will pay you back in
- quicker implementation
- fewer headaches along the way
- cost-savings (no or fewer change orders)
- and best of all, getting exactly the system you need out the other end
That leads to our second pro tip, what we call the golden rule:
Pro tip #2
Remember your business and its needs are unique
You don’t want to – you can’t afford to – fit your business into some generic plan. It’d be like buying the only T-shirt offered for sale, even though it’s a child’s size. Sure, you might be able to make it kind of fit, but a T designed for the unique you would be so much more comfortable and long lasting (though less amusing to your co-workers, for sure!).
In short, you want a plan that fits you. All the things you need, none of the things you don’t.
That’s why spelling everything out in a Requirements document is so critical to a successful project: you use it to detail your uniqueness to ensure you get a unique solution.
Now, we’re not saying this is easy. But we can definitely make it easier:
We’ve developed a well-organized, fillable PDF requirements template that also includes contextual tips and strategies we’ve accumulated over years of helping our clients’ project succeed.
Pro tip #3
Set your UCaaS project up for success from the very beginning:
Simply download it, fill it out, and pass it to the vendors you’re considering. If they don’t take the time to design a unique plan reflecting your doc, that’s your first sign to move on. If they do, you’ll be well on your way to a successful implementation.
Of course, we can help too. We’ve helped clients create thousands of documents like these, and once it’s complete, we can use our clout and experience to winnow the multitude of vendors and plans out there to ones who’ll actually deliver — and then make sure they do.
Good luck with your project, and as always, let us know if you have any questions!