Source: Neonbrand Lalw auf Unsplash

Quo vadis, cloud telephony?

5. October 2020 Published by Raphael Doerr

This post about cloud telephony was published on LinkedIn on September 28, 2020 by Ralf Lueb. The post can be viewed, liked or shared at this link.

In Germany, the use of cloud services is on the rise – and not just since the changes to everyday working life for many people brought about by the coronavirus crisis. This already became clear in 2019 in a survey by @Bitkom and @KPMG. In the year prior to the representative study, three out of four (73 percent) German companies with 20 or more employees were already using cloud computing. Trend? Rising, but not exactly impressive. In this year’s study, the increase was just three percent, but the survey period did also only cover 2019. That means it should be very interesting to see next year’s results, in which the effects of the coronavirus crisis should have a more drastic impact.

Cloud telephony needs to catch up

An area in which the transition to cloud computing has a major impact is communication. According to the Smart Business Communications study by IDG, two thirds of the companies surveyed rely on a cloud solution particularly in the field of unified collaboration and communications (UCC). There is, however, a need to catch up in the field of telephony: The IP telephone system (49 percent) and the traditional analog PBX or via ISDN (33 percent) are still ahead of cloud-based telephony (31 percent). That means almost 70 percent of the companies are still foregoing the benefits offered by a cloud telephone system.

Scalability and flexibility as key benefits

According to the KPMG and Bitkom study from 2019 mentioned above, fast scalability and high flexibility are regarded as the biggest benefit of cloud-based services. This is also one of the most prominent benefits of cloud telephony: If the company grows and hires new employees, all it takes is a few clicks to set up the new users directly via a software-based user interface. New colleagues can be hooked up quickly and easily to the communication network with a suitable SIP telephone complete with zero touch provisioning. In the field of DECT telephony, cloud telephone systems in combination with powerful and scalable single- and multi-cell systems are ideal for accommodating future company growth.

Added to that are numerous other benefits for companies if they opt for cloud-based telephony – no acquisition costs, flexible pricing, location independence thanks to availability on different devices. What is holding companies back from migrating the telephone system to the cloud?

Security as a relevant benefit

In the KMPG study, companies most frequently name the security aspect of cloud computing as an obstacle, with unauthorized access to sensitive company data being especially feared. But it’s here in particular that providers like NFON, Starface, 3CX, etc. come up trumps. Security is paramount in the field of cloud telephony, among other things through TÜV-certified data centers, high redundancies and absolute protection against eavesdropping. Together with the corresponding telephony hardware, which must of course be just as secure and be subject to high encryption standards, cloud telephony offers an extremely high level of security.

Will cloud telephony really gain a firm foothold in 2020?

The most important conditions should be in place for cloud telephony to assert itself. What do you think – will cloud fully gain a firm foothold in the coronavirus year 2020? Or are there other obstacles?