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What is UCaaS - and why do we need it?

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19 Feb 2021


Connectivity and communication have never been more important. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a comprehensive and flexible solution that combines telephony with conferencing and collaboration tools. Simply explained, this allows for a call to be transferred from a desktop to your smartphone to online quite seamlessly as technologies continue to evolve and change.

In a pandemic business world, connectivity and communication have never been more important. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a comprehensive and flexible solution that combines telephony with conferencing and collaboration tools. Simply explained, this allows for a call to be transferred from a desktop to your smartphone to online quite seamlessly as technologies continue to evolve and change. Whatever your size of business, UCaaS can transform your communication systems from a simple exchange to a platform that boosts mobility across all your departments.
UCaaS is a service hosted and delivered “as-a-service” by a cloud communication tools vendor, like Etisalat. UCaaS supports six communications functions: telephony, meetings (audio/video/web conferencing) unified messaging, instant messaging, mobility, and communications-enabled business processes. It can be an alternative to on-premises unified communications tools, a VoIP-only implementation, or a non-unified suite of business communication tools that include a mixture of cloud apps and traditional software and multiple vendors.

So, what does this mean for your business?
As more businesses need to get mobile and work remotely, UCaaS comes into its own. Hosted on the cloud, it gives SMBs the option to work from anywhere leveraging the cloud-based hosted service, to connect, communicate and collaborate from anywhere. 
In addition to the telephony solutions that include advanced PBX features like HD voice quality, the ability to distribute calls to a group of numbers, voicemail, call parking and pick-up functionality, and much more, providers like Etisalat offer hosted client software for computers and mobile devices that enable easy communication no matter what the platform.

Carry your office number everywhere

With more and more of the workforce working remotely and, on the move, the demand for mobile communications is ging at record speed. With Business Edge from Etisalat, Unified Communications bridges the communication gap and delivers feature-rich telephony services directly to smartphones and tablets over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G/5G networks. Users have one phone number that can be connected to a desktop phone and to Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android clients, making it easy to work from anywhere.


IVR and extension dialing across sites.
In today’s high-volume call environments, setting up an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to represent your organisation’s primary answering hub is crucial to the success of any business. With IVR, you can create menu structures, routing selections and call management settings at different times of the day (or even during holidays) by utilising your provider’s portal. Additionally, businesses can set-up a common dialing plan, reaching anyone in the organisation by simply dialing a short extension number.

Audio & Video Collaboration
Organisations require efficient and all-inclusive collaboration solutions to boost their productivity. Given the current restrictions and remote working, it has now become even more to enable employees with video conferencing and screen-sharing capabilities, through something as basic as a web bser and an internet connection. Etisalat’s Business Edge’s communication tools allow for multi-party HD video conferencing or a simple dial-in for voice only participants.