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Originally Posted On: https://www.uctoday.com/unified-communications/microsoft-teams-as-a-service-cloud-telephony-made-easy/

Roads to amazing new destinations are often bumpy.

Just knowing where you’re headed isn’t always a guarantee of arriving in the best shape.

You often need a guide: a hand to hold to ensure you stay on the right track.

And, so it is with Microsoft Teams.

One of the world’s biggest and best cloud-based collaboration platforms (145m daily active users – 95m added in 2020 alone), it has the power to transform an organization: saving time and cost, and reinventing ways of working.

Deploying all of Microsoft Teams’ functionality can indeed take an organization to an amazing new place it never thought existed; where the quality, efficiency and cost of brilliant communication changes the entire game.

But for that, you (or your end-user customer if you are a reseller partner) need a guiding hand that knows EXACTLY how to get there.

Cue: brilliant Managed Services providers.

For, although Microsoft Teams IS transforming the post-pandemic world of work, the role of the MSP remains as critical as it’s always been.

US-based global mid-market NextGen Communications and Managed Services provider BCM One is a case in point.

It is currently in discussions with a large, 700-user manufacturing organization on how it can integrate its new-era telephony and internal communications requirements with the power of Microsoft Teams.

Incredibly, it is able to save the organization north of 40% in telephony costs in pretty much one fell swoop.

“When they looked hard at phone usage across the workforce, they discovered that 40% of their people never need to call the outside world,” says BCM One’s Senior Vice President of Sales Mike Nowak.

“They currently deploy an on-premise call manager system and pay for minutes for all 700 users as well as associated maintenance costs.

“Microsoft Teams is already used internally so, instead, they are able to deploy Teams direct routing with a much smaller pool of minutes spread across all users.

“The 60% who regularly make calls can do so via Microsoft Teams, the remaining 40% keep their numbers but have any occasional calls forwarded to either the Microsoft Teams attendants or their own cell phones.

“We are able to get that kind of game-changing integration up and running inside 10 days and the savings kick in instantly.”

As well as cost, Managed Services providers bring other advantages to the table too.

BCM One’s solution comes with built-in failover functionality; emergency services call location functionality (required by law in the US); and easy-access, single sign-on ‘turnkey’ functionality.

However, it’s the service wrap which really differentiates.

Microsoft Teams integration WITHOUT that guiding hand to hold CAN present organizations with serious challenges.

“It’s critical that folks are educated about what Microsoft Teams can and can’t do, and where support is likely to be needed,” says Nowak.

“All organizations have slightly different requirements because all businesses run in slightly different ways.

“It’s easy to get worried about missing something. For example, without bespoke additional integration processes, Microsoft Teams doesn’t do paging or faxing, which may be mission-critical for you.

“That’s why we work hard to get under the skin of an organization and really understand how it operates BEFORE we propose any specific deployment configurations.

“That’s a passion area for us. We like to have multiple conversations with customers to ensure they are super-comfortable with our proposals and how they will change the way they work. In short, we do a full exam before we issue a prescription.”

Not that full Microsoft Teams migration is always easy for any organization.

Change on that scale – and with that kind of all-embracing impact on an organization’s day-to-day operations – can be justifiably daunting.

“Reticence comes from apprehension and we understand where that apprehension comes from,” says Nowak.

“Microsoft Teams really can truly transform an organization but only if everyone concerned feels informed and empowered. That’s always our approach and we think it’s critical to success.”

Yes, Microsoft Teams rocks.

Yes, it has the functionality to instantly change the game.

Just don’t underestimate the added potency of a safe pair of helping hands…

To learn more about BCM One and how it can empower your organization through its Voice-Enabled Teams solution, visit https://www.bcmone.com/voice-enabled-microsoft-teams