Three CFO Imperatives for the Future of Work Post-COVID-19

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Move to UCaaS to optimise spending, drive business transformation and enable productivity

In the business world today, cloud technology is not only changing IT, but also changing finance. With the COVID-19 pandemic driving a forecasted 90% of business IT to the cloud, how can your organisation benefit financially from moving to the cloud and adopting unified communications as a service (UCaaS)?

1. The Cloud imperative 

81% of organisations are currently using or plan to move to cloud telephony solutions in the next 2 years. 82% of IT decision-makers somewhat agree, agree, or strongly agree that a cloud strategy is essential to remain competitive.

Cloud-based PBX systems offer dramatic advantages over on-premises solutions including:

  • Reducing infrastructure and management costs, saving 30-50% by migrating communications systems to the cloud and by consolidating multiple communications systems and providers across multiple sites.
  • Shifting to an OPEX standard in the unified communications environment can provide a rewarding financial and technological change for any organisation. In a UCaaS environment, you pay only for what you use. There is also price transparency, and all services are scalable and flexible, which allows organisations to remain agile in responding to unpredictable infrastructure needs. Additionally, aside from a new set of current year tax deductions, eliminating large telephony capital expenditures will “lean out” an organisation’s balance sheet and create more cash flow, allowing for short-term operational growth.
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2. Enabling remote work: Modern solutions to drive business value

Now that working from home is here to stay, the focus now must be on optimising the work from home experience to improve cost-effectiveness while equipping workers with modern communications and collaboration capabilities to maximise productivity and revenue generation opportunities. 

Nearly three out of four finance leaders surveyed earlier this year by research and advisory organisation Gartner said they plan to move at least 5% of their workforce that had previously operated in an office to a full-time remote schedule. Gartner interviewed 317 finance leaders, including more than 200 CFOs, from companies that ranged between about $500 million and $50 billion in annual revenue, with as many as 100,000 employees.

By enabling remote work in your organisation, you will ensure business continuity. But to keep productivity high, you will need to provide tools to employees to communicate and collaborate securely and efficiently wherever they work. UCaaS meets this need as it provides a single, unified cloud solution that combines message, video and phone – allowing communication through channel of choice. An added benefit of the solution is its ease and flexibility to set up and use.

3. Work with IT Leaders to select the right partner for cost and risk reduction

It is paramount for the organisation to choose the optimal partner and ideal platform. For example, adopting a single-vendor approach results in a 56% lower total cost of ownership (TCO) when compared to a multi-vendor strategy. One vendor also means one bill, making administration cost-efficient.

From a financial perspective, you want to choose the partner that will guarantee the security your organisation needs and who will help you reduce the risk with the highest security and reliability platform. CFOs will have to keep a sharp eye on risk management and stewardship.

One example of such risks is susceptibility to cyber attacks. As companies virtualise their workforce and create more external access points to their systems, they potentially become more vulnerable to cyber risks including data theft, ransomware and other attacks. Vigilance and investment in cybersecurity will continue to increase in importance.

RingCentral has put together a useful calculator to help you understand how much you would save by moving to UCaaS with RingCentral. This analysis will help you understand how RingCentral will lower cost, increase productivity and enable business.

Is your business spending too much? Find out with our ROI calculator.

Originally published Dec 09, 2020, updated Feb 08, 2021

Author

    Severine Hierso is a Director of Product Marketing at RingCentral, the leader in cloud communications solutions, and is passionate about creating value, differentiation and messaging, ensuring a better experience for customers and partners.

    She has gained extensive international product marketing, market research, sales enablement and business development experience across SaaS, telecommunications, video conferencing and technology sectors within companies such as Sony, Cisco, Cogeco Peer 1 and Dimension Data/NTT.

    Severine holds a Master’s degree in economics and her hobbies include long distance runs and travelling.

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