More and more businesses are giving their employees the freedom to work from anywhere. Research from the UK Parliament shows that in September 2022, around 22% of the GB workforce had worked at least one day from home in the previous week. This is almost double what it was in 2019.
But for IT leaders, flexible working comes with challenges. How do you give workers access to their business phone from multiple devices? How do you get new people up and running quickly on company systems? And plenty more.
While there are challenges, it is possible for businesses of all sizes to run a flexible working model and thrive. We know because we’ve helped countless firms do it. Here are stories from four of them.
PHMG keeps pace with cloud phone
For PHMG, telephony is everything. The company develops custom content for telephony journeys for its 40,000 clients worldwide, including Coca-Cola and Samsung.
But its own, on-premises phone system was letting the brand down. It was unreliable and didn’t always provide high quality calls. Plus, as PHMG’s own customers started moving over to cloud phone systems, the firm knew that it needed to keep up.
PHMG chose to switch to the cloud-based phone system RingCentral MVP, and rolled it out to the company’s offices in the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia. As the firm’s Finance Director, Chris Berisford says, it’s given them “true remote-work capability” and the ability to manage their “massive telephony operation with confidence and peace of mind.” Read the PHMG case study.
“Our staff can now make and receive work calls from home, on their laptops or smartphones, just as easily as if they were in the office.” Chris Berisford, Finance Director, PHMG.
Mobica gains a ‘truly mobile’ workforce with unified comms
Global software services company, Mobica, had expanded rapidly, opening new offices around the world, and hiring hundreds of additional employees. But its communications had struggled to keep pace.
The firm was running an ineffective and costly communications infrastructure, built on legacy phone technology and multiple separate apps. Teams lacked many features they needed to communicate and collaborate effectively with the global customer base.
Mobica opted to replace all of this with a single, unified solution – RingCentral MVP – and are now reaping what CIO Tony Healy says are “enormous” benefits. From reduced costs and improved connectivity, to increased collaboration and brand reputation. Read the Mobica case study.
“RingCentral is helping us become more connected as an organisation, and that’s important in a company as geographically distributed as ours…It gives us the ability to be a truly mobile workforce without losing any productivity.” Tony Healy, Chief Information Officer, Mobica.
Lush finds a phone system that scales with them
Global beauty brand, Lush Cosmetics, was being held back by its local, on-prem phone systems. There were frustrating day-to-day issues with reliability and uptime but there was a bigger problem too. Every time Lush expanded into a new region, another on-prem phone system had to be set-up. None of these systems were integrated and it was a struggle for the UK-based IT team to manage them all.
Taking independent advice from its long-time solution partner, CDW, Lush chose RingCentral MVP as a replacement system. The new cloud-based solution is not only improving day-to-day operations, but enabling Lush to build a more scalable communications infrastructure at the same time as saving money.
And there’s more. The firm says it can now get detailed reporting on customer care team performance, onboard and train its agents faster, and offer more flexibility for employees without compromising on productivity. Read the Lush case study.
“RingCentral lets our staff work just as productively at home as in the office. We never had reliable remote-work capability with the old phone setup.” Brad Candy, Technical Operations Manager, Lush Cosmetics.
Thanet District Council gains from digital transformation
Kent-based Thanet District Council was using an outdated, on-prem phone system for internal communications and its customer service lines. It was unreliable and restrictive, and this was hampering CX and staff productivity. As the hardware was nearing end of life, the Council decided to look for cloud-based replacements, as part of its digital transformation initiative.
Opting for RingCentral MVP has now given the organisation “crystal-clear” call quality, says Joe Brackenborough, the Council’s Digital Transformation Manager, as well as flexibility and insights into call volume patterns. Suddenly the customer service team can plan and manage their resources effectively.
On top of that, RingCentral has delivered lower IT costs and a faster onboarding process for new hires. The Council can also connect workflow apps to drive efficiency. For instance, during the pandemic, the softphone app allowed employees to make and receive business calls from multiple devices. Read the Thanet District Council case study.
“To have one app and one experience across any device gives us the flexibility to let users bring their own device – whether it’s Android, iOS or Windows, we know they won’t have a problem navigating their way around”. Joe Brackenborough. Digital Transformation Manager, Thanet District Council.
What’s their secret?
All four organisations recognised that it was time to switch to cloud communications. They ditched tired, legacy systems and disjointed infrastructure in favour of one unified communications solution: RingCentral MVP.
RingCentral helps organisations of all sizes gain newfound flexibility. Our research with customers shows that it increases employee mobility and productivity, as well as customer satisfaction. And with benefits like scalability, a lower TCO, and a 99.999% uptime SLA, it’s the perfect choice for larger organisations.
Read the full case studies and discover more in our eBook: Triumph in the work-from-anywhere era.
Originally published Oct 13, 2023, updated Nov 29, 2023
