Benefits of Group Communications as a Service (GCaaS)

Thinking beyond devices – Group communication as a service.

In the current environment, organisations are at a crossroads in terms of what types of devices and apps they should provide to their employees to ensure effective communication between their onsite, on-the-go, and remote workers. Employees today expect faster technology and easier collaboration.

While there is no one best way for employees to communicate between each other, most organisations use a variety of technologies such as smart devices, landlines, and two-way radios, which often are incompatible.

Driven by technological innovation and new workplace environments organisations are deploying Group Communications as a Service (GCaaS – cloud-based software solutions) to support their workflows for a more cost effective and unified approach to change. GCaaS solutions break down technology and usage barriers to provide an optimised and predictable cost model, whilst providing you with crystal-clear voice services and integration with the software apps you are already using.

An aligned communication solution isn’t just beneficial to employees, it can also be an essential tool for management and IT administrators. In fact, research* shows that unified communications such as GCaaS are transforming the way organisations work:

Three things to consider…

1.  Are your employees required to carry more than one device at a time to stay in touch?
2.  Is your communication platform causing you to lose time and customers?
3.  Does it take longer than necessary to make decisions when multiple people are involved in the process?

What is GCaaS?

Due to the increasing dynamic nature of workflows, and interactions between employees or multiple work groups, often a simple PTT functionality may no longer suffice. With GCaaS, management and employees can collaborate anytime, anywhere across varying devices. Functionalities include but are not limited to:

• Check in / check out facilities
• Issuing of tasks / job tickets
• Time saving with image, video or file sharing
• Text and status messages
• Location check points 
• Emergency calls triggered by an event or button press
• And many more.

As well as managing actionable data, it also allows organisations to review incidents quickly, remediate them efficiently, and protect themselves from legal or compliance concerns.

As a result, GCaaS cloud-based business communications offer a consistent user experience for remote and mobile workers, regardless of location. Furthermore, it offers greater scalability and flexibility for organisations that need to rapidly add and remove users, for example temporary staff, without requiring time consuming device programming.

Moreover, housed in ISO accredited data centres, cloud-based systems have built-in resiliency for business continuity.

Trusted manufacturers.

Trusted manufacturers such as Airsys.Cloud, Entel, Motorola Solutions and Zebra are offering GCaaS, allowing users to gain the full advantage of push-to-talk (PTT) without the upkeep and resources required to support a PTT application through service subscription.

Motorola Solutions summarises, in their guide ‘The Role of Communication in Today’s Modern Business’  how unconnected communications affects business operations:

• Disconnected teams – When people use different devices and networks, communications are fragmented. Individuals and teams work independently rather than as one seamless unit. You can never be sure who is receiving the right information at the right time and team collaboration is minimised.
• Information bottlenecks – Information is the lifeblood of your organisation and helps you make informed decisions that have the best possible outcome. When information doesn’t get through, decisions become flawed and time delays occur. At critical times, these delays can turn incidents into emergencies and emergencies into disasters.
• Difficulties locating people – How quickly can you find the people you need when you need them? If you want to make a spontaneous change to a task or respond to an unexpected incident, speed is the key. But physically locating people can waste a lot of time, which compromises productivity. In emergency cases, the implications are even more serious.
• Remote and agile workforce – With an increasingly mobile workforce, it is essential that information and conversations follow employees wherever they are. Employees are restricted if they are tied to a desk or specific location in order to access information and be an active participant in business decisions. It is a common issue for disconnected organisations with workers unable to access and utilise the latest information or join discussions when working from home, at remote sites or on the road.

24/7 support – GCaaS service level agreements.

In addition to supporting your system, Radiocoms can manage and address your evolving requirements as well as ensuring 24/7 availability – enabling your staff to focus on their core work.

By establishing measurable service-level agreements (SLAs) we can ensure that your performance expectations are met, for example:

• One point of contact is responsible for managing all PTT-related application and system troubleshooting and issues (24/7/365 if required).
• Onboarding of new and temporary users can be a challenge for any business and mission critical communications operation, a secure online portal allows you (or Radiocoms) to easily add users, that includes rapid deployment, managing and securing devices.
• Remote software updates to protect your GCaaS system and PTT communications from known security vulnerabilities and providing your end users with improved functionality.

Helping you do more with less.

In summary, GCaaS eliminates information silos, lowers operational costs, enhances customer service and increases revenue whilst allowing you to have full visibility of your mobile environment. 

GCaaS – trials and support.

For existing and prospective clients that would like to trial this solution, please reach out to your Account Manager to discuss your first steps. Alternatively, please email sales@radiocoms.co.uk or call 033 3939 022.

*IDG Enterprise: Unified Communications and  Collaboration Survey via Motorola Solutions.