The New Normal in IT

CHAPTER 3Voice Systems and Collaboration in the New Hybrid Office Environment

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

—LYNDON B. JOHNSON¹

Voice Systems

Companies that had on-premise phone systems without a seamless way to access inbound calls or easily place outbound calls through the corporate phone system likely had big challenges within the first 90 days of pushing staff toward remote work once the global pandemic numbers started hitting strides for both infections and deaths. That's because DID (direct-inward dialing) phone numbers associated with traditional on-premise phone systems are designed to ring to a specific number and not go through a menu or call center option solution. For folks that went to remote work without some kind of network-based solution (accessible via a VPN or soft phone), those phone numbers/lines, as well as 1-800 numbers, went dead in the water when staff vacated their nice shiny corporate offices with $500 phone handsets on their desks.

Organizations that planned for voice remote access, including call center teams, either through networking or via previously migrated phone systems to voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) cloud-based solutions, had little to no interruptions when the decision was made to push their staff to remote work ...