Monsters of UCaaS (and How to Avoid Them)

Monsters of UCaaS (and How to Avoid Them)

It’s a season of frights — of ghouls, goblins and things that go bump in the dark — but for those in the tech sector, certain monsters exist the entire year round.

Yes, certainly there are the common gremlins that keep techies awake at night, and these too are important for anyone in the UCaaS business to know. Ask any IT expert, and they’ll eagerly regale you with bone-chilling tales of glitch-causing ghosts in their machines or of invisible, unspeakable creatures tangling carefully laid cabling.

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Women in Tech: Interview with Arianna Caiaffa, Sales & Partner Support for G&B Connect

Arianna Caiaffa, Sales & Partner Support for G&B Connect, has been a Wildix Partner since 2010.

For Arianna, entering the technology industry was not her initial career path. After working in a design studio in the center of Milan, she received a call from G&B Connect and decided to accept a job in Sales & Partner Support. 20 years have passed since that day.

“I have never regretted taking this job,” she explained. “It has allowed me to grow as a person, and it’s a job that has evolved over time. The thing I like most about my job is that it is varied: it is not repetitive and allows me to constantly challenge myself.”

Arianna also told us, “Every day I communicate with a lot of different people, dealing with different aspects of my job: for example, pre and post-sales. In addition, I often show the solution to customers in a demo, or manage CLASSOUND and the sales cycle in all its aspects.”

When I asked what character trait helped her the most in this sector, she firmly replied that she places great importance on the daily approach with the client.

“I don’t often have the opportunity to meet clients personally, and instead I only hear from them on the phone or see them over a videoconference. The difference, in these cases, is to make a call instead of sending an email when there are uncomfortable situations to resolve.

Calling the customer quickly, with an approach geared toward listening and understanding, often makes the difference in handling any request or issue. Clients perceive me as a caring person who is attentive to their requests. This is a trait that is always recognized and appreciated.”

In April 2021, Arianna will celebrate her 20th year working at G&B Connect — quite an accomplishment. Even so, she revealed to us that, for her, being a woman in an industry historically associated with men has never been a problem. According to Arianna, what makes the difference is the people she works with and the way she relates to them. She also related that she has never had any particular problems with her colleagues of the opposite sex. Between them, there is a relationship of absolute trust and cooperation.

Arianna is not the only woman at G&B Connect. In total, the female team is composed of four women — the most recently hired of them, Arbiola Basha, is a graduate in computer science who has also independently handled the redesign of the company website.

We ended the interview with Arianna with one last question, dedicated to all women starting in the tech world today.

“Arianna, what advice would you give to a woman starting her work in a Tech company today?”

She answered:

“To never stop learning. Read, be informed and ask for information whenever there is a situation you don’t fully understand. Be considerate of clients and be careful about how you communicate with them on a daily basis. Choose the communication tool they prefer and always put yourself in an active listening position. This can really make a difference in a lot of situations!”

What You Should Know to Evaluate UC Platform

In this blog article I will describe some essential characteristics that should be taken into consideration to evaluate UC platform.

Backwards Compatibility

Some UC solutions are still developed and managed without foreseeing a need for backwards compatibility. So, after a major upgrade of the platform, features might be removed.

A product should strive to protect the investment made by those people using the product, especially to minimize the work needed to maintain the product. After any major or minor upgrade, the old features should remain functional.

This logic must also be extended to hardware components (such as phones). For example, when the UC server platform is upgraded, support for existing hardware should continue.

It is acceptable for any IT solution to put an end-of-life date on a part of the system, but this information must be clearly published.

Whether you want to build a UC platform or choose one, pay particular attention to backward compatibility.

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What are the Requirements for Unified Communications System

In the  following article I will present a list of requirements that should help you in understanding which platform is better suited to an organization’s needs.

Number and Location of Sites

The quality of the connectivity is crucial for good voice and video service. Offices located in different countries or continents will most likely need separate local or managed UC servers.

Site Size

What’s the size of each site? If the site is large and most communications are done within the site, a local UC server is often the winning solution.

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Reviewing Deployment Scenarios of UC systems

A Unified Communication solution can be deployed either in an environment controlled by the customer, as a corporate data center, or in a third-party data center. Let’s review such deployment scenarios in more detail.

In most scenarios, a solution deployed in a cloud environment (such as Amazon AWS) offers the best overall conditions including easy redundancy, by relying on different physical data centers, and better connectivity, by providing worldwide data centers.

However, there are scenarios where an in-house UC platform can offer advantages over a cloud solution. When the UC services are accessed mostly by local users and using local PSTN trunking, a local deployment is the best solution. Another scenario might be a site with poor Internet connectivity where phone services must be provided.

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