“And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.” — Jack Johnson, Better Together

Recently, Stuart Walters, CIO of BDO UK, spoke with a collection of cloud communications industry analysts at an 8x8 event about how 8x8’s symbiotic relationship with Microsoft Teams is helping them transform how they operate to break past the pandemic and adapt to a work-from-anywhere world.

BDO, one of the largest global networks of public accounting, tax, consulting, and business advisory firms, has been on a cloud-first journey since 2019. About one-third of the firm’s employees are “always mobile,” Walters says, and he wanted to make sure they and the rest of their employees “could work wherever they needed to.”

8x8 research found that 80% of respondents said their organizations are somewhat or very likely to integrate Microsoft Teams with third-party telephony providers. This meshes with data from independent parties like Metrigy with their Workplace Collaboration: 2021-22 global research study that found that “more than 70% of those adopting Microsoft Teams Phone System are using Direct Routing to connect Teams to the PSTN.” Last month, SearchUnifiedCommunications reported on a 451 Research study that found “about 41% of Teams phone customers plan to use Operator Connect -- the same percentage that intends to use Direct Routing.”

So the better-together story resonates across the industry. Walters told the audience the importance of call quality and reliability. Users “just expect telephony to work. So that is what we needed. And that is why we were looking for a third-party provider, both that and the international roaming and call costs.”

Transforming Internal Service Desks

BDO initially purchased a mix of 6,000 8x8 licenses spanning UCaaS, CCaaS, and Voice for Teams to augment Teams for all employees. The firm runs service desks to support internal units such as IT, finance, and HR plus some client-facing support groups. “And we've rolled a contact center across all of those. It's just giving us huge amounts of visibility, visibility that just we didn't have before with regards to what agents are doing. The fact that we can now very easily record and playback calls, which we're now doing for quality control. But that visibility that's available now, to all managers on the dashboards, to understand actually what's going on and what's going on with those support desks.”

Adoption is a Key to Cost Savings

Walters says that much of the cost savings so far from his 8x8/MS Teams solution have come from reduced PBX maintenance. He expects they will be able to realize more phone call savings as more employees use their new cloud solution. “So that's education and communication that we're currently planning. We're hoping that that will obviously flush through additional cost savings, as we start to see more people roaming and getting out and traveling across Europe and across the globe, as well.”

Next Steps for their Cloud Communications

The BDO team is still learning about how they can embed cloud communications into the new ways of working to build a stronger culture and to attract and retain employees. ”So I think we're still learning. I think we're still working out what works in an office better, and what works on the client-side better, and what works potentially at home better, and continually adapting that.” Walters says he and his team are listening to user feedback to ensure they have a flexible work environment and culture that enables their employees to do their best work.

Read a BDO case study.