Recently, we spoke to 8x8 employees who spent more than a decade at Avaya to get their thoughts on customers making the move to the cloud:

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After decades of experience working with Avaya customers, hearing their stories, and learning their business needs and use cases, it’s become clear to me that the cloud is the way of the future. When I speak to customers who are still using on-prem systems like Avaya, they’re often blown away by what we can offer them by transitioning to the cloud. Even something as simple as not being tethered to their desk and being able to correspond with their teammates on the go can make a huge change in an employee’s happiness, not to mention their efficiency and output.

The pandemic forced many organizations to rethink their communications, as hybrid work accelerated the process of moving to the cloud. Organizations aren’t opposed to the cloud, it’s just on a long list of things they know they’ll get to eventually. And then months become years, and they find themselves with outdated tech, lagging behind their competitors, and unable to keep up with evolving employee and customer expectations.

When I consider the customers I’ve worked with and their stories, there are three key reasons that come up over and over again when a customer is leaving Avaya and moving to the cloud.

1. Frustration with complicated equipment and maintenance costs

If you’ve worked with an on-premises system, you know how complicated these systems can get, needing PSTN trunking at an HQ location, backups at recovery sites, and complex webs of connections to keep the configuration running. With a system like Avaya or Avaya competitors, it would typically also require sizable financial and technical investments to ensure high availability.

2. The lack of a confidence in their provider’s future roadmap

Staying with a current provider is easy, but modern businesses understand the importance of having a communications provider that will be a partner for the long term. Many on-prem providers have encountered financial uncertainty, are ceasing or cutting back R&D investments and are severely limited in ways they can support your business success.

3. The need for flexibility and adaptability

Many on-prem customers that I speak with are finding it more and more difficult to succeed with their old or outdated systems. Their employees demand flexibility that those systems simply cannot provide. A huge amount of IT resources are spent on solving difficult and time-consuming problems with their PBX system. Here are some of the most common systems issues I see:

  • Phone system and user management: These interfaces are complex and not intuitive, and these complexities only magnify when we’re talking about managing global users and international office locations.
  • Reporting and analytics: Relying on specialized skills, third party tools or external vendors for analytics and data, they’re lacking the agility needed for prompt and actionable business reporting.
  • Upgrades and rollouts: When it comes to maintaining outdated technology, many of the risks are magnified, upgrades are never simple, and even patches for critical vulnerabilities can take months to be pushed to production.

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These areas can cause massive issues—and massive headaches—for companies in both the long and the short term. No matter what your industry, it’s critical to have a simple and reliable communications system that you can rely on, for the sake of your customers, employees, and the future of your business. Those of us that have spent over a decade in the industry know that moving to the cloud isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

Want to learn more about how 8x8 supports Avaya customers in making the transition to the cloud? Read our brief.