RingCentral Press Releases

However, business decision-maker sentiment points to continued, wide-scale support for hybrid and remote working for Australians in 2022 and beyond

A new research study by RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG), a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact centre solutions, found that while the majority of Australian workers (81%) believe that the freedom to work from anywhere is now the norm for all relevant industries, 63% anticipate that in 2022 they will be returning back to the office to work.

The survey also revealed considerable anxiety about a possible return to the office. Over half of Australians (56%) have not met their colleagues in-person due to COVID and, of this group, 60% are anxious about meeting their co-workers for the first time in-person. This is likely driven by fears of potential exposure to COVID, with 78% of the Australian workforce believing that those that return to in-person workplace models should be vaccinated. As a consequence, over half (65%) of full-time Australian workers claim that Delta and other variants have made them more likely to consider other employers that allow remote work.

“A lot has already been discussed about the ‘Great Resignation’ both here in Australia and also internationally, but I’m not sure we will see it playing out here in any significant way - provided organisations continue to follow their stated commitment to permanent hybrid and flexible work arrangements,” said Peter Hughes, Regional Vice President of Sales, RingCentral.

“While Australian workers have some anxiety about returning to the office, our survey also found that business decision-makers have experienced first-hand the benefits of working from anywhere, so they are unlikely to change their decision about supporting a hybrid working model.”

The survey found that 73% of business decision-makers1 believe that business travel for conferences or trade shows will now be unnecessary. Also, a large majority of them (83%) claim that there is increased freedom to work from anywhere. They are also almost two times more likely than non-business decision-makers to believe both that workplace collaboration tools can make them feel professionally connected, and also that video facilitates better personal relationships with co-workers.

That’s evidenced by how enthusiastically business decision-makers have embraced remote collaboration: 77% believe they can build personal relationships with co-workers without ever physically meeting them, 76% feel that connecting online through voice or video calls is as good as in-person for work-related tasks, and 74% that connecting online through voice or video calls is as good as in-person for building personal relationships with co-workers.

RingCentral conducted this survey in collaboration with Ipsos, a multinational market research and consulting firm, and questioned 9,000 workers in five countries, including 2,000 respondents in Australia. The survey was conducted with a desire to understand the impact of the pandemic on the workforce across various elements including, but not limited to, isolation, loneliness, a desire to connect, meeting new colleagues, confidence in return to office plans, and others.

The results also bring to light some concerns on the impact of remote work on individual workers, and the importance organisations need to place on employee inclusivity and engagement programs. Some highlights include:  

• Isolation: 52% of Australian full-time workers who worked hybridly or remotely during COVID felt more isolated or lonely at work.
• Impact of loneliness on remote and hybrid workers: of Australian full-time workers who feel isolated or lonely due to remote work, 38% say that it has had an impact on their overall mental health, 35% that it has had an impact on how much enthusiasm they have for their job, and 31% on the connections with their co-workers.
• Desire to connect more: 42% of Australian workers say that social distancing through COVID has made them want to connect more with their work colleagues (for 50% there is no change and just 8% say they want to connect less).

Conversely, the survey also found that 1-in-3 Australian full-time workers are happier with their job since the pandemic began, and more than two-thirds (69%) say working hybrid or remotely during COVID made them more empathetic towards people. Parents who work full-time (43%) are nearly twice as likely as their non-parent counterparts (23%) to be happier with their jobs now. For additional highlights on how workers are feeling, click here. 

Additional survey highlights include: 

1. The Great Divide:

• Full-time working parents vs non-parents are roughly twice as likely to:
  • be happier with their jobs now (43% vs 23%);
  • say that the COVID pandemic has had a positive impact on their relationship with colleagues (43% vs 20%), and also on improving the relationship with their supervisor (40% vs 20%);
  • believe their manager has become more effective since the pandemic started (48% vs 24%).
• Business Decision-Makers vs. Non-Business Decision-Makers: 
  • prefer working in an office (40% vs 46%);
  • believe that business communication and collaboration tools have helped them feel more connected with coworkers during the pandemic (72% vs 38%);
  • feel that video meetings allow them to be more professionally connected (66% vs 31%) and personally connected (63% vs 27%) with their colleagues.
  • are likely to seek new employment if forced back to the office compared (30% vs 19%).

2. The feelings of return to work ring true across the world 

• In Australia, 86% of workers and in France, 74% of workers believe their employers are making their work environments as safe as possible to reduce their risk of contracting COVID.
  • 58% of Australian and 56% of American workers would still rather work from home than in the office.
  • In France, the majority of French parents are more likely to consider remote work.  
• In the UK, while 84% of workers are confident in their employer’s return to work plans, 66% of office workers claimed that they prefer to continue working from home as opposed to in the office.
• In the US, while 90% are confident in their employer’s return to work plans, 80% of Americans believe they currently have the freedom to work from anywhere but only 12% believe they will have the same freedom in 2022.
• In Germany, while 93% of workers are confident in their employer’s return to work plans, 1-in-3 still expect to work from home. 

3. Human connection has changed forever but not vanished: 

The study has found that there is a certain sense of stability and positivity in today’s workers. While 80% of Australians say that the way they connect with other people has changed, people are feeling settled and stable in their current environments. 

• 69% say that working hybrid or remote during COVID has made them more empathetic toward people
• 71% say connecting online through voice or video calls is as good as in-person for work-related tasks 
• 66% of Australian workers believe that voice or video calls can be as effective as in-person communication for building personal relationships with coworkers 
• 82% say that their colleagues who use voice communications are more connected to each other 

For more information on the global study, click here.

1 Business decision-makers are defined as those with senior title, influence purchasers, influence hiring, financial responsibility, and approve work schedules for employees.

About RingCentral 

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is a leading provider of business cloud communications and contact centre solutions based on its powerful Message Video Phone™  (MVP®) global platform. More flexible and cost effective than legacy on-premises PBX and video conferencing systems that it replaces, RingCentral empowers modern mobile and distributed workforces to communicate, collaborate, and connect via any mode, any device, and any location. RingCentral offers three key products in its portfolio including RingCentral MVP™, a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform including team messaging, video meetings, and cloud phone system; RingCentral Video®,  the company’s video meetings solution with team messaging that enables Smart Video Meetings™; and RingCentral cloud Contact Centre solutions. RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading third-party business applications and enables customers to easily customise business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world.

RingCentral upgrades the entire Microsoft Teams telephony experience with advanced phone capabilities, voicemail, fax, and call-to-web.

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE:RNG), a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration and contact centre solutions, today announced it is bringing a broad and reliable set of phone capabilities to Microsoft Teams. Customers have the option to choose between a direct routing solution or the RingCentral dialler integration for Microsoft Teams, and will have access to fax, voicemail, and more.

RingCentral is also announcing that the RingCentral Message Video Phone™ (MVP™) platform is now available via a new flexible BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) offering, which gives enterprises the choice in supplying their own telephony access, allowing them to bring in their carrier(s) of choice and extend their global footprint. Enhancements to safety capabilities with updated location awareness and updated abilities to manage emergency response locations will be made available worldwide.

Jaya Kumar, global chief marketing officer at RingCentral, said, “RingCentral’s mission is to give customers the very best business communications capabilities in a secure, trusted, and reliable way, and we’re delighted to extend RingCentral’s capabilities to organisations using Microsoft Teams. Teams need to be able to collaborate whether it is scheduled, spontaneous or ongoing. Teams also need to connect from any device and across modalities. It is about being able to connect when, where and how you want. We call it - Your Work. Your Way.”

Enhanced Solutions for Microsoft Teams Customers

RingCentral is helping Microsoft Teams customers enhance their calling experiences by offering telephony solutions that provide advanced phone capabilities and enterprise-grade reliability and compliance. Microsoft Teams customers in Australia will now have access to:

• Fax, Voicemail, and Call-to-Web: Microsoft Teams customers that want to utilise the comprehensive RingCentral cloud PBX functionality will be able to integrate the RingCentral app to embed calling, Fax (Q1 ‘22), Call-to-Web (Q4 ‘21), and Voicemail (Q4 ‘21) controls within Microsoft Teams. 
• Direct routing: RingCentral enhances direct routing service for Microsoft Teams by enabling customers to deploy Fax and Voicemail at no additional cost.  
• Enhanced onboarding: An easier, streamlined onboarding experience, so admins can simplify deployments.

RingCentral also provides customers with two options on how to bring RingCentral’s calling experience into Microsoft Teams:

•  an embedded dialler integration between the RingCentral app and Microsoft Teams  
•  a direct routing solution to power Microsoft Teams calling natively. 

Deeper integrations between the RingCentral app and Microsoft Teams

Customers who leverage the RingCentral app to meet all the complex calling needs of their business can create even tighter integrations within Microsoft Teams, by embedding controls for fax and voicemail alongside their existing embedded dialler, and choosing between the RingCentral web or desktop app as their calling endpoint. These users can now unlock more efficient integrations and workflows between the two apps. Customers can also simplify their workflows with quick access to voicemail messages within Microsoft Teams - and can check their voicemails without having to switch into the RingCentral app.

In addition, customers can choose how they want to make calls in Microsoft Teams with new call handling settings - choosing between either the RingCentral desktop or the web app to complete their calls with the embedded RingCentral dialler. 

Through the integration with RingCentral for Microsoft Teams, customers can embed rich phone capabilities and power every calling use case in their organisation; access a comprehensive suite of cloud PBX capabilities; enable rich IT and line of business analytics and reporting; and receive unparalleled security, compliance, and global trust benefits. 

The RingCentral for Microsoft Teams add-in is available now with embedded dialing; Fax and Voicemail will be available later in Australia and other regions.

Enhancing Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

Customers who want a native calling experience for Microsoft Teams can choose RingCentral’s direct routing offering to be the back-end cloud PBX and expand their Teams calling global footprint. RingCentral’s enhanced direct routing solution provides closer ties to RingCentral’s cloud PBX infrastructure, and greatly benefits admins, who will be able to have a much simpler onboarding experience through a tighter, more automated administration workflow. RingCentral is also now offering a new complementary add-in for direct routing customers to provide Fax capabilities - features not available in Microsoft Teams. 

Australian retail pharmacy business National Pharmacies has completed a 65-store upgrade to RingCentral MVP, and will shortly be deploying the solution for its head office in Adelaide. Once the head office rollout is complete, National Pharmacies plans to improve its collaborative capabilities by integrating RingCentral with Microsoft Teams, which was deployed just before the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. “By using the RingCentral app at the desktop, we will be able to utilise additional functionality in the RingCentral environment for more focused services for our members and to provide training for our staff and frontline teams.” said Joe Polisena, CIO, National Pharmacies.

RingCentral Bring-Your-Own Carrier (BYOC) provides more flexibility in the path to cloud and global expansion

RingCentral Bring-Your-Own-Carrier (BYOC) gives customers an extra level of choice as they transition to the cloud. The BYOC model enables customers to supply their own telecom services, connecting an existing or preferred telecom carrier(s) into the RingCentral cloud, enabling the RingCentral app to provide business calling in concert with team messaging, task management, unlimited cloud storage, picture annotations, video meetings, virtual backgrounds, meeting transcriptions, closed captions and more. Enterprises across the globe can migrate communications and collaboration to the cloud while retaining existing telecom carrier relationships, providing more flexibility in their Cloud migration journey. 

BYOC will be available in Q4 2021 with any SIP trunk capable gateway, in addition to being certified by industry leading SBC vendors such as  AudioCodes and Ribbon Communications.

Peace of mind that RingCentral meets unique user needs and global compliance requirements

RingCentral remains committed to user safety and regulatory compliance. RingCentral delivers enhanced location accuracy and provides caller identification information for 000/112 emergency services dialling in Australia. In addition, RingCentral makes it easy for administrators to define and manage corporate emergency response locations so they can be shared and re-used by end users, and also allows end users to define and manage personal emergency response locations. Visit the RingCentral Trust Centre to learn more about RingCentral’s industry-leading global compliance.

Improved system flexibility to help administrators match the right level of RingCentral service to their users’ needs

This quarter, RingCentral is enhancing the experience for RingCentral MVP administrators with a simple and intuitive way to manage users licences in the admin portal. Administrators can quickly view user licence types, and initiate quick upgrades and downgrades as needed. This functionality helps administrators consolidate vendors, mitigate shadow IT, and deliver better product-user fit across their organisations.

“As people continue to work from anywhere, they need solutions that make their lives easy and productive,” said Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates, an independent technology research and analyst firm. “The new integrations and enhancements from RingCentral make it extremely easy for customers to access RingCentral and the overall experience is seamless.”

About RingCentral 

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is a leading provider of business cloud communications and contact center solutions based on its powerful Message Video Phone™ (MVP®) global platform. More flexible and cost effective than legacy on-premises PBX and video conferencing systems that it replaces, RingCentral empowers modern mobile and distributed workforces to communicate, collaborate, and connect via any mode, any device, and any location. RingCentral offers three key products in its portfolio including RingCentral MVP™, a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform including team messaging, video meetings, and cloud phone system; RingCentral Video®, the company's video meetings solution with team messaging that enables Smart Video Meetings™; and RingCentral cloud Contact Center solutions. RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading third-party business applications and enables customers to easily customize business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world.

© 2021 RingCentral, Inc. All rights reserved. RingCentral, Message Video Phone, MVP, RingCentral MVP, RingCentral Video, RingCentral Video Pro, RingCentral Video Pro+, RingCentral Contact Center, Smart Video Meetings, and the RingCentral logo are trademarks of RingCentral, Inc.

New locally hosted RingCentral voice and video solutions empowering Australians to work productively from anywhere

Sydney, Australia — 8, March 2021 — RingCentral Australia Pty Ltd, a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact centre solutions, and a wholly owned subsidiary of RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG), today announced the availability of RingCentral Video™ and RingCentral Rooms™ in Australia. RingCentral is also announcing that RingCentral Rooms will be compatible with Poly devices including Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50 in region. 

Additionally, RingCentral is announcing that the company has established a new data centre in Australia, which brings RingCentral’s video meetings and cloud phone system, to any organisation—private and public sector—required to comply with Australia’s data sovereignty regulations, including the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles.

“At RingCentral we are focused on enabling organisations to modernise their business communications by moving to the cloud and allowing their people to be productive from anywhere,” said Peter Hughes, Regional Vice President Sales, APAC, RingCentral. “With the announcement of RingCentral Video and RingCentral Rooms, we are bringing a more enhanced and collaborative experience with greater security and accessibility for all people – both internal and external to the organisation, wherever they are working – be that at home, in the office, or on-the-go. In addition, with today’s announcement of our new data centre to securely store customer data in-country, we have opened up our cloud communications and contact centre platform for any organisation in Australia, of any size and across every industry sector.”

Australian Data Centre

As RingCentral continues its global expansion efforts, Australia remains a key strategic location for the company. The new datacentre will be available on demand and offers RingCentral customers the ability to register endpoints in-country, and keep voice and video call data, including voicemail, call recordings, faxes and call logs, stored locally in Australia.

As RingCentral’s Australian cloud data centre provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS) implements and maintains technical and organisational security measures applicable to AWS cloud infrastructure services under globally and locally recognised security assurance frameworks and certifications, including ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, ISO/IEC 27018,SOC 2 and SOC 3. These technical and organisational security measures are validated by independent third-party assessors, and are designed to prevent unauthorised access to or disclosure of customer content. In addition, the RingCentral Contact Centre solution, which is locally hosted in Australia is already IRAP compliant, making it easily applicable for use by government agencies and regulated industries. RingCentral is also working towards getting the RingCentral Office voice and video capabilities certified this year.

RingCentral Video 

A reimagined video meetings experience for businesses, available as part of the RingCentral Office® solution in Australia, RingCentral Video offers several key capabilities including:

• Unified: RingCentral Video is integrated with team messaging and global cloud phone system capabilities, including business voice and fax, all tightly integrated enabling people and teams to collaborate across all modes of communication without losing context.
• Fast: RingCentral Video offers a complete browser-based experience, leveraging and extending Google Chrome’s WebRTC, so users do not have to download an application to join, host, or schedule a meeting.
• Secure: RingCentral offers rich admin, host and user settings such as host and moderator controls for audio, video, chat and screen share, meeting passwords, waiting room, and user authentication for meeting join, make the overall meetings experience ideal for enterprises who are seeking secure business communications solutions.
• Trusted: RingCentral is committed to customers’ privacy. Per the company’s privacy policy, RingCentral does not rent or sell any of its customers’ personal information. In addition, RingCentral Video and RingCentral Office meet major international privacy and security requirements.
• Reliable: RingCentral Video is built on a new, state-of-the-art, high-availability infrastructure that leverages years of RingCentral’s experience as a global Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) leader for secure and reliable business communications.
• Open: Leveraging RingCentral’s open platform, RingCentral Video is tightly integrated with popular business productivity applications such as Google (G Suite and Gmail), HubSpot, Microsoft (Teams and O365), Slack, Theta Lake, Zendesk, Canvas and Zoho, among others. RingCentral for Salesforce is available on Salesforce AppExchange. 
• Smart: RingCentral Video includes a robust analytics platform that gives IT system administrators access to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as adoption, usage, and Quality of Service (QoS) metrics. Easy-to-read dashboards help administrators deliver a seamless communications experience across their companies globally.

Rocco Pirrello, Manager, Operations and Brand, GSA Insurance Brokers, said, “We’re looking forward to upgrading our RingCentral communications platform to RingCentral Video, and passing on the benefits of a unified experience to our staff and especially to external meeting participants. Video meetings have become such a necessity in business today and the experience of our external attendees is paramount. We look forward to having participants no longer have to download and run anything to join a RingCentral Video meeting; and for the browser experience to be just as good for users as the app experience.” 

RingCentral Rooms and RingCentral Rooms for Poly

RingCentral Rooms transforms meeting rooms of any size into cloud-based video collaborative spaces, where both in-office and remote teams can work together face-to-face.  RingCentral Rooms leverages the hardware that many meeting rooms are already equipped with (cameras, TVs, speakers, and computers) in order to help minimise the need for complicated initial IT deployment and set-up.

In addition, RingCentral Rooms, which was built in partnership with Poly, consolidates meeting rooms’ hardware needs while enabling a new wave of room intelligence, analytics, and manageability. Specifically designed to simplify large-scale RingCentral Room deployments, these turnkey solutions from Poly enable frictionless procurement, faster installs, and an easy management experience.

RingCentral Rooms for Poly is generally available to all customers in Australia and is fully integrated with Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50 plug-and-play USB video bars which bring simplicity, convenience, and a seamless modern meeting experience to physical workspaces.

RingCentral Rooms for Poly offers one-touch robust video, audio, and web conferencing capabilities, allowing teams to enjoy the following benefits:

• Connect with anyone, anywhere: RingCentral Rooms allows users to instantly connect and collaborate with other participants joining from anywhere on any device with a one-tap interface.
• Modern workspace for rooms of all sizes: Teams can utilise advanced conferencing services, from digital whiteboards to wireless file and screen sharing through Wi-Fi or AirPlay Mirror, all wrapped into a touch-based, high-quality collaboration experience.
• Easy to deploy, monitor, and manage: IT teams can set up a cloud-based telepresence room with off-the-shelf equipment, avoiding costly proprietary endpoints and complicated configuration. With a single iPad controller, the host can manage camera functions, speakers, and participants during online meetings.
• Consistent and unified experience: Built on the RingCentral platform, users enjoy a simple, interactive experience that is seamless across RingCentral Video and  team messaging.

About RingCentral

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is a leading provider of business cloud communications and contact center solutions based on its powerful Message Video Phone™    (MVP™) platform. More flexible and cost effective than legacy on-premise PBX and video conferencing systems that it replaces, RingCentral empowers modern mobile and distributed workforces to communicate, collaborate, and connect via any mode, any device, and any location. RingCentral offers three key products in its portfolio including RingCentral Office® , a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform including team messaging, video meetings, and a cloud phone system; Glip ™  the company's free video meetings solution with team messaging that enables Smart Video Meetings™; and RingCentral cloud Contact Center  solutions. RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading third party business applications and enables customers to easily customise business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world.

© 2021 RingCentral, Inc. All rights reserved. RingCentral, Message Video Phone,   MVP, RingCentral Office, Glip, Smart Video Meetings, and the RingCentral logo are trademarks of RingCentral, Inc.