Highlights
- Legacy communications systems can’t support an increasingly global business strategy
- A global cloud communications system offers the flexibility, scalability, and cost savings to grow with you no matter where you expand
- Here are three scenarios where a global system makes sense
Business today has no borders. From expanding into new markets to taking advantage of reduced production costs and talent pools in different regions, companies have more incentives than ever to go global.
And it’s never been easier, too. The internet has become a core global business enabler, with advancements that allow companies to give customers the local experience they want.
Communication challenges of a global business
Communication in global businesses is a whole different story. Businesses face two main challenges:
- Internally, employees need to communicate and collaborate seamlessly, even if they work in different offices, countries, and time zones.
- Externally, customers want to engage with representatives who understand their needs, are reachable in familiar ways (for example, a local number versus an international one), and can communicate in their native language.
- In fact, research suggests that consumers will pay more for a localized experience.
What this means is that global businesses, or those looking to go global, need a communications system that’s always local, regardless of where employees and customers are.
For example, employees in Austin should use the same system as employees in Europe and Asia. The same applies to employees who work remotely. With a unified system across the board, entire workforces can collaborate seamlessly without a disconnect in communication.
A global solution for tomorrow’s workplace
When it comes to global business, legacy communications systems (e.g., on-premises) simply won’t cut it. They’re inflexible, require clunky hardware, come with limited functions, and are expensive to manage. Using services from multiple vendors creates a cumbersome, disjointed experience too.
That’s why global businesses are increasingly moving to the cloud for communications systems that grow with and support them wherever they do business.
Global Office®: Global communications on a local scale
RingCentral Global Office is our answer. Global Office is an all-in-one messaging, video, and phone solution that’s compliant with local regulations in more than 40 countries (with international numbers in over 100). It comes all-inclusive with emergency services, international minutes, and 99.999% uptime, and it’s also available in 15 languages.
Our pure cloud infrastructure eliminates the need for clunky and expensive on-premises hardware required by legacy PBX systems. Moving to the cloud also eliminates the need for dedicated, on-site, technical personnel required to support and maintain complicated legacy PBXs and centralizes support resources.
Being purely in the cloud also allows us to scale global services seamlessly and enables businesses to manage multiple multinational offices as easily as managing a small, single-location company.
Does your business need a global communications system?
So we’ve outlined what makes Global Office so attractive, but you might be wondering when you would need a service like it. Here are a few scenarios:
1. Multinational organizations
Many organizations already have some kind of global presence—and it’s not uncommon to use local carriers and vendors to support communications in each unique geography.
Choosing local providers may seem like the simplest solution, but this approach often creates unintentional gaps and barriers as the resulting patchwork of communications systems make it more challenging to connect between locations, on top of being a nightmare to manage.
A single, global solution bridges all offices and geographies, allowing employees to message, video conference, or talk on the phone with just a click—wherever they are. This makes it easier for all your offices to work together without the problems using different tools—or having to dial country and area codes—can create.
2. Expanding into new regions
There’s a lot of legwork that goes into branching into new locations—but the sooner a new office can get up and running, the faster your business can reap the rewards of expansion. Setting up communications independently can slow you down, introducing hurdles such as local telecom regulations that may be legally and logistically confusing, as well as the need to source new devices that are compatible with country-specific power supplies.
As a result, many turn to local vendors who have experience with their region’s telecommunications requirements. Unfortunately, this means trading one headache for another if your localized solution isn’t compatible with communications tools already in use elsewhere.
A single solution like Global Office simplifies all aspects of turning on communications in a new region. Global Office ensures local compliance with local telecom regulations, so you don’t need to concern yourself with the ins and outs of geographical requirements. It’s ready to go wherever you’re looking to expand your business, allowing you to turn on powerful communications as quickly as you need them.
3. Mergers and acquisitions
Expansion doesn’t always mean new. Mergers and acquisitions represent an important growth tactic because they bring established entities into the fold, reducing the growing pains of starting from scratch.
But this doesn’t mean mergers and acquisitions are smooth sailings all the way. They’re essentially a marriage of companies, in which each brings their own processes and solutions, which likely look very different. The secret to success is getting everyone on the same page and systems up as quickly as possible so that previously distinct workforces can come together and start working as one.
Deploying a single cloud solution makes this part of bringing companies together effortless—it’s simple to provision new offices and users, and, once you have a single communications platform in place, it becomes much easier to unify people and workflows.
Supporting your global needs
For businesses of all stripes, the world is increasingly your oyster, with new opportunities, cost savings, and other rewards available to companies that choose to expand beyond existing borders. But global strategies require truly global solutions that make it easy to operate cohesively, even from spread-out locations.
Global Office bridges these gaps, with a single messaging, video, and phone solution that’s reliable, seamless, and locally compliant—allowing you to do business wherever your company strategy takes you next.
Originally published Feb 09, 2021, updated Jan 30, 2023