We live in a complex technology world. A very successful businessman, Sir Richard Branson, once said: “Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple.”
This statement comes to mind again in the context of our S-S-D pitch for CloudBond 365: Simplification, Standardization and Demarcation, three words that I often use in presentations.
The CloudBond 365 solution provides three pillars: The User Management Pack™ 365 built-in management suite, an Active Directory Connector and an Office365 Connector. This makes CloudBond 365 the spider in the web between Office 365 and the local customer enterprise. The solution provides a fully preinstalled Skype for Business solution on an AudioCodes gateway, server, or virtualization platform in the datacenter, standardized on Microsoft’s resource forest model. CloudBond 365 enables this Skype for Business silo model to be a fully integrated with the enterprise and provide these S-S-D benefits. Of course, User Management Pack™ 365 can also run on top of a fully (self-) deployed Skype for Business environment.
Here are a couple of examples:
From a technical perspective, simplification not only brings value for the initial deployment but also for the years to follow. ‘Simple things’ tend to break less and if they break they’re easier to fix. From a business perspective, professional services can now be enabled for integrating Skype for Business with the business processes of an enterprise.
Standardization is key not only for the deployment phase, but also for the support period in the following years.
- Support engineers ‘know’ exactly what the architecture is
- The exact customer environment is always available in the lab to reproduce test
- Problems and solutions for one customer are now applicable to most other customers as well
If you’re in the business of selling Skype for Business, standardization allows you to offer the solution without assuming the risk of covering potential trouble shooting or ‘unknowns’ within the customer environment. Standardization means there are no projects that are open ended.
The demarcation provided by the CloudBond 365 solution presents a very clear line between the Skype for Business deployment and the customer enterprise environment (in which Active Directories, Exchange, SharePoint, etc. are being managed). There is no need for discussions on SLA and who’s responsible for what. This same demarcation line also helps the business to stay out of competition with the new customer’s current ICT partner and doesn’t require managing two ICT partners within the same network.
Skype for Business designs usually have a complex enterprise setup which can cause projects to become more expensive than at first anticipated. This complexity can have a major effect on the TCO in the years that follow going “live” with a Skype for Business deployment. The CloudBond 365 solution provides additional simplicity for daily maintenance via the User Management Pack™ 365, an important ongoing benefit to an organization realizing a quicker ROI by means of a lower TCO.
CloudBond 365 is all about simplifying something complex, allowing enterprises to benefit from Skype for Business as much as SMBs.
Sir Richard Branson had it right. Just keep things simple.