A SPECIAL REPORT FROM DIALPAD, INC. | AUGUST 2017

RFP GUIDE:

5 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

25 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

IT’S A NEW WORLD

The way we work has changed— for good. Today’s office is engaging, flexible, and dynamic. Instead of hardware and cubicles, we understand employees are our biggest assets.

35 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

IT’S UP TO YOU

In today’s world, IT is more critical than ever to setting company strategy and creating competitive advantage. The rules have changed in business com-munications. With the rise of the anywhere worker, communications systems need to be available on any device, anywhere in the world. Phones are no longer disparate systems, they are embedded tools that share data and functionality across applications.

The only way to build a truly innovative and collaborative culture is to make sure everyone has a voice. And that starts with choosing a business communications platform that empowers the modern anywhere worker.

PURE CLOUD HAS WON, AND WITH IT, COMPANIES ARE SCALING FASTER, INNOVATING MORE RAPIDLY, AND DRIVING BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES.

55 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

TWEET THIS

WHY READ THIS GUIDE?Arm yourself with the questions and knowledge to think critically about what your organization needs for communications now and into the future. For each criteria, we break down major requirements for a new communications system. We’ve also included questions you can ask to guide your IT strategy. Start by asking these questions internally to determine your success criteria, and then use them to engage with vendors.

In this guide, we examine 5 new rules that IT leaders need to live by to make strategic technology choices about communications software:

1. Enable Employees to Work from Anywhere

2. Accelerate Productivity with Integrations

3. Invest in Pure Cloud Platforms

4. Global Scale and Elastic Management

5. Deliver a Consumer-Grade User Experience

5 NEW RULES FOR MODERN BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

65 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

Rule #1

ENABLE EMPLOYEES TO WORK FROM ANYWHERE

75 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

84%of remote companies have remote workers.1

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1 Dialpad and Lab42 Research, Report on Business Communications, 2016

Remote working is no longer an exception, it’s the norm. A survey by Lab42 Research and Dialpad uncovered that 84% of companies have remote workers and 67% offer a work-from-home policy.1 A desk-phone-centric communications system simply doesn’t fit in this new reality.

Your business communications solution must ensure employees experience the same levels

of productivity wherever they are. Modern communication tools break down silos of geography and build stronger, more integrated teams. Working from anywhere also means considering Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies. Many employees supplement poor business communications systems by using their personal phone numbers, causing IT teams to lose control of customer data and analytics.

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KEY WORK-FROM-ANYWHERE REQUIREMENTS:

¼ How do you enable a BYOD workforce?

¼ Does the solution work seamlessly across carrier and wifi calling, so employees can use their business number from anywhere?

¼ How do you support international offices?

¼ How does your business communications platform allow employees to communicate from anywhere and on any device?

¼ How will your business communications platform connect your remote workforce?

¼ How does your communications solutions fit into your Anywhere IT Stack?

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DIALPAD ALIGNS BEAUTIFULLY WITH OUR STRATEGY TO ENABLE PEOPLE TO WORK FROM ANYWHERE ON ANY DEVICE.— Dena Speranza, CIO, Denison University

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Rule #2

ACCELERATE PRODUCTIVITY WITH INTEGRATIONS

115 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

MAKE SMART DECISIONS FASTER

Business communications is no longer a siloed system tied to desk phones. Borrowing from the world of software, new communications solutions open up great potential for integrating with other business applications. Three key areas of focus are improving collaboration, analytics, and security.

Modern teams expect to be able to share and collabo-rate on documents while communicating in real time. Integrating your voice and unified communication tools with the world’s best productivity tools allows them to get work done faster.

Across all these tools, administrators want to see analytics—from measuring sales phone calls to assessing agent productivity. But admins shouldn’t be the only people with access to data.

This also means security is essential. Communications platforms must fit with your company’s security policies, often requiring integration through Single sign-on and identity management applications.

125 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

¼ How does your business communication system (e.g, video, messaging, meetings) integrate with email and productivity solutions, such as Office 365 or G Suite?

¼ Does your business communication solution allow your company directory to sync with users’ devices?

¼ How does your business communication solution provide additional context to employees while engaged in conversation? Does it integrate with popular social networks such as LinkedIn?

¼ How does your solution impact CRM workflows and analytics? How can you leverage your communications system to optimize productivity in sales and service?

¼ How do employees get access to their own insights and data?

¼ What are your security policies for authentication and encryption? Does your business communica-tions system integrate with identity and lifecycle management providers?

KEY INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS:

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BY PULLING RELEVANT DATA DIRECTLY INTO OUR PHONE SYSTEM, OUR REPS CAN SELL AND SERVICE SMARTER.— Andrew Gesset, General Manager Internal IT, Xero

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Rule #3

INVEST IN PURE CLOUD PLATFORMS

155 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

of organizations worldwide use Office 365 and G Suite.2

59%

2 Bitglass, Cloud Adoption Report, 2016

The cloud has won, with Office 365 and G Suite now deployed in 59% of organizations worldwide.2 Security and performance advancements have given the world’s largest companies the confidence in transitioning to the cloud. The cloud has also given the smallest companies the ability to compete with the largest.

But not all cloud software is created equal. First-generation cloud is still plagued with problems—lack of redundancy, inflexible architecture, global connectivity issues, and scheduled outages. Modern pure cloud providers have conquered these problems using microservices architecture and global cloud platforms, resulting in unparalleled quality and scalability.

165 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

KEY CLOUD REQUIREMENTS:

¼ Do you have the knowledge and expertise to deploy this on your own? How much will it cost to get the solution properly implemented?

¼ How is your cloud solution architected? Where are your data centers located?

¼ How are upgrades and maintenance managed? Do you have scheduled outages?

¼ Do you offer a cloud solution for voice, messaging, and conferencing? What costs are associated with upgrading to a cloud solution?

¼ Does your business phone solution support predictive pricing models? What are the ongoing fees that will be required to keep the system running? Are there upgrade, licensing, integration, or installation fees?

¼ What’s the largest cloud communications deployment you have?

175 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

¼ Recordings are stored and encrypted using AES-256

¼ The platform is PrivacyTrust (formerly eTrust) certified

¼ Authentication is encrypted using HTTPS and is secured with the administrator’s choice of OAuth2, SAML 2.0, or by email and password that is encrypted

¼ Media is processed in Tier 3/4 data centers with ISO 27001 and SSAE18 compliance

¼ Customer data is stored in an encrypted manner

¼ Administrators have the ability to set the time frame for when data is retained

¼ Third parties periodically audit the security of the platform

¼ IP-based signaling and media are encrypted. Signaling is encrypted using secure web-sockets (SSL) and media is encrypted using Secure RTP (SRTP)

KEY SECURITY REQUIREMENTS:

WE’RE SEEING PRODUCTIVITY AND COST SAVINGS SKYROCKET.— Lee Arthur, Managing Director, Financial Times

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Rule #4

GLOBAL SCALE AND ELASTIC MANAGEMENT

205 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

Continuous disruption means that features need to adapt quickly too. Enterprise software traditionally has worked on release cycles of years. Not only does this limit responsiveness to business needs, it also requires significant administrative work to transition between systems. Borrowing from consumer apps, enterprises are discovering rapid release cycles allow them to respond to changing requirements and build new integrations quickly without frustrating users.

Deployments and upgrades used to be expensive, time-consuming projects. Today, companies need to be able to move quickly. Seventy-two percent of business leaders believe that the next 3 years will be more critical for their industry than the last 50 years. For IT leaders, this means that business requirements are much more fluid than in the past.

Today’s technology must to be able to scale rapidly to support new initiatives such as expanding into new markets and launching new products.

of business leaders believe that the next 3 years will be more critical for their industry than the last 50 years.3

72%

3 KPMG, Global CEO Outlook, 2016

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¼ How frequently does your business communica-tions system release product updates and new features? How much effort is required from admins and users to perform the upgrade?

¼ What major product releases have been rolled out in the past year? Are these features useful and strategic for your organization?

¼ What percentage of your vendor’s development efforts are focused on their cloud product?

¼ Does your solution require installation other than the deployment of the desktop and mobile apps to end users? How long does a standard deployment take?

¼ How does the solution provide for elastic management? How quickly can you scale up and down offices?

¼ How are offices, departments, and call queues set up? How long does this process typically take?

¼ How is your solution architected? Where are your data centers located?

THE BUYERS GUIDE FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS RFP

KEY SCALABILITY REQUIREMENTS:

See how the forward-thinking digital agency killed the desk phone with Dialpad

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WITH DIALPAD, WE’VE DESIGNED A FUTURE-READY COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK.— Grant Griffith, IT Manager, mono

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Rule #5

DELIVER A CONSUMER-LIKE USER EXPERIENCE

255 NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

DESIGN DRIVES ADOPTION

between the design and usability of the software they use outside work and the software they use in the workplace”.5

Having the longest list of features for your voice and unified communications solution isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, the majority of features that most solutions provide go unused due to complexity or fringe use cases. Instead, start with your user to understand use cases and look for a solution that delivers reliability and simplicity.

Employees are accustomed to using beautifully designed applications for their personal communication: Facebook, Facetime, iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and more. The success of these apps hinges on user adoption, so resources are poured into design and user feedback. However, the enterprise, with IT as the primary buyer (instead of the user), has been much slower to adopt design best practices. Gartner has defined this as the User Experience Gap, where “Employees are seeing a vast gulf

5 Gartner, Consumerize Your Enterprise Software Before It Consumes You, February 2017

I‘M BIG ON OUR USERS HAVING THE SAME IT EXPERIENCE—REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY ARE IN THE WORLD.— Kyle Jackson, Director of IT, Percolate

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¼ Do you track and show presence for voice and unified communications? For example, can you show user status (e.g., Do Not Disturb, On a call, Online)?

¼ During online meetings, can participants share their screen with no download required?

¼ Do you require a pins or access codes to start or join a meeting?

¼ What functionality differentiates your solution?

¼ How does your solution reduce local and long distance telco resource requirements and costs (e.g., 800 numbers PRI, DID, POTS, Centrex, FX)?

¼ Does your business communications system leverage a next generation audio codec to enable high quality audio, even in low-bandwidth situations (e.g., OPUS)?

¼ Does your solution require desk phones?

KEY USER EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:

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Join 45,000+ global brands who’ve killed the desk phone with Dialpad

KILL THE DESK PHONE

Dialpad is the business communications

platform built for the way you work. Available

on any device, anywhere, Dialpad includes

HD voice, HD video, group messaging, SMS,

MMS, conferencing, screen sharing, and

document sharing, and is integrated with

Microsoft Office 365 and G Suite.

Dialpad customers include 65 percent of the

Fortune 500, high-growth enterprises and

forward thinking organizations including Uber,

Vivint Solar, Betterment, Stripe, Postmates,

Quora, Xero, and Motorola.

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DIALPAD COMMUNICATIONS, INC.DIALPAD.COM

CONTACT SALES (844) 979-4824SALES@DIALPAD.COM