Seek an MNS Provider with Domain Expertise in Unified Communications and Contact Center
When selecting a Managed Network Services (MNS) provider, make sure that they have a track record driving positive business outcomes with collaboration tools such as unified communication and contact center.
If your organization requires cross-enterprise communications, not just for internal calls but also for interaction with customers, you’ll find there are MNS providers that have specific domain expertise in that area.
If your MNS provider has domain expertise in MS Teams and WebEx, then take the time to confirm that they also understand collaboration tools, along with the inner workings and peculiarities of legacy systems such as Cisco Unified Communications (UC) and Cisco Unified Contact Center (UCC). This will indicate that they have been immersed in the tech for a while and understand the evolution of the capabilities.
UC and UCC are historically two of the primary technologies that provide real-time communication features – and many organizations still rely on them. You’ll find there are many reliable point tools that cater to the management needs of UC and UCC deployment models. If you are investing in these platforms, the key is to find a partner that can manage and monitor those models.
Look for MNS providers with network operations center and support capabilities that focus on performance and availability for real-time communication deployments – thereby helping your organization to achieve positive business outcomes.
A Purpose-Built UC and UCC Monitoring Platform
While UC and UCC provide depth of insight, they aren’t often integrated with the other point and IT management tools that your network operations team may be using.
As a result, third-party tools may be able to detect performance issues with UC and UCC deployments – but they won’t be able to provide the overall context. Context is required to rapidly get to the root of UC and UCC issues in your organization’s network.
Your prospective MNS provider should be able to overcome this issue by integrating UC and UCC solution-specific functionality with service delivery platform functionality. This typically includes fault and performance monitoring, business impact monitoring, predictive analytics, AIOps-based problem detection and remediation.
This integrated approach provides your users and customers with complete visibility into every component underlying your UC and UCC solution stack – from a single pane of glass. Make sure your MNS partner offers a platform with UC and UCC solution-specific functionality such as:
- Support for the current versions of Cisco UC and UCC,
- Auto-discovery of common UC and UCC application features,
- A visualization tool for viewing contact center routing and changes to Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) route programming.
The Positive Outcome: Actionable Intelligence
The ability to gather data and analyze across your network infrastructure yields actionable intelligence that speeds up problem detection and analysis. Look for as-a-service platforms that deliver service assurance by predicting problems before they occur, with capabilities such as smart analytics and AIOps.
Your MNS provider should be able to demonstrate how they understand business impact monitoring. They should understand the true nature of performance issues in the underlying infrastructure that impact critical business issues.
As always, look for usability features that include the provision for a secure cloud-based access layer, a scalable architecture model that rapidly adjusts to changing business needs, and customizable automation capabilities.
When it comes to getting the most out of your UC and UCC deployments, seek an MNS provider that provides the most value in terms of delivering insights into your entire infrastructure ecosystem.