Your Guide to Enterprise Voice Solutions

As businesses continue to offer remote and hybrid office arrangements, organizations with distributed workforces are increasing. There are several options for voice calling that companies can choose from to provide collaboration and communication for a remote workforce. There are also several technologies that can enable older on-site PBXs for remote workers or enhance cloud-based solutions that address these challenges directly. According to Channel Insider, SASE is expected to reach $60 billion in revenue by 2027 due to the growing trend in distributed remote work. This blog will explore enterprise voice solutions and the technologies used to deliver them, including SASE. We will discuss the benefits and how to choose a partner to integrate your enterprise voice solution.

What Are Common Enterprise Voice Solutions?

If you need business calling, enterprise voice solutions offer a reliable phone service via a cloud-based service. There are several hosted and managed voice solutions to ensure you have reliable voice communications. Hosted voice (UCaaS) or SIP are two popular voice solutions, but they are only half of the equation. In addition to the voice provider you select, you’ll need a rock-solid network using technologies such as SD-WAN or SASE that are designed with a hybrid workforce in mind 

Hosted Voice

A hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) is a typical calling solution for small to medium-sized businesses. It can reduce calling costs by eliminating investments in on-site infrastructure such as primary rate interface (PRI) solutions that only provide 23 simultaneous voice channels—instead, providing your business with near-limitless calling capacity.

Related: The Future of SASE: What It Means for Your Business

A hosted voice solution provides mobility and flexibility for distributed workforces, allowing users to use the business phone system remotely. It also provides a layer of business continuity when your physical office location is closed, or there is an outage.

Voice SIP Trunking

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking for your voice communications can provide further improvements over traditional phone systems and VoIP. A SIP trunk can carry multiple simultaneous text and voice connections for flexible and scalable communication across offices or remote locations. The business pays for individual channels and can increase or decrease the number, so you know what costs to expect in a given pay period.

SD-WAN

A managed Software-Defined Wide-Area Network (SD-WAN) provides you with a reliable, monitored network that enhances quality and reliability for not only your voice traffic but also data. SD-WAN is carrier and transport agnostic, allowing you to bring your own carrier or VoIP solution and use it with the network. Users from remote locations have a consistent experience when accessing voice, video, and chat services. SD-WAN provides resilience and business continuity by allowing a distributed remote workforce to access resources from anywhere.

SASE

Managed Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a modern business communications option that provides consistent reliability across a distributed workforce and enhanced security with a Zero Trust model that prevents intrusion and unauthorized access.

Managed SASE provides on-site and remote users access to a private network in the cloud. Users who want to access a resource like Salesforce, AWS, or VoIP are authenticated for security and routed to the nearest gateway. 

SASE can run on top of an existing SD-WAN, providing enhanced security for your users and network. It provides a consistent connection, eliminating latency for users worldwide. SASE offers a consolidated “single-pane-of-glass” solution for security, Zero Trust authentication, and encrypted traffic, making it a popular choice for businesses with remote users connecting from various locations.

What Are the Benefits of Enterprise Voice Solutions for Business

Enterprise voice solutions offer your business reliable, flexible, scalable, and secure communications. They can provide enhanced security and business continuity and improve business communication and collaboration for a distributed remote workforce.

Scalability

Enterprise voice solutions provide nearly unlimited scalability. The cloud-based network scales up dynamically as inbound connections increase and can scale back down when necessary without requiring any investment in on-site systems and infrastructure. If your business has more inbound and outbound calls during events, promotions, or busy seasons, the scalability can ensure you have additional call capacity when needed.

Flexibility

Cloud-based enterprise voice solutions provide more consistent performance for users connecting remotely. Each user will have a secure connection and high-quality voice with low latency and maximum bandwidth throughout. Enterprise voice solutions provide a direct connection to network resources for every authenticated user. They are ideal for remote or hybrid office arrangements, ensuring users’ communications are secure and are accessible with high performance from various locations.

Reliability

Enterprise voice solutions offer improved reliability and network performance. The reduced latency and traffic backhauling of cloud-based communication delivers a reliable connection from anywhere users are accessing the network. SASE can be optimized for your voice traffic and provides users access to the private network from the most direct gateway, depending on their location.

Security

Enterprise voice solutions offer increased security with little cost. When you rely on SASE for your voice communications, your security is enhanced with user- and network-level security by routing it through an encrypted private network. 

Under the SASE Zero Trust security model, users, devices, and systems that attempt to connect are not trusted and require a fully-authenticated connection to access the network. User connections to the SASE can be made dynamically after authentication and are subject to consistent enforcement of the policy. You can also implement a Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) in the cloud to provide filtering, intrusion detection, and prevention.

Cost and Implementation

Enterprise voice solutions such as SASE are entirely accessible from the cloud. Your business will not need to implement costly infrastructure and systems to provide distributed access to users on-site and remotely. After paying for internet access and the services required, the cost of an enterprise voice solution is minimal. Investing in infrastructure or systems your company may not need frequently is unnecessary. 

If you already use an SD-WAN to maintain a clear voice connection, you can continue running it with SASE on top. You can also run SASE standalone if you have not yet invested in an SD-WAN.

The Benefits of Partnering With the Right Voice Solution Provider

When selecting an enterprise voice solution, partnering with the right provider can simplify your implementation and transition to the new voice service. The ideal partner will provide support and assist you with complex integrations. According to Forbes, a Gartner survey predicts that nearly 2/3 of businesses will consolidate SASE components to a single SASE vendor by 2025.

UCaaS

The right partner for your enterprise voice solution will allow you to integrate your calling capabilities into a UCaaS solution. A UCaaS solution with SASE provides the flexibility you need to integrate your communications into the cloud. Unifying your communications is ideal if your workforce is distributed across locations or remote offices. Your business phone, messaging, email, and video calling will be hosted on a private network in the cloud for easy management and access from anywhere.

Support and Security

When you choose a partner for your enterprise voice solution, ensure it provides 24/7 support to assist your team in migrating to the cloud and deploying your voice solution following the purchase. Your solutions partner can also support integrating an existing SD-WAN and provide a project manager to ensure the implementation, deployment, configuration, and optimization of your SASE deployment meets the needs of your distributed workforce.

Related: How MSPs Can Help Businesses Optimize Their Cloud Strategy 

While an enterprise voice solution with SASE will provide enhanced security for your users and network, the right provider can help you implement the most secure and functional solution. Your enterprise voice solution can provide unified policies across the organization and implement cloud access security broker (CASB) monitoring to enforce security policies and ensure users can access voice without vulnerabilities. A secure web gateway (SWG) can help secure users if they accidentally disconnect from their virtual private network (VPN).

Business Continuity

The flexibility and scalability of an enterprise voice solution allow your workforce to quickly switch to a remote arrangement. Employees can work from another office or remote location if normal office operations cannot continue on-site due to an outage, natural disaster, or emergency. SASE provides access to the enterprise voice solution from anywhere with an internet connection.

Enhance Your Business Communications With a Managed Enterprise Voice Solution

A managed enterprise voice solution with SASE from a reputable provider can enhance your business’s ability to communicate and collaborate. It provides a single-pane-of-glass solution for security with Zero Trust and consistent policy enforcement for all users. 

SASE is optimizable according to your distributed workforce’s needs. It can run on top of your existing SD-WAN and provides a consistent connection for users by choosing the nearest gateway. An ideal SASE partner will support your business after the sale with a project manager to assist you with complex issues and actively monitor your private network for threats.

A managed SASE from BCM One ensures your remote workforce gets the enterprise voice solution they need to communicate and collaborate across a distributed workforce. We assist you in configuring your SASE solution, testing, releasing, and migrating from your existing solution to the SD-WAN. 

Our team can help you formulate a flexible migration plan, and you’ll have a directors portal where auditors can easily audit policies. You’ll also get 24/7 support and a project manager to ensure seamless implementation. Contact us to enjoy the benefits of a managed voice solution for your distributed workforce.