Hi, my name is Liron and I'm a cloudoholic

Cloud is one of the most popular topics talked about today. But before I start explaining why I'm a ‘cloudoholic’, let’s define the term.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition of Cloud reads: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. Now try to say it in a single breath ☺​

As I mentioned, I’m a huge advocate for cloud and SaaS. Why you ask? Well…​

​Why buy the cow if you can buy the milk ONLY when you want it?

The benefit of cloud services can be easily illustrated by the taxi-cab analogy. Instead of buying a car, paying for parking, maintenance and gas, you can order a taxi only when you want it, and pay only for just the route you take. There are ZERO overhead costs.

The same goes for cloud services.

• ​Flexible footprint: Contact centers and business operations are often seasonal, with bursts of volume during holidays or other peak periods. When software is delivered via SaaS, it is possible to expand and contract your license count to always match your workforce, thereby controlling costs.
   
• Rapid deployment: Rather than spend your time readying your hardware footprint and configuring the solution, you can turn it on and go.
   
• Latest capabilities: Cloud delivery ensures you have access to the newest releases and most advanced capabilities.
   
• Expense shift: Rather than investing in capital expenses like facilities, hardware, etc., cloud shifts your dollars to operating expenses (i.e., hosting fees)
   ​

OK...but why should you act now?​

The answer is that “Good things will NOT come to those who wait”.

This is the perfect place to clear up a misconception—cloud isn’t all or nothing. For example, many customer service leaders when considering cloud, make the assumption that they will need to move all the component applications of their Workforce Optimization suite (WFO) to the cloud at once.

I believe that cloud migration is a journey, and like every journey, the most challenging part is always taking the first few steps.

This is why I think that Workforce Management WFM section of the WFO Suite is an ideal pioneer test case.

Why WFM?

Above I noted that a core benefit of cloud is flexibility, so you can expand and contract your footprint to match your workforce. That is particularly relevant in service organizations where you have WFM for the contact center but NOT for business operations (sometimes called Back Office).

When you move your WFM solution to the cloud, you can easily expand your footprint to cover BOTH the contact center and business operations, giving a shared solution across the entire service organization. This makes it easier to schedule operations work with greater efficiency, and to address looming backlogs. Since the solution is shared, workload can be shared; during slow periods, the business operation can help take calls (and vice versa, the contact center can process claims, loans, etc.)

Your Workforce Management isn’t the only solution in your contact center or business operation that’s potentially a little bloated. You likely have recording and quality management, and perhaps also performance management, analytics and other applications. You can start a trend with your WFM solution—it can be the first to move.

So, taking WFM to the cloud can be done as a hybrid, maintaining other solutions on premise, but laying the groundwork for them to eventually follow. It’s a great way to get comfortable with the migration path.

Did you know that Hermes Group UK Chooses NICE’s Cloud-Based Workforce Management Solution for Improved Customer Service – Read More HERE​​​