Cloud contact center technologies are the path to moving most businesses forward. And situations like the COVID-19 pandemic have only accelerated the transition from on-premises to cloud, driven mainly by the work-from-home demand. Analysts like IDC show an overall contact center applications market growth of 4.5%, with public cloud representing 32.2% and on-premises 67.8%. Even though cloud contact centers have proven to be a great resource for rapid digital transformation during this time, there’s a lot to do to move remaining on-premises customers to the cloud. Companies should embrace this change as an opportunity to assess their current existing technological and business models — and see it as an opportunity to transform their businesses with minimal impact.

For this article, we’ll consider a large on-premises contact center with multinational, multivendor, outsourced contact centers that are distributed in various geographical regions with different languages. These contact centers have widely adopted operational best practices, such as COPC. In this instance, a full migration to a standard all-in-one cloud contact center approach might not be the best fit. Instead, this enterprise might want a flexible, low-risk approach as it favors a smooth technological and operational transformation to the cloud.

The following are three critical points to consider for large enterprises transitioning from on-premises to cloud, characterized by deeply customized operational models.

Assess Your Existing Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Contractual Terms and Conditions

Most large enterprise contact centers likely have multiple, existing contractual terms with each BPO provider that, to function properly, require highly customized voice and digital channel distribution rules to guarantee a specified load distribution. In addition, this same routing logic should account for overloading situations in which a different outsource vendor provides a workforce, so it doesn’t affect desired service levels of each business unit or customer segmentation.

This requires detailed reporting that clearly supports all accountability for such a complex distribution and off-loading. To fulfill this requirement in a traditional on-premises environment, the enterprise would need extensive customization and tailored developments that might not be present for most of the existing cloud contact center offers today.

Identify Any Potential High-Impact Technology Partners

Typically, it’s very common for large businesses to have a diverse technology landscape — with multiple vendors following what’s known as “best-of-breed applications” for digital, workforce engagement management, and artificial technology (AI), such as voicebots and chatbots. This could include companies like IBM, Google, Microsoft, and others. Keeping this same level of openness in the cloud might be a limiting factor in cases that ultimately impose major roadblocks when transitioning.

Other common situations might create security threats associated with the storage location of call and screen recordings that contain sensitive information that’s not allowed to leave geographical boundaries. This is the case for existing financial and medical regulations worldwide. Even though most cloud contact centers offer unbeatable service availability and security, it might be hard to guarantee that those historical records are stored within the country or region necessary. And that could expose the business to potential violations and fines.

Choose a Technology Partner That Follows Your Longer-Term IT Strategy

A third element is related to the preferred deployment model and/or infrastructure provider. Large enterprises typically have global partnerships with multinational providers for hosting, data centers, and communication networks — either private or public. The cloud contact center solution you choose should provide the flexibility to select the cloud deployment, operational model, and provider that best fits your longer-term IT strategy.

A contact center cloud evolution provides a good opportunity to consider changing your operational IT approach from in-house to a managed solution — carefully examining the trade-offs between financial benefits and functional capabilities. Consider change management practices that encompass your entire workforce and can complement any migration plan.

Genesys Multicloud CX Offers the Balance You Need

Embracing a contact center transformation from on-premises to cloud should encompass rigorous planning that involves technical and business stakeholders. Consider these three points when evaluating your options. The best possible solution balances the financial benefits with the ability to support all your business requirements so you can maintain healthy operations.

The Genesys Multicloud CXTM Multicloud architecture supports the most demanding business requirements of highly sophisticated enterprise contact centers globally — while providing greater business benefits through its Private Edition. It also allows you to choose your cloud infrastructure vendor.

By managing a true business transformation — technically and operationally — we’ve crafted prescriptive migration plans that make certain new and existing customers succeed when embracing the cloud. Check out the on-demand webinar about Genesys Multicloud CX and Microsoft Azure for more information.