AMTRA SOLUTIONS BLOG

An emergent trend in digital transformation has been the rise of low-code development platforms. Charles Lamanna, Microsoft CVP, Low Code Application Platform, notes that "over 500 million new apps will be built during the next five years, which is more than all the apps built in the last 40 years." 
 
These staggering numbers highlight the demand for low-code platforms to build apps, as well as a developer gap, as there’s likely more demand for applications than there are developers to build them. IT teams are scrambling to keep up with demand. This results in long lead times and business users finding their own solutions, often through non-compliant “shadow IT” platforms.  

More than ever, businesses must constantly innovate and transform to stay competitive. In a perfect world, IT would provide the platforms necessary to foster this type of growth.   

Chatbots are great - when they work. But what happens when they don't? 

According to Forrester Research, 63% of customers will leave a company website after one poor experience, and almost two-thirds will not wait more than 2 minutes for assistance. So what does this mean for you?

If you have existing chatbots or are considering incorporating them into your website, there are a few things to remember. Although some solutions are technical, many of them are quite simple and easily remedied. 

In our last blog, we talked about the latest and greatest Teams Calling Features. Now we’d like to talk about why Teams Calling should be the next solution you consider and how to successfully deploy it in your organization. 

The Research
Recently, Forrester Research completed a Total Economic Impact study of Microsoft 365 Cloud Voice adoption and the financial business case for Cloud Voice was compelling. Forrester concluded that Cloud Voice has the following three-year financial impact:

• $9.5M in benefits versus costs of $2.6M
• A net present value (NPV) of $6.9M
• An ROI of 261%.

Chatbots are the latest and greatest trend.

It seems everyone is talking about them and every business wants to figure out how to use them.

But, as with all trends, there are many questions left to answer:

• What exactly are chatbots?
• What types of chatbots are there?
• What is their purpose?
• How “smart” are they?
• Should you invest in chatbots for your business?

If we learned anything from 2020, it’s that IT strategies need to be flexible. Last year was a prime example of this, as we were forced to retool our operations overnight due to lockdowns, social distancing requirements and remote work.

And as we forge forward in to 2021, its quite apparent that remote work (in some form or another) is here to stay.

With Skype for Business Online coming to an end in July 2021, there has never been a better time to move to Teams.

Just when you thought Microsoft Teams couldn’t get any better, they launch a brand new feature set. To help you communicate and collaborate even more effectively, their latest improvements are to its Teams calling features.

The first is a new calling interface that now shows contacts, voicemail, and call history in a single location. It’s designed to allow Microsoft Teams to more easily replace your desk phone with features like:

• Built-in spam call protection
• Reverse number lookup
• Ability to merge calls

With cyber security, the goal has always been simple – to maintain safe and stable business operations. While this goal may seem simple, the journey to get there is not always easy.

Evolution of Security
Way back when, security seemed so much easier. In the good old days, everything lived behind a firewall, within a corporate network. In the early 2000’s, access was granted through secure virtual private networks. This security revolved around the notion of ‘trust but verify.’

Make 2021 the year you improve your job skills!

Remote work is here to stay, and to continue succeeding and thriving, you need to start focusing on the skills that make you indispensable.

I bet you’re saying, “well, I have a degree and a certification, isn’t that enough?” It’s a great start, but you also need to start looking at the soft skills that are going to set you apart. Wondering what those are? To help, we surveyed our top recruiters to get their take. Here’s what they had to say.

When you think about Microsoft Teams, you probably think about features like customizable alerts, @mentions, assistant bots, file sharing and together mode. But, have you thought about Teams Calling?