MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.,
Oct. 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Based
on its recent analysis of the hosted IP telephony and Unified
Communications and Collaboration (UCC) services industry, Frost
& Sullivan recognizes 8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGHT) with the 2014
North America Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value
Leadership. 8x8 ranks the highest in customer value due to its
broad cloud communications services portfolio, high service
reliability and security, tight focus on customer experience,
global presence and low costs.
Unlike many of its competitors, 8x8 leverages a patented,
home-grown platform that enables it to rapidly and economically
innovate. It offers an extensive set of hosted communications and
collaboration applications that rivals the capabilities of
premises-based UCC solutions and is counted among the most
compelling hosted communications solutions.
In addition to a standard set of private branch exchange (PBX)
functionalities, voicemail and unified messaging, 8x8 also includes
instant messaging (IM) and presence, conferencing, soft clients,
mobility, SMS, contact center and video conferencing in its bundled
offerings. Other features include the ability to integrate
distributed enterprise locations onto a single virtual PBX, while
allowing each to operate autonomously, thus facilitating system
administration and enabling disaster preparedness/recovery.
Significantly, 8x8 caters to a growing customer need to support
mobile and remote workers. In addition to its Virtual Office mobile
app for iOS and Android devices, it introduced white-boarding and
file-sharing capabilities, and continually enriches its virtual
meetings product to facilitate collaboration across geographically
distributed teams.
"By providing a one-stop shop for a broad set of capabilities,
8x8 enables business customers to eliminate the cost and hassles
associated with deploying, integrating and managing disparate
multi-vendor technologies," said Frost & Sullivan Program
Director Elka Popova. "It allows
customers to consolidate vendor relationships and thus realize
operational efficiencies related to vendor management, service
provisioning, billing and upgrades."
Apart from product features and functionality, 8x8 has
demonstrated a keen desire to ensure service reliability and
security. It delivers its hosted communications solutions using two
fully mirrored and geographically redundant data centers in
Santa Clara, Calif., and
Ashburn, Va. 8x8 service-level
agreements (SLAs) guarantee four-nines (99.99 percent) uptime;
however, it outperformed its own standards over the past two years
with uptime of nearly five-nines (99.997 percent). 8x8 services
also support a wide array of critical security and compliance
requirements, including HIPAA/HITECH, FISMA, CPNI, FIPS and
PCI-DSS. 8x8 conducts gap analysis based on security
requirements to ensure compliance with various industry
regulations. For example, from HIPAA compliance point of view, 8x8
has 141 controls in place related to audit and accountability,
contingency planning, etc.
8x8 is continually improving its customers' deployment,
onboarding and service management experiences. For instance, it
launched a major Big Data initiative, whereby at the end of each
call, the endpoints publish data to its Big Data environment for
better assessment of current and potential service-related issues.
This allows 8x8 to proactively identify, isolate and resolve
potential threats to the network before customers experience
degraded service.
8x8 is one of the top two hosted IP telephony and UCC service
providers in North America in
terms of installed users and revenues. Its installed base of hosted
IP telephony and UCC users grew steadily to touch 361,000 users in
2013, which is a 24 percent increase over 2012.
A key factor in 8x8's customer acquisition success is its
increased focus on larger accounts and, more specifically, the
mid-market. One of its strongest assets in delivering services to
larger organizations is its contact center business, which adds
value and differentiates the company from most of its competitors.
As contact centers receive more complex inquiries, agents can
leverage advanced UCC tools to reach out to subject matter experts
to close deals or solve problems. By having strong hosted UCC and
contact center solutions 8x8 is able to successfully bridge these
conversations.
Moreover, 8x8 added capabilities specifically targeted at
distributed organizations. Now a single hosted PBX can elegantly
manage multiple locations within the customer's organization. 8x8's
solution ties all of a customer's sites with a single auto
attendant, while deploying separate receptionist lines at each
location. The solution also provides an advanced routing
functionality to multi-location customers.
"8x8 boasts automated service provisioning for very small
businesses and high-touch sales and technical support for larger
organizations," noted Popova. "Its well-trained direct sales staff,
growing channel, and a broad, yet modular, services portfolio
position it to win business from organizations of various sizes,
across industries and geographical locations."
8x8's broad appeal to a diverse customer audience is also
boosted by its ability to meet critical industry-specific security
and compliance requirements, including FISMA, CPNI, FIPS, PCI-DSS,
HIPAA and HIPAA/HITECH.
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the
company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies
that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on
improving the return on the investment. The award recognizes the
company's focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive,
beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer
retention and, ultimately, customer base expansion.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies
in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating
outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as
leadership, technological innovation, customer service and
strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market
participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews,
analysis and extensive secondary research to identify best
practices in the industry.
About 8x8, Inc.
8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGHT) is the trusted provider of secure and
reliable cloud-based unified
communications and virtual contact center solutions to
more than 40,000 small, midsize and distributed enterprise
organizations operating in over 40 countries across six continents.
8x8's out-of-the-box cloud solutions replace traditional on-premise
PBX hardware and software-based systems with a flexible and
scalable Software as a Service (SaaS) alternative, encompassing
cloud business phone service, contact center solutions, and web
conferencing. For additional information,
visit www.8x8.com, or www.8x8.com/UK or connect with
8x8
on Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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Mireya Espinoza
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8x8
Joan Citelli
E: Joan.citelli@8x8.com
SOURCE Frost & Sullivan