Converged Communications differentiates Modern Work practice

For more than 15 years, Rapid Circle has relied on the full value of the Microsoft Cloud to deliver digital transformation and modernization solutions to its customers. A key area of focus is helping clients create workplaces that are more inclusive, productive, and innovative using Microsoft Teams, including the broader telephony, meeting room, and webinar capabilities available in the platform. “Converged Communications are complementary to everything else we do with Microsoft 365 and it is always part of any client conversation,” said Damien Margaritis, Global Solutions Director, Converged Communications at Rapid Circle. “Because telephony and real-time media require specialized skills sets, our Converged Communications practice gives us a bit of a winning edge in broader Modern Work engagements.”

With approximately 600 employees across Australia, The Netherlands, and India, Rapid Circle has seen its Converged Communications business expand engagements with clients around the globe. Its expert team has developed a proven methodology to ensure that any solution aligns with both a client's business needs and its organizational processes. Rapid Circle uses Microsoft-funded workshops to showcase the capabilities of its solutions, followed by discovery and network assessments that inform the design roadmap. After deployment, the partner has a team focused solely on ensuring high levels of adoption from all relevant users. “When you are touching things like telephony and all the meeting rooms used in an organization, we make sure to use all the tools at our disposal. For example, we use virtual reality to ensure camera sight lines, microphone coverage, and acoustics before we put anything physical in place,” said Margaritis. “That way we’re assured that our customers can provide the best possible experience from day one.”

Driving hybrid work innovation at SW Accountants & Advisors

SW Accountants & Advisors, an independent, national accounting firm with a strong presence in major cities across Australia, was already in the process of exploring how it could improve its office experience for staff and clients when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. While the organization already had Microsoft Teams in place on workers' devices, the legacy PBX phone system did not allow employees to use their work phone from home. Engaging Rapid Circle, SW was able to replace its PBX with Teams Phone in just a few months during lockdown. “Melbourne in particular was the most locked down city in the world at the time, so there was real time pressure to provide a robust solution now that all employees were remote,” commented Margaritis. “By enabling Teams Phone, SW was ready to leave the PBX system behind and empower their employees to truly work from anywhere.”

Once COVID-19 restrictions eased, SW was able to refocus on plans to transform its office spaces, now with even more emphasis on hybrid work given that many of its 300 employees would continue to work remotely. Building real relationships and connectivity is at the heart of SW’s business philosophy, so creating innovative and engaging spaces to meet with clients and team members was critical. Rapid Circle was re-engaged to develop audiovisual and digital signage components of newly renovated meeting rooms in the company's Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth buildings. As part of the strategy, Teams Rooms was configured identically for the hardware in every office, so no matter what location staff or clients walked into, everything worked exactly the same. Hybrid workers now have access to seamless, one-touch join when in the office for meetings. When team members are remote, multiple displays in meeting rooms allow participants to see each other and whiteboards or presentations at the same time.

The SW team is extremely pleased at how the Teams Rooms project has revitalized meeting experiences, with Rapid Circle serving as a trusted advisor in modernizing and transforming the organizations’ entire Converged communications portfolio. Renee Hyde, Manager at SW, summed it up: “I live regionally and these new meeting rooms have enabled more collaboration for those of us who want to work from home, and give us an equal ability to participate in meetings.”

Overall, the solution is supporting the accounting firm’s goals of creating more agile ways to work. “The most important thing for us is to be able to service our clients and retain great people,” said Duane Rogers, Director and CEO at SW. “The investment we’ve made ensures that we’re able to connect with them in a meaningful way via this technology, which is really important now in a hybrid world.”

The next stage of evolution for Converged Communications

While Rapid Circle anticipates that traditional Converged Communications technologies like Teams Phone and Teams Room will continue to be pulled through in Microsoft 365 engagements, new capabilities in Teams Premium are creating interest and excitement with customers. “While we have seen uptake of the features in Teams Premium for organizations that need robust webinar experiences, the new Queues app that allows team members to make and receive customer calls without leaving Teams is going to encourage a lot more organizations to dive into the added capabilities available to them in Teams Premium,” said Margaritis.

Microsoft Copilot capabilities available in both Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 are also opening up new opportunities to engage with clients like SW around extending their Converged Communications deployments. Rapid Circle sees potential around Copilot Studio, for example, to bring voice data into new and interesting scenarios, whether that is through bots, agent apps, or custom copilots. The partner has already launched a series of readiness workshops to help clients start thinking about their AI strategy and understand where Copilot can best fit into their businesses. At the same time, the evolution of call center features in Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides the ability to offer more native, Teams-integrated solutions. “What was traditionally siloed within Converged Communications is now bleeding into Power Platform and Dynamics 365,” said Margaritis. “We are really excited to help our clients fully leverage this growing integrated portfolio to support better collaboration and communication for their staff and customers.”

"Because telephony and real-time media require specialized skills sets, our Converged Communications practice gives us a bit of a winning edge in broader Modern Work engagements."

— Damien Margaritis, Global Solutions Director, Converged Communications, Rapid Circle

"The investment we’ve made ensures that we’re able to connect with [staff and clients] in a meaningful way via this technology, which is really important now in a hybrid world. "

— Duane Rogers, Director and CEO, SW Accountants & Advisors

Rapid Circle helps accounting firm redesign hybrid work with Microsoft Teams