Kandy is At Your Service With Teams Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS)

Thanks to the recent and rapid rise of digital transformation adoption of digital communication channels and tools has risen to a higher level of priority than ever before. Communication has always been a fundamentally essential aspect of both business, and human society, but the digital age has elevated its value.

79 percent of companies have increased the use of digital communication channels and adopted new channels driven largely by Covid-19, and even post-pandemic, this trend has continued. UC Today reports that 54% of employees express a desire to split their time between the office and home, presenting the need for enhanced digital communications tools within enterprises. Further, a Harvard Business Review study from several years ago taught us that employees in the modern workplace spend upwards of 80 percent of their time on activities that require digital communication with other workers.

Organizations of all sizes and industries are now focusing on enhancing their communication capabilities, but communications itself covers a wide range of devices and applications. Enterprises must keep in mind video messaging, texting/chat channels, emails, and telephones when searching for how to improve their digital communication. Microsoft with its Microsoft Teams platform has emerged as an industry leader among remote, digital communications tools and process offers, and its internal communications capabilities are outstanding. Unifying the connection from the Microsoft Teams environment to the PSTN world requires an additional step, a connection to the existing telephony network.

Many businesses subscribe to Teams because it allows for internal-only usage as well as connectivity to the global telephony network. Because most enterprises upgrade each area one at a time, Microsoft Teams is a great match, using unique and specific technology to properly boost each form of communication. When it comes to global telephony, a growing number of enterprises choose Direct Routing to help piece the internal/external communications puzzle together.

Direct Routing

Direct Routing is how phone numbers are connected to a Microsoft Teams call. There are many ways it can be architected, but essentially, it refers to the technology that connects the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to Microsoft’s virtual Teams Phone system, doing this through a gateway called a Session Border Controller (SBC). The SBC offers flexibility around how an enterprise may connect to Teams, either via a carrier or through an existing on-site private branch exchange (PBX).

Direct Routing offers a variety of benefits with its centralization being one of the more notable advantages. Moving to Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing standardizes communication throughout the organization. That means companies can leverage a single telephony solution to streamline compliance, centralize IT support, and simplify employee training because the same user experience can be replicated in all locations globally.

On top of centralization, greater scalability and agility, enhanced service and support, and improved cost efficiency are some of the other benefits provided by direct routing. These advantages are helping direct routing become one of the most popular telephony deployments around the globe. Microsoft recently reported that the number of Teams users connected to PSTN has grown in double digits for five straight quarters, with over 12 million connected as of July 2022.

However, direct routing is not the only option available for enterprises that wish to bolster their telephony capabilities. Alternatives, such as Operator Connect, and Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) solutions, can also aid organizations in their quest to improve their digital communication.

Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS)

While direct routing offers sustainable benefits for an enterprise, the setup, configuration, and ongoing administration of direct routing can be complex, which deters some enterprises from adopting the application. For these businesses that can’t handle the IT expertise themselves, DRaaS is a perfect match.

Unlike direct routing, where the company oversaw implementation, use, and maintenance, among other things, with DRaaS, an enterprise is simply handing over responsibility for service delivery to an outsourced service provider to design and implement to their specific needs. This means when comparing the two, DRaaS can offer advantages that direct routing doesn’t, through third parties who already have the IT expertise necessary for direct routing.

For example, some DRaaS providers may assume full responsibility for end-to-end service, including updates, licenses, maintenance, and service availability. Additionally, DRaaS providers can provide tools to give vital intelligence into your Teams Calling service. This includes portals that deliver data analysis, with dashboards that display insight clearly, and enable adjustments.

With DRaaS, a provider can provide specialist expertise to deliver tailored system design and configuration, implement migration/deployment, and oversee ongoing management and quality control to ensure best-in-class connectivity 24/7.

At Kandy, we understand the potential an adequate communications platform can have on an enterprise, and just how important it is to pick the right partner when starting the digital process.

We offer our Kandy Microsoft Teams Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) solution as a white-label, cloud-based service that is multi-tenanted and scalable to handle the largest of multi-site, global enterprises.

Kandy’s unique Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) solution leverages our global managed cloud platform and Microsoft-certified SBCs to integrate with the PSTN. Kandy enhances Direct Routing with a simple yet powerful portal that allows a customer to manage adds, moves, and changes.

Furthermore, it provides provisioning and management of phone numbers, users, and license packages as well as managed gateways that deal with an organization’s legacy infrastructure and interfaces with the types of services it runs. Our ability to integrate into carriers’ networks and enable them to extend their existing offer to their end-user customers with APIs is a real differentiator.

Crucially, Kandy’s CPaaS solution which forms the backbone of Kandy’s MS Teams DRaaS service is also designed to also integrate with carriers’ UCaaS capabilities, including enablement of SIP trunks through SIP Trunking as a Service (StaaS).

For Communications Service Providers who own and operate their own networks, Kandy’s white-label cloud-based platform provides pre-built infrastructure so the CSP can offer a Direct Routing service quickly and minimize CAPEX and OPEX. DRaaS can be used in many different industry verticals, from retail to banking and finance, to healthcare, education, and government.

Overall, as the world continues to push ever further into a digital age with untapped potential, technological advancement is set to soar, and digital communications will only become that much more vital to modern-day business. Companies of all types and sizes will have to prioritize enhancing their communication capabilities to not only stay afloat but remain competitive as well in the digital age.

Kandy’s Microsoft Teams Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) solution was created to help organizations adopt the cloud, embrace agile innovation, and deploy programmable communications that save cost, increase productivity, and grow revenues. With technology, communication becomes more immediate and contextual, resulting in better business outcomes.

Please contact us to set up a demo and discuss how your organization can benefit from DRaaS from Kandy.