Episode Transcript
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to Metro side episode 59. I'm Erwin Lazar, president and principal analyst here at Metrogyno, and I'm excited to have my colleague Diane Myers with me for a conversation about our upcoming sessions at Enterprise Connect. Diane, go ahead and say hi.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hi, everyone.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Excellent. So we've got Enterprise Connect coming up next week. You and I have both been going to this event for a very long time, and several other members of the Metrogy team are going as well. By now, you hopefully have listened to our previous podcast where our colleagues Robin Garris and Beth Schultz talked about the sessions that they're doing. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about what we've got. So, Diane, what sessions are you doing at Enterprise Connect? Tell us a little bit about what's on your plate.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so I have a session on Tuesday afternoon, and the topic is around migrating from on prem to the cloud and managing that migration. Right. And, you know, gosh, there's so much discussion around new features and new capabilities, and we'll touch on some of those in a little bit. But really, the heart of it still is businesses are still in this process of moving, calling off of on prem solutions. So we're going to discuss, I have some really great speakers from Oracle, Goto, Mytel, RingCentral. I think we have one more coming in, but I won't mention that company yet because I'm not sure it's positive. But, you know, we're really going to talk about what companies should be thinking about in terms of how do you do that migration and how do you maintain things that might be on prem and into the cloud. And we're just going to really go through all the key considerations. When do you use third party support?
What parts do you maybe keep on Prem for a while, and when do you move to the cloud. So it should be a good session for people who are still in that process. Erwin, you have a couple, so I'll let you talk about those.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. And just looking over your panel is a really good mix of both folks who have expertise in that, on prem world and in that cloud world. So it should be interesting. Our research has certainly shown that it's not an all or nothing, and there's still a lot of on Prem folks out there, right?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yes, correct. Absolutely.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So I've got three sessions this year, all in very different topic areas. So the first one is a conversation with Douglas Tubah, who is the vice president of technology, architecture and solutions at Hanover Re, which is a reinsurance company and we'll be talking about how they're using AI and generative AI to achieve automation. So obviously I think AI will be, probably can't go more than about a minute without hearing it or mentioning it. At Enterprise Connect. So very excited to have that fireside conversation with Doug and hear about what he's doing and what benefits, what successes he's had. Also got two other sessions, these are both repeats from the last couple of years where we bring in a panel and talk about what's new, what's changed, and what enterprises need to be concerned about. The first one is focused on 911, which is still a challenge for a lot of organizations. We've had federal laws here in the US on the books now for a number of years, carries law rebounds act and we still see the companies are struggling to ensure compliance and especially as the world moves more and more toward mobile first communication, still having to ensure office safety, that people can call for help when they need it, and that the first responders know both where that call came from and how to get to the location of the caller. The second one is another is a repeat and very excited for me, it's one of my passionate areas is around security and compliance. As companies have now started to embrace generative AI. That's created a lot of challenges for how do you take all that content that's being generated and classify and protect it, ensure that it doesn't leak, ensure that degenerative AI models that companies are increasingly relying on are not being poisoned, and then dealing with all the legacy of attack issues related to things like registration attacks, messaging attacks, toll fraud and all of that. So very excited to have that panel and hear a little bit more about what companies are doing, what best practices are, and we'll be sharing as through the conversations some of our upcoming research around communication compliance security.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Well, Erwin, the 911 is just so timely. So as listeners will remember, a few weeks back we had mobile networks down across the US and it absolutely impacted some of the e 911 here in the US, some of the locations that could not be more timely and topical on the 911. I think there'll be a lot of people talking about that at enterprise Connect for sure.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it's still a session that every year we have a packed house and every year we run out of time.
I think as you mentioned, the recent wireless issues that took down a large number of callers of a particular network at and t is certainly going to tie into that conversation. You know, we've seen a lot of interest now in fixed mobile convergence and people making their mobile phone their primary and only communication device. And how is that architected and how are calls handled on a 911 call, and how do you deal with location? Accuracy in a building is a big challenge for 911. So, yeah, definitely the mobile wireless aspect, I think will drive a lot of the conversation.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Right. And, you know, gosh, thinking about what we expect. Right. To hear. And I'm a judge for some of the awards, and so I've seen a lot of the submissions. And so I know a lot of the announcements are going to be coming up are centered on AI. Right. So I'm really excited to see that you're doing a session specifically, actually with a true use case. Right. Of a company who is using generative AI and how they're using it. Because, I mean, you mentioned, like, you don't think we can go a minute or an hour without that topic coming up, enterprise connect. Yeah, it's going to be huge.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So what are you looking forward to as you're thinking about outside of your sessions? Obviously, we spend a lot of time meeting with vendors, attending keynotes, walking the floor. What are you excited about seeing?
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Well, you know, I think, well, you know, obviously, I mean, I want to hear the real world examples. Right. And that's, you know, anyone who listens to when I do webinars or they talk to me, I mean, you know, we hear a lot of stuff that's coming down the pipe and we hear a lot of things happening. But I want to hear how, how companies are really using some of the advanced technology, specifically around generative AI we understand in the contact center, and that's a whole other topic of discussion. But I'm really interested in how businesses are using and how really, if we can hear some real use case examples like Hanover, but others.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: And that's going to be something I'm going to be asking about and really trying to dig into is how are companies using it and what are the results? Right. Where are they using it and how is it impacting their business? That's really on the generative AI side as it relates to kind of employee collaboration, not a contact center aside, that's a whole other realm that I'm excited about. But here in this scope, really to understand how they're using it and how is it impacting their businesses, because I think that's a big unknown. And are they paying for it? Are they willing to pay for it? Those are the kind of conversations I'm hoping to really get a lot out of this during the week.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think last year was the hype. Everyone had to have some kind of AI announcement whether or not they were ready, you know, with an actual product this year. It's kind of the reality check. It's, you know, how are people starting to use it? How are they thinking about using it? What are they willing to pay? How are they going to measure success and benefit? You know, that we've obviously had a lot of focus on that in our recent research, but I expect that you'll hear a lot more practical use cases and maybe even some negative side where people haven't found the value. So maybe the hype kind of comes back down to earth a little bit this year. Yeah.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: And I would say, yeah. And in that vein, the other thing I'm really hoping, you know, we hear a lot and even our research shows. Right, a lot of businesses want single vendor solutions around, you know, collaboration and their contact center side. And we've been hearing this for the last couple years and it's kind of escalated or it's, you know, it's, we hear more and more of it all the time. So I'm also hoping to get some real examples about that. Right. So in terms of businesses that are using single vendor solutions, why, and I'm hoping to have those discussions and what are the benefits and why they're interested in that and who's kind of standing out for them as they start to move down. So those are generative AI in the collaboration space, but also that CC and UC piece. Right. To really kind of, I mean, I really, when I go to these conferences, I really want to hear the case studies, the real examples.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Hear from the end users themselves, I assume teams is something, you know, teams, boys teams. Calling the integration into teams certainly something I'm looking forward to digging more deeply into with exhibitors and companies that are adopting, I assume you as well.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah, especially around Operator Connect. I mean, Erwin, you and I talk about this a lot, right. And we have a lot of briefings and operator connect isn't new, but obviously it's, we know we're well over a year now into operator connect solutions and so really understanding where businesses are using operator connect versus direct routing. Right. And to understand that and to kind of get a beat on what that looks like for a lot of companies these days.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Excellent. So let me go ahead and wrap this up again and do invite you to listen to the other preview that we have posted on our bright Talk channel, on our YouTube channel, or on your favorite podcasting application. Make sure you check out our colleague sessions. Robin Garris is doing a session on agent assist and virtual assistants as well as job shifting is covered under that. Beth Schultz is looking at is conducting a session on using collaboration data and where the technology is taking employee experience. So please feel free to reach out to us. If you'd like to set up a meeting at Enterprise Connect, grab a cup of coffee, go over to the metrogy website, click on contact us. We'd love to hear from you and feel free to hopefully say hi to us at our sessions at Enterprise Connect as well. So with that, we'll go ahead and wrap up. On behalf of the metrogy team, goodbye and thank you and we'll see you next time.
