I had the pleasure of attending my first Cisco Live event in Orlando last month. There, my Cisco colleague Andy Johnston and I shared an overview of the cloud unified communications market to a standing-room?only audience. We described how the combined strength of the Cisco and BroadSoft calling portfolios are helping you accelerate transitioning to cloud.

I'd like to highlight five key reasons why I think our overview resonated so well.

1. Customer cloud UC perceptions have changed

We recently conducted a survey with over 1,000 IT decision makers from seven countries. In it, we learned that cloud UC is a key priority of their digital transformation strategies. 74% of respondents said they will choose a cloud provider in the next 24 months.

2. SMBs need native mobile

Mobile working has many benefits. Many small businesses are ditching their on-premises solution and going mobile first for both cost and efficiency reasons. One of our portfolio's most unique and innovative differentiators is our ability to deeply integrate communications within the core mobile network. This allows our mobile carrier partners like Verizon, Vodafone, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, and Rogers to deliver a fixed-mobile converged experience that helps SMBs become more agile and productive, and appear bigger and stronger.

3. Mid-market needs enterprise-grade features without cost and complexity

Mid-market organizations need enterprise-grade features and a way to seamlessly and reliably network their PBX and cloud applications. This includes:

• a common network dialing plan
• a consistent collaboration experience across locations
• centralized and local administration capabilities

In addition, they need simplicity, on-demand scalability, global scale, and reliable communications for remote and mobile employees.

4. Flexible and smooth transition to cloud

Transitioning to the cloud will take some time for mid-sized and large enterprises that have large investments they simply cannot replace overnight. A 2017 study by global research firm Nemertes suggests that more than 70% of enterprises are still running TDM to at least half of their endpoints. You need solutions that both maximize the life of in-place investments and allow you to network with cloud solutions via SIP trunking for new locations, expansions, branch offices, contact centers, and mobile workers.

5. Cloud UC offers a better total cost of ownership

Cloud is a natural and more economical solution for new sites, site expansions, and smaller branch offices. In our survey:

• 68% of respondents believe their current on-premises systems are too expensive to maintain
• 70% believe cloud will reduce their IT staff efforts
• 69% say their current systems don't have the advanced features they need

For many, cloud contact centers will offer more capabilities, on-demand flexibility, and superior multisite and remote-agent support. In fact, 88% of premises-based contact center users are considering moving to CCaaS, with 68% in active evaluation.

The Transition Zone

For all these reasons, we've developed a thoughtful technology plan that provides a smooth network transition from on-prem to cloud. A hybrid model that ensures user adoption helps you realize value more quickly and move at a pace that makes sense for your organization.

Flexible and affordable migration strategies with hybrid configuration support allow you to implement a cap-and-grow strategy. You maintain your in-place investments until they reach the end of their natural life-cycle, then transition to cloud when the time is right.

The Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan decouples the purchasing and deployment so that you can choose on-premises, hosted, or cloud options. You can move your organization, specific users, specific sites, or individual applications when it suits you in a flexible, phased approach that addresses all your needs.

This level of flexibility is available today. As you look to make your cloud transition, consider a vendor that can provide a complete solution that looks not only at your PBX requirements, but addresses your mobility and voice conferencing needs as well.

Cisco and BroadSoft are in a prime position to help you make the transition and migrate while leveraging your existing investments. Check out our cloud calculator to see the financial benefits for yourself.