How Global Growth and Experiences can Boost Tech Innovation
Running a business on a global scale may well be something that only a few of us can dream of undertaking, but it is not one that comes without challenges.
Language barriers, economies and cultures that are abstract to any new market entrants, are just some of the obstacles to overcome. The key is to learn from the experience and let it guide future decisions.
One business that knows how to navigate these difficulties is CPaaS provider Soprano Design. The mobile comms mogul currently spans over 4,500 customers across five continents and is always looking to expand.
Speaking to UC Today, Soprano Design product marketing manager Jane White, detailed how the markets that they operate in can differ. “As we work with businesses globally, especially in the CPaaS industry, we can see how technology evolves in different ways because of the way communication channels are adopted.
“Some of our customers in Asia are adopting different channels, devices than in the US, with different levels of connectivity too. Therefore, we have to ask questions about whether they are relying on WiFi or 3G/4G, native messaging apps, Android or iPhone, and the answers for customers in Malaysia rarely match our customers in the US.
“That might sound complicated, but the benefit of this is that Soprano can prepare for the future simultaneously in different regions, as ideas from all over the world are helping to shape our solution.”
Innovation
In providing CPaaS to businesses around the world, Soprano Design has been able to improve its solutions and cater to more businesses in different territories as a result.
White also added that the innovations Soprano Design offer are a direct effect of their global reach, as new technologies and usage patterns come pre-tested. She added: “We are able to offer a more comprehensive solution because our innovations are being driven by the needs of all our customers, not just those in the US.
“But it’s not just that we are casting a wide net, we see that when one technology matures, our solution needs to meet the requirements of the next one, as one communication channel phases out, our solution needs to have more capabilities that focus on the channels that people are using.
“These requirements play off of each other as the markets and the regions change and evolve. Whether it’s adopting new technology or advancing into the next generation of communication channels, the infrastructure is in place, the innovation is there, and we’ve been able to develop a CPaaS solution for the whole world that has the capabilities customers need.”
Knowledge
White also said that the benefits of a global business also stretch to the application of their solution, pointing to their work in the healthcare sector as an example.
“There’s a smaller point worth noting which is that we take a similar approach to the way we source our ideas for use cases,” said White. “Obviously, we don’t share people and company names and information, but we use the knowledge that we gained to inform our future products.
“For example, we used our experience of the healthcare systems in the UK to see how we can create a more unified experience in the US healthcare systems. They are not exactly the same and not everything’s going work from one place to the other, but driving ideas and seeing what things look like at different scales always informs somebody else somewhere else.
“Businesses, governments, especially enterprises, operate differently at different scales all over the world. So when you can take those ideas from place to place, it gives people something new to think about that they might not have been able to get from their local or national CPaaS provider”