CMB: Are organisations still buying CPE based billing solutions in these days of cloud-based business applications?
Harry Mckeever (HM): In a word, yes. Some businesses seem reluctant to move their data to the cloud. There are some logical use cases but it’s primarily because of security worries and ironically, Cloud is more secure than on-site.
Cloud storage is normally far more secure than CPE because they’re physically separate from the customer and are much better maintained and secured than an in-house IT admin could ever manage. Take ours for example, hosted by IASME; their data centres are more than GDPR compliant with ISO27001 and IL2 certification, which would be costly for SMEs in of itself.
So, by using the cloud businesses can save on CapEx and staffing, as well as taking advantage of all the benefits of cloud connectivity.
CBM: Is scalability perhaps one of the most important yet most overlooked features when choosing a billing platform?
HM: It’s important, maybe crucial but I don’t think it’s overlooked. Scalability is important for growth in most businesses and using a cloud billing platform isn’t the solution, getting the right one is.
ZOEY is designed to become an integral part of a business’ workflow and certainly allows them to scale faster than without it. Call processing is only limited to the hardware and therefore the growth potential of our system is endless because of its cloud-based N-tier architecture. The system can’t be overloaded and won’t grind to a halt when processing large batches of call data.
CBM: Can Billing systems and solutions guard against fraud?
HM: It certainly can help but it can’t completely prevent it. Take the recent ‘Wangiri scam’ for example. Users get a call from an international number than disconnects on the first ring. You call it back, but the call can carry on charging even if you hang up the phone. With ZOEY’s spend cap feature, both we and the customer are notified that the customer is reaching their limit and we can proactively stop the problem from getting any worse and prevent it from happening again, but it’s not going to stop the cause itself.
Fraudulent activity will always be a problem as long as some try and use comms and connectivity to make a quick buck. Only by working together with our partners and the wider industry as a whole can we ensure we’re doing as much as physically possible to prevent it in the first place.
CBM: Should integration with other back office solutions should be a key consideration in choosing a billing solution/partner?
HM: Definitely. You can only make the decision around operational efficiency when you know all the resources being used. ZOEY is more than just a billing solution, by integrating API’s from popular software platforms like Salesforce or Sage for example, businesses have a broader understanding of what is being utilised within one intuitive platform and therefore creates more granular, more accurate data that can determine how you can drive efficiency.