Virgin Media Business runs the largest fiber optic network in the UK. It’s superfast, incredibly robust, and connects over half a million buildings. But, in early 2020, with ambitious plans for growth, the Virgin Media Business team decided it needed a new partner, to help deliver the unified comms (UC) and cloud-based contact center services its customers were looking for – and keep Virgin Media Business at the forefront of the business comms marketplace.

“We were looking for born-in-the-cloud”

“We started looking for evergreen cloud contact center capability that would keep pace with the market,” says Andrew Halliwell, Product and Transformation Director at Virgin Media Business. “But our discussions with 8x8 brought home the true meaning of born-in-the-cloud. Their speed of platform evolution is constantly accelerating. Bringing unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS) and contact centers as-a-service (CCaaS) together on a single platform and fully integrating both into one common modular cloud is mind-blowing.”

Over the next 90 days, a team of 60 people brought together from 8x8 and Virgin Media Business worked to create a dual-branded, integrated UCaaS and CCaaS product specifically for Virgin Media Business. The team then designed and implemented processes for everything from marketing and sales support, through to deployment and billing.

“All of this was achieved during the height of the pandemic, through virtual meetings and document sharing. The efforts made to understand each other were a testament to both organizations,” said James White, Director of Marketing, Virgin Media Business.

A highly successful partnership

The alliance is already providing dividends. The Virgin Media Business sales pipeline quickly ramped up, with monthly recurring revenues exceeding US$2million in the second quarter after launch – four times higher than it had been achieving with its previous cloud comms partner.

James White attributes this success to several things. “Firstly, we put our brands alongside each other, rather than white label the 8x8 products and services. Our joint messaging clearly shows that we’re two great companies working together. Secondly, we put a lot of work into creating a culture with personalities and styles that match. In front of our customers, we look and feel like the same organization.

“Thirdly, embracing the full range of 8x8 solutions, from unified communications and collaboration tools to cloud contact centers, creates huge benefits. It gives customers all their services from a single point. It saves them money on call costs, real estate, maintenance, support, and more.”

Supporting the move to hybrid working

Some organizations were already seeing the benefits of unified communications before the pandemic hit. But for those that weren’t, or whose solutions are no longer fit for the future, Covid has speeded up the timelines for moving to new, integrated, cloud-based solutions.

In fact, nearly 70% of organizations are revising their long-term digital vision this year, according to a BDO digital transformation survey – and advancing IT timelines and adapting to hybrid workplaces are at the top of the list of strategies that will drive revenue, new business models, and competitive advantage.

Supercharge your digital transformation

Just as it was for Virgin Media Business, the heart of many successful digital transformations is the trend toward integrating UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS (communications platform as-a-service) to supercharge collaboration, productivity, and insights.

You can find out more about this by joining the Virgin Media Business and 8x8 alliance team at our next webinar: 4 Ways to Supercharge Digital Transformation with Integrated Communications. Join the webinar and you'll get complimentary access to newly-released digital transformation research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and Virgin Media Business, plus state of business communications research from 8x8, and real-world advice on how you can quickly take your organization’s digital transformation to the next level.

Register now to watch the webinar live or on demand.