Nextiva CEO: ‘VoIP Is to Nextiva as Books Were to Amazon’

(pictured above: Nextiva CEO Tomas Gorny on stage at Nextiva NextCon 2017 in Scottsdale, Arizona, Oct. 23.)

NEXTIVA NEXTCON — Nextiva says its long-anticipated communications platform will transform the company into more than just a VoIP provider.

The company announced Monday that select businesses are using its NextOS platform, which seeks to unify the many applications that businesses use. Nextiva made the announcement at its annual NextCon conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, where attendees learned about NextOS for the first time one year ago.

Nextiva’s Tomas Gorny

The offering single brings “fragmented” applications onto a single sign-on platform. The platform’s three main components are nextDB, which captures data; nextIQ, which analyzizes the data; and nextStep, which automates.

Nextiva CEO Tomas Gorny said the launch marks a major shift in the history of the company.

“The launch of the new NextOS platform is significantly more than just a product launch for us here at Nextiva. It marks a new transition from a VoIP company to an all-in-one business and tech company. VoIP is to Nextiva as books were to Amazon in their early days. It is just the starting point,” he said in his keynote speech. “Nextiva is merging and unifying business communication, team collaboration, costumer engagement and analytics on one modern platform. We are tackling the full accountability for the end-to-end customer experience.”

Gorny restated one of Nextiva’s favorite lines: “Business communications is in a state of crisis.”

“The world has shifted dramatically over the last several years, in the way we communicate and collaborate with each other,” he said. “Our customers have brand-new expectations. Knowledge and automation will drive the future. Knowledge comes from data and making sense out of data. Automation will transform how businesses communicate.”

But the drive to become digital and automate doesn’t always achieve its intended purpose. Many companies, Gorny says, create more problems than they actually solve by piling on application after application.

Nextiva’s proposed solution to the problem will be available to all in early 2018. Some of its features include a CRM function, chat, surveys and analytics.

Gorny’s unveiling followed a morning of speakers who talked about customer experience. Nextiva channel chief Ira Feuerstein explained that creating strong customer experiences is the theme of the conference, which is aimed at both Nextiva’s customers and partners.

“You can create a very positive experience for your customers, or you can create a very negative experience for your customers,” Feuerstein said. “And sometimes you even create a negative experience when you’re not even meaning to.”

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