A data lake is a repository for storing massive amounts of raw data in its native form, in a single location. It has evolved over the years, from local storage, to data warehouses, and now the data lake concept – with each step, creating better capabilities for companies to store, manage and analyze the growing amount of data generated each day.

Generation Z can barely remember a world pre smartphone and are thus more likely to quickly adapt to digital changes, especially when faced with a major disruptor like COVID-19, compared to their older counterparts. The pandemic has forced everyone to go completely digital but for those in school the difference is even more stark.

At this point in the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every company that operates a contact center has had to transition some, if not all, of their agents to a work from home environment. According to an informal survey on one of our recent webinars, 88 percent of our customer attendees said they had moved all their agents to a work-from-home setting.

The news cycle is full of stories about data breaches and cybersecurity threats, including massive attacks on well known enterprises such as Marriott, Equifax and Yahoo. In most cases, it is personal information that is leaked, but those problems compound for both users and companies when payment information is exposed.

Most of the world has its eyes on the news about coronavirus and its potential business and human impact, and there is uncertainty and potential for disruption in the coming weeks. In order to maintain business operations, organizations are looking to rapidly prepare for the challenges today and will want to prepare ahead for the possibility of these events as part of their disaster recovery, just as they would for natural disasters.

If you’ve been a part of the cloud communications industry over the last 10 years, you’ve no doubt come across the acronym for as-a-service (-aas). This identifier first appeared in the term SaaS (software-as-a-service) and was quickly narrowed down to more specific industry categories such as UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service), CPaaS (Cloud Platform as a Service) and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) – of which NICE inContact has become a market leader.

Citizens contact government agencies for a large variety of services on a very regular basis, and just like in the private sector, these agencies are challenged to keep up with changing customer expectations. There are new mandates within the government to use technology to improve the customer experience, while maintaining proper levels of safety and security with their data.