Massachusetts Furthers Its Cloud Initiative with Cloud Contact Center

For several years, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has had plans to migrate many of its operations to the cloud. To achieve twenty-first century resiliency, the state has been engaged in moving data out of state-owned data centers and into other environments, including into hybrid cloud, on-premises and third-party hosting facilities, and infrastructure-, platform- and software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) solutions, according to Chris Teale writing for GCN.

In October, Curtis Wood, the commonwealth’s chief information officer and a member of the cabinet of Governor Charlie Barker, told GCN that the state expects to close its last data centers within a matter of months.

“We just made the determination that we don't really need to be in state data centers any longer,” Wood said. “We struggle with the skill set and the ability to manage infrastructure in today's world, so it’s best to move forward with doing a combination of cloud, SaaS, and then looking at privately managed, privately owned colocation services.”

Now, the Commonwealth announced that it has chosen cloud communications service provider NWN (News - Alert) Carousel to be awarded with Part 3 of the MassVoice statewide IT contract for virtual cloud contact center services by the governor’s office. MassVoice is a secure private-cloud unified communications service tailored exclusively to Massachusetts state and local government clients.

Under the ITT72 contract, the MassVoice platform provides NWN Carousel’s integrated as-a-service cloud contact center solutions delivered on the Five9 (News - Alert) platform. This service is now available to Mass entities utilizing the MassVoice service. Similar services are generally available to all other state agencies, cities, counties, special districts and higher education institutions via ITT72. Partnering with the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), NWN Carousel will assist several state agencies in Massachusetts transition their contact center services to the cloud.

NWN Carousel’s solutions will deliver the full functionality and resiliency of a traditional contact center without the upkeep of an on-premises solution. These agencies will better serve their constituents with enhanced communications channels including voice, video, chat, email and SMS to resolve critical issues.

"We are delighted to provide entities leveraging MassVoice with a secure, cost efficient and agile customer experience for agents and constituents," said Jim Sullivan, CEO NWN Carouse. "Our goal is to migrate customers to the cloud to improve operational efficiency and help them leverage data and analytics to make sound decisions that will continue to improve the client experience."

Edited by Erik Linask