Yorktel Looks to Future with New Services and Expanded Focus

By Eric Lebowitz
Digital Content Editor

Yorktel has been in the technology sector for three decades, having built a strong enough reputation for delivering reliable managed services, cloud solutions and enterprise video communications that it works closely with several government agencies as well as a number of Fortune 500 enterprises.

Like any organization that has enjoyed sustained success, however, the company recognizes that technology evolves rapidly and any business in the sector must adapt accordingly. It was with that sentiment in mind that the company entered the telemedicine space last year after several years of planning and is focused heavily on that industry in 2015 as well. Specifically, Yorktel provides video kiosks and other solutions for patient bedside care and collaboration between medical professionals working remotely.

One issue that Vishal Brown, Yorktel’s Vice President of Professional Services, sees often in healthcare—and a wide array of other verticals as well—is organizations struggling to simplify and streamline communications. Yorktel, for instance, recently published a case study about its work with a hospital that was using three different video solutions for various purposes across the organization. The healthcare provider brought Yorktel in to help them merge the three technologies without inducing chaos.

“In healthcare, we’re not talking about somebody getting disconnected from their boss on a videoconference,” Brown told TMC (News - Alert) at Editor’s Day on Tuesday, January 27 at ITEXPO Miami. “We are talking about true life and death situations. Our customers are now able to take advantage of our cloud services to create a mix and match of technologies.”

Brown spoke enthusiastically about 2014, pointing to several significant milestones Yorktel achieved last year. For example, the company received an ISO27001 certification for cloud and managed services, which represents third-party validation of the company’s security protocols. For an organization charged with protecting sensitive government data, that certification is especially meaningful.

“It gives our clients an added level of trust,” he said.

Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) also recently honored Yorktel with the 2014 North American Award for Product Line Strategy Leadership, based on its recent analysis of the video conferencing services market. Brown promised, however, that his organization was doing anything but resting on the laurels of a year ago. Rather, Yorktel is focused on solving the most vexing technological issues enterprises commonly encounter today.

One such example Brown cited is the enterprise looking to deploy Microsoft Lync. Many of these companies are seriously considering migrating to what Microsoft has rebranded “Skype (News - Alert) for business” but are wary of making mistakes deploying the UC solution. So these enterprises are engaging Yorktel in discussions about how best to move over to Lync and what kind of deployment makes sense for their individual organizations.

“We’re getting a lot of questions like, ‘Should I just do IM and video? Should I do voice? How do I enable video?” Brown explained. “They are unsure of what their UC roadmap should look like. So they ask us to provide a three- or five-year road map for a UC strategy. A lot of our consulting right now is related to these roadmaps.”

The enterprises considering a move to Lync understand that any technology migration that is not well planned and executed can result in a disaster that cripples productivity rather than enhancing it. That scenario is one Yorktel is committed to helping its clients avoid.

“You can’t just throw Lync out and have it show up on users’ desktops,” Brown explained. “That’s setting yourself up for failure.”