by Nga Pham

Fuze is a global cloud communications and collaboration software company that connects the digital workforce. With its leading cloud communications platform, Fuze has empowered businesses of all sizes to work from home productively. This year, we're delighted to have Fuze as our Gold sponsor!

Recently, we sat down with Lisa Hurd Walker, Fuze VP Brand & Corporate Marketing. Lisa oversees brand strategy, public relations, customer advocacy at Fuze. Additionally, Lisa chairs the Fuze Women’s Network, a community that focuses on opportunities for the development of women in technology.

Read on to discover how Fuze has transformed the way people communicate in the COVID-19 era and why the team is proud to sponsor Aragon Transform 2020.

1. What are the 3 things about Fuze that you're proud of?

I am proud of the technology and how it has changed my life as a working mother, enabling me to communicate and collaborate with colleagues from anywhere. I am proud of the entire Fuze team and how hard everyone across works to win our fair share of this exploding market. And I am extremely proud that at Fuze, we absolutely practice what we preach in terms of flexible and remote work. We launched a formal “work from anywhere policy” years ago, which gives employees and managers the ability to develop customized employee experiences in terms of how, where, and when each employee can get their best work done. Our technology paired with a flexible work culture uniquely positioned us to seamlessly transition to 100% remote when COVID-19 hit and keep our employees safe and productive.

2. How does Fuze bring value to your customers in times of crisis?

Given our technology and remote work expertise, we’ve played a large role in our customers’ COVID-19 responses, helping them meet their unique needs as they rethink how to support their employees working from home. We’ve had customers who were previously only using us for cloud desk phones that have had to transition their entire organization over to our desktop client and mobile apps. Because we’ve built a flexible platform, those transitions were incredibly smooth. Customers who chose to use Fuze as part of their tech stack have been extremely pleased with how seamless the transition to working remotely was, and how little loss in productivity they faced.

Customers who chose to use Fuze as part of their tech stack have been extremely pleased with how seamless the transition to working remotely was.

3. What are the most critical changes that we must make to face the COVID-19 era and beyond?

I think it’s extremely important for leaders to face the fact that their employees have changed the way they work forever. The data is showing that employees, post-COVID-19, are looking to return to offices 0-2 days a week and spend their time, when in the office, on networking and collaboration with colleagues versus individual work. The global work-from-home experiment has shown people what work can be done better remotely, how well it can be done remotely, and what work they would prefer doing in person. Going forward, employees will be choosing companies that have formal flexible work policies that allow them to build personalized work experience, and that also offer physical office space, suited to drop-in workers, for collaboration with colleagues. Employees will also demand that employers have the right technologies in place to support a great hybrid work model experience.

4. Why are you excited to sponsor Aragon Transform 2020?

Aragon has been at the forefront of the future of work movement and we’re at such an exciting time in this space. Fuze has partnered with Aragon Research for years–the analysts are true industry experts and really hands-on. Over the years, Transform has brought together leaders in the future of work and the communications and collaboration space, and we are excited to participate in the virtual event this year.

5. In your opinion, what is the most impactful technology trend for the next 5 years?

I am personally obsessed with automation and robotics and I think the COVID-19 crisis is going to accelerate the robotics space in terms of consumer applications that we were previously resisting. Our definition of frontline work has been expanded based on our experiences in COVID-19 and there are a lot of opportunities for a combination of automation and robots in some frontline roles. I think about my mother, who lives at a memory-care, assisted-living facility in Boston. She lost her roommate to COVID-19 but survived herself with only mild symptoms. Throughout that crisis, they were being tended to by frontline nursing facility staff and in the future, we’ll see a different approach. I was just watching a video of a lobby robot in South Korea who checks body temps, distributes hand sanitizer, and can detect the use of a mask. I think the pandemic has unearthed a lot of opportunities in the robotics space and I’m interested to see what’s coming next.

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Aragon would like to thank Fuze for their continued support and sponsorship of Aragon Transform!

Be sure to sign up for Aragon Transform 2020 to learn more about Fuze as well as network with other attendees! We are going virtual this year and have also decided to split Transform 2020 into 2 days. Register now to get a Virtual Event Essentials Swag Kit delivered to your doorstep!

Stay tuned for our next blog in this series, featuring one of our Gold Sponsors!