Company: RingCentral Inc., San Mateo, CA
Company Description: RingCentral is a leading provider of cloud business phone systems designed for today's mobile and distributed workforce. By combining a hosted, multi-extension business phone system with advanced voice and fax functionality, RingCentral delivers ease of use, flexibility and mobility, which cannot be provided by complex and expensive on-premise legacy phone systems.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: New Product or Service of the Year - Telecommunications - Service

Nomination Title: RingCentral's Mobile Cloud-Touch Service

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Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 525 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and performance to date:

In April 2012, RingCentral, Inc., a leading cloud business phone system provider, launched the first mobile cloud-touch service for businesses and employees to manage and set up their phone systems and preferences from mobile devices.

RingCentral’s mobile cloud-touch service is designed for today’s businesses with mobile and dispersed workforces. According to IDC, mobile workers make up 75 percent of the U.S. workforce and this is expected to grow.

With this launch, RingCentral became the first and only phone system to enable businesses to setup, manage and use their phone system from a smartphone or tablet. It allows businesses to turn a mobile device into a smart business phone, and turn any location – a kitchen table, a car and even the beach– into an office.

As a result, the RingCentral cloud business phone system continues to disrupt legacy, hardware-based phone systems that are incapable of integrating with mobile devices. With this mobile cloud-touch capability, business owners, IT administrators and employees can fully manage their phone system and account preferences from a smartphone or tablet. Users can control their settings, access voice and fax messages and even add new users from anywhere.

The RingCentral mobile cloud-touch service benefits an entire organization:

•Provides companies with location and device independence: Businesses get the advantage of connecting multiple locations under a single phone system. It also enables companies to let employees use their own smartphones as business phones connected to the system.
•Empowers phone system administrators with freedom and control: RingCentral’s cloud touch- enabled mobile app allows administrators to instantly update the company’s phone system by adding employees, activating new phone numbers and setting call handling rules using mobile devices from any location.
•Empowers employees with freedom and flexibility: End-users are able to change their personal preferences for how calls are handled, call screening, voicemail as well as to specify devices they want to use as their primary business phone. End-users can truly work from anywhere, using smart mobile devices as their business phone.
•Eliminates the need for technical skills: It delivers a uniquely designed user interface and eliminates the need for PBX hardware, enabling non-technical administrators and users to set up, manage and use RingCentral with just taps on a screen. There’s no technical expertise required.

Since its launch, the service has seen the below momentum:

•37,000 RingCentral users have downloaded the RingCentral app with the cloud-touch capability and actively use it at least once a month
•4+ ratings for both the iOS and Android RingCentral app
•Helped RingCentral grow customers to more than 300,000 users

This success is confirmed by customers and industry analysts alike:

“RingCentral now enables me to manage the office phone system from anywhere and also enables our employees to self-manage their phone settings remotely from wherever they are,” said Sam McGue, office manager of Gigwalk.

“Employees are no longer tied to the office, and they shouldn’t be tied to the old office phone system either,” said Lynda Stadtmueller, director of cloud computing services at Stratecast|Frost & Sullivan. “RingCentral’s mobile cloud touch capability enables businesses to improve productivity by extending communications functionality to the places and devices from which employees are conducting business.”

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Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:

Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral's CEO and Founder

Vlad Shmunis founded RingCentral in 1999 and launched the RingCentral cloud business phone service in 2003 when he saw the need for an alternative to traditional, inflexible and expensive, hardware- based business phone systems. Since then, RingCentral is continually reimagining business communications to empower businesses and their employees to work the way they want in today’s mobile and dispersed work environment.

Today, RingCentral is a leading cloud business phone service provider serving nearly 300,000 businesses. It sells its cloud services directly, as well as  through AT&T and a wide range of reseller partners. RingCentral is privately held with funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Scale Ventures, DAG Ventures and Cisco.