8×8, Inc., the world’s first Communications Cloud provider, announced it has promoted Dejan Deklich to executive vice president and chief product officer, where he will now be responsible for overseeing the company’s engineering, product management, and DevOps efforts. The alignment of these functions under Deklich enables 8×8 to bring all product innovation and development under one umbrella, globally, from gathering customer requirements and product management all the way through to engineering and service delivery, increasing velocity and efficiency throughout the company to deliver customers the most advanced enterprise cloud communications solutions available.
“This is a significant transition for 8×8 as we align our product and innovation teams to ensure we’re nimble and responsive to quickly meet the business communications, collaboration and customer engagement needs of global midmarket and enterprise companies,” said Vikram Verma, CEO, 8×8. “As we streamline the organizational structure, we can better deliver solutions and services that eliminate communications silos, so businesses can run smarter and faster to deliver a game-changing customer experience.”
This news comes on the heels of†8×8 building out its engineering team, recruiting from some of the most-respected technology companies in the industry. The structural changes and recent new hires are evidence of 8×8’s focus on accelerating its strategy to develop a truly unified cloud communications platform across voice, video, messaging, collaboration, and contact center. This company commitment to engineering and product development has resulted in recent industry accolades, including 8×8 named a Leader in the 2017†Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide for the sixth year in a row, and ranked by The Tolly Group as†delivering superior cloud communications voice quality across the globe, when tested against leading Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) providers.
As part of the transition, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Analytics and Corporate Development, Darren Hakeman, who formerly oversaw the product management and product operations teams, will now oversee corporate development. Hakeman’s new role will include defining and driving 8×8’s long-term corporate strategy as well as leading 8×8’s company-wide digital transformation to accelerate the company’s next phase of growth and innovation.
“Our engineering team is scaling globally to meet the challenging business requirements of our growing midmarket and enterprise customer base,” said Deklich, executive vice president and chief product officer, 8×8. “We’re committed to solving fragmentation and breaking down the communications silos that impact our customers’ businesses. Our products enable fast-paced companies to engage employees and customers by making it possible to bring the collective power of the enterprise to every connection.”
The 8×8 Communications Cloud combines unified communications (8×8 Virtual Office), collaboration (8×8 Virtual Office Meetings), team messaging (8×8 Sameroom), contact center (8×8 Virtual Contact Center and 8×8 ContactNow) and real-time analytics in a single open platform that integrates across clouds, applications and devices.
