Unified Communications (UC) continues to be a heavily overused "buzz word" driven particularly by IT solution vendors. Many industry reports, case studies and user implementations have in fact highlighted that UC is in fact a very unique and organizational specific proposition and it is not the "one size fits all" approach.
The four steps to successful UC
Unified communications is truly gaining traction. The number of positive UC reference cases continues to grow rapidly. These reference cases report specific, high-ROI business process improvements in a wide variety of industries around the globe.
Things are changing in communications. Most of all, unified communications (UC) changes our view to communications integrated to optimize business processes. In addition, electronic communications now extend far beyond voice, to include email, instant messaging, web conferencing (documents and applications), and recorded and live video.
Communications enabled applications help reduce human latency which aids business decision makers worried about the increasing need for making decisions faster, business agility, and the costs associated with waiting for responses and sharing information. Even after significant automation of business processes, human latency haunts many businesses. Successful deployment of Communication enabled applications can solve many of these issues.
Unified communications helps companies and workers across the world to work more efficiently, better communicate and become more productive. Companies that strive for optimized business processes all around the globe have been the early adopters deploying unified communications. The deployment of these communications solutions has been increasing tremendously in Asia in particular.
Unified Communication infrastructure offers several business advantages including increased employee productivity, higher levels of customer satisfaction and increased business flexibility. This infrastructure allows employees to collaborate and communicate more efficiently and effectively. However, the deployment of unified communications solution poses certain challenges.
The last thing that you should do in the midst of turbulent economic times is to invest in new technology, right? “Not necessarily”, says Don Van Doren (Principal of UniComm). In this thought provoking article he makes a strong case for the implementation of Unified Communications (UC) as a means of blunting the edge of the current economic climate. He shows how UC can help cut costs, improve productivity and position your business for future growth.
June 2008
Introduction
Avaya defines Unified Communications as orchestrated communication and collaboration across locations, time, and medium to accelerate business results. It is achieved through the convergence of real-time, near-real-time, and non-real-time business communication applications including: calling, conferencing, messaging, contacts, calendaring, collaboration, and rich presence with voice, video, text, and visual elements.