Breaking Down the Benefits of Unified Communications: A Comprehensive Guide

With today’s rapidly changing environment, Unified Communications or Cloud Communications solutions are imperative for business continuity, efficiency, and productivity.

We are living in a brand-new world, driven by digital transformation and with the evolvement of technology we have entered a new age where work is no longer defined by a specific office, desk, phone or computer screen. Today, thanks to Unified Communications (UC) employees and business professionals have the freedom, choice, and opportunity to work from anywhere using their device of choice and a cloud connection.

What is Unified Communications?

Unified Communications is the integration of communication services including IP Telephony, mobility, mobile and softphone applications as well as web and video conferencing to meet the demands for faster communication and more personal collaboration. UC can connect smartphones, softphones, desktop handsets, videophones, and speakerphones. 

Organisations understand that relying on outdated, on premise PBX and slow email services make it harder for their staff to compete and dominate in an increasingly saturated and confusing marketplace. This has resulted in many organisations relying on the mobility, integration, flexibility, and scalability that a UCaaS solution can bring. In fact, a leader in the industry has predicted that UC market penetration is expected to grow as much as 8 times by November 2021.

Why should your organisation invest in UC?

As communication strategies available to organisations continue to evolve, UC makes communication simpler, more efficient, and easily accessible across the whole organisation. Additionally, UC can:

1.     Reduce costs: There is no capital equipment or hardware cost associate with legacy phone systems. Also, there is no need to purchase and maintain the physical PBX due to everything being hosted on the cloud. 

2.     Facilitate innovation: As the business environment becomes more competitive, organisations are beginning to map out their digital transformation journey and most often the first step is improving their communication services.

3.     Improve customer and users experience: Employees are more productive and work better when working methods are simplified therefore, streamlining the standard applications and tools used to communicate will improve user and customer experience.

Unified Communications features

There are a number of features that are included within a UC solution however, listed below are some of the most useful features that an organisation can implement to experience an instant Return on Investment (ROI).

·       Mobile Application

·       Softphone Application

·       Reporting and Analytics

·       Audio and Video Conferencing

·       Auto attendant

·       Call recording

·       Call queue/group, and hunt group

·       Instant messaging

·       Integration (CRM and other applications)

·       BMW – barge monitor whisper

There is an abundance of vendors that offer UC solutions that can truly re-design the way your organisation communicates internally as well as with your valued customer. However, due to the congested and confusing nature of the telecommunications industry, business professionals can often be left feeling lost and frustrated. There is a high number of UC vendors available on the market and they all claim that they are the best, which is not always the case!

Cloud4Tek helps businesses integrate Unified Communication technology seamlessly into their current communications base. We work with key stakeholders within your company to understand how this new technology will affect job functions, benefit end-users, and meet long term goals. We identify the resources necessary to support a thriving communication and collaboration initiative and custom tailor deployment methods and training materials according to company criteria and objectives. We continuously analyse where both successes and frustrations occur to constantly improve our processes.