Unified Communications: What Efficiencies Can It Bring to My Organization?
March 26, 2008
As telephony moves into the internet (IP) space, it causes a shift in how and when we communicate. With this change, many people cannot distinguish between IP Telephony and Unified Communications. Consequently, we find that many organizations are looking at the world through antiquated glasses.
As a technology specialist, I felt it necessary to define Unified Communications to take the mystery out of it:
Unified Communications is bringing together all forms of communication: e-mail, instant messaging, voice mails, video etc., to any user - regardless of what they are using to obtain the communication (personal computers, wireless phones, PDA’s, Thin Client’s etc.)
How and Where We Work Is Changing
Brick and mortar traditional offices still exist, but are changing quickly, often becoming smaller. In addition, conference rooms, warehouses, airports, and campuses have all become areas of conducting business.
Add to that the influx of mobile and dispersed workers that also need to be connected and you have an issue: “How do we solve the complex problem of keeping communication streamlined amongst the whole organization?”
Two Questions
Look at your organization and ask yourself, are our internal users able to stay connected no matter where they go? If not, how much productivity is lost which can be tied to revenue generation that we are missing out on by operating this way?
Perhaps a Solution Is At Hand
The answer may be here. If you’re interested in increasing productivity, enhancing collaboration, creating flexibility and increasing the ease of communication across all areas–whether you’re sitting at a desk or consistently on the road, then the answer is Unified Communications.With Unified Communications you can collaborate in real-time with applications and features that once stood alone, while ensuring a secure connection and facilitating communication anytime and anywhere.Think of all the ways your communication must be integrated now:
- Video conferencing,
- Database access queries
- Customer information,
- Voicemail
- Fax
- E-mails
- Web conferencing
- Mobile IP softphones
These are all separate functions now. But are examples of applications that comprise a Unified Communications system. Implementing Unified Communications keeps you ahead of the curve and able to meet the needs of your external and internal customers in a more responsive manner. Due to that, business does not have to wait, it can be conducted right there and then with much more efficiency. What are the costs to your organization of waiting to answer an e-mail or having a fax misplaced or thrown away when it is in a public place, let alone what security measures are you taking to protect that information being sent and received via fax, phone, or e-mail?
User Choice - By integrating all of these applications, a workspace can now be created where users can choose the method of how they are connected and when they choose to be available. Therefore, allowing business to be conducted at times and in places it never has before, allowing for more revenue generating activities to take place when they arise, rather than having to wait for regular business hours.
What’s Driving This Effort? - Increased productivity, efficiency, and mobility enhancing capabilities are the driving forces of this new technology. Every company wants a competitive market edge—and to do that they must be quicker to market and more responsive to customer demands. Unified communications helps businesses, small and large alike, to streamline information delivery and ensure ease of use. This also allows for minimized or eliminated human delays, resulting in better, faster interaction and service-delivery for the customer, and cost savings for the business.
More Revenue! - We recently worked with a law firm of about 35 employees and 10 of them being attorneys. They were using an old legacy phone system and physical fax machines. When the attorneys were out of the office, to check their voice mails, they had to call into the system, and if someone at the office needed to reach them, the only way was to make a physical phone call, as e-mails could not be checked until they got back into the office. Many times the attorneys were in court so they could not answer and it got to be a game of telephone tag to conduct business, and this was only voice mail. What about e-mails and faxes? This firm implemented Unified Communications into their new phone system, and now the attorneys could be reached at any time, in multiple fashions, and the inside staff now had a more efficient way of conducting business.
Now every employee’s e-mail inbox became the unified location to receive e-mails, voice mails, and faxes. No more faxes were thrown away from the fax machine. The attorneys were set up the same way, but they also used their PDA’s as a means to access their e-mail, and like the inside staff their voicemails, e-mails, and faxes resided there as well. So, now while they had down time between court cases or were waiting for meetings to start, they could still work and in the world of law firms, the more billable time the better. This not only increased their productivity and their billable time, but created a much easier flow of communications, and created less frustration between them, their clients and internal staff.
Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has stated that, “The largest single value of Unified Communications is its ability to reduce “human redundancy” in business processes.” Take a look at your organization. Most of your workers are knowledge workers, meaning: a member of an organization who uses their knowledge to become more productive and to help the organization become more productive (Webster). In that definition, virtually all jobs are knowledge jobs. And these are the very people who will see a huge benefit from unified communications. This workforce can always stay connected no matter where they choose to conduct business.
What About You? - If you have a sense that you can use Unified Communications, it is important that your vendor a) has a good knowledge of VoIP and the problems it solves and b) has a diagnostic that will help you understand your business problems and how unified communications can solve them. Understanding your pains, goals and strategies on how to achieve your goals are all integral pieces of information that lead to the right solution. A lot of money can be wasted by not having a clear understanding of the business processed prior to implementation. The vendor must be able to assemble a coherent, executable Unified Communications Strategy so that it will create the efficiencies and productivity which result in appropriate return on investment. The future of communications is here. Isn’t it time to learn what this technology can do for you?
Marissa Jacquay is a technology specialist with G3 Technology Partners and works with businesses to analyze and assess how technology can solve business problems. She can be reached at 317.876.6535 or by email at marissa.jacquay@g3tp.com.
Sources:
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, 2007
Gary Audin, “Confused About Unified Communications?”
David Haskin, “The Brave but Speculative New World of Unified Communications.”
Darren Marie Speaks on ‘Getting Ready’ for Technology
March 18, 2008
Darren Marie–he might just be the hardest working ‘tech’ in Indiana. (Although I’m sure his cohorts would disagree.)
Luckily, he did have a chance to sit and talk with us for a bit about how a company can get ready for technology solutions.
As we all know, technology solutions can be awesome–with profound economic benefit for you. BUT, you have to be ready. Darren gives you some tips on how to get ready.
