white paper
Unified Communications:
Transforming how business works
UThe promise of unified communications (UC) is compelling—the ability to
seamlessly integrate multiple types of rich media communications and
visual collaboration tools into one IP-based open platform, easily shared
by anyone in an organization from anywhere over any device.
Many organizations are eyeing UC as an opportunity to
connect workers in a manner that meets their immediate needs and location, whether by real-time messaging, voice, presence, e-mail, or video conferencing. UC
networking technology eliminates communications
silos to deliver person-centric and presence-based
communications with a single user identity across all
modes.
Since undertaking a migration to such a promised land
may seem daunting—especially for an enterprise that
may still be running a legacy telephony infrastructure—it’s important to realize that while its benefits are
compelling, UC is not a point product. Rather, it’s a vision and a strategy for how to achieve enhanced communications at a pace and budget that makes sense
for your organization. The vision is fueling a technology
transformation that will radically change the way businesses communicate forever.
While many companies may not be ready for a full-blown UC rollout, this white paper will delineate the
benefits of a prudent phased UC strategy for organizations and discuss the steps required to build such
capability for current and future applications.
Why Unified CommUniCations?
UC is not just about equipment and infrastructure.
Some prefer to label the UC vision as communications
enabled business processes (CEBP) to more effectively connote that the technology is aimed at bringing
together the most important applications and making
them better, transforming how businesses and people
work and interact at all levels.
Today, workers and customers use a dizzying array of
devices—PCs, smartphones, telephones, cell phones—
to communicate via an equally dizzying choice of
applications—e-mail, fax, voicemail, instant messaging,
texting and, let’s not forget, the good old paper
message slip.
The biggest problem with these standalone products
is that the person initiating the communication too
often is left wondering when, or whether, the message
will get through. At its core, UC is the glue that pulls
them all together with the aim of eliminating communication barriers, which frequently result in frustrations along with unnecessary delays. The UC platform
should provide the initiator with immediate information
about how best to communicate with the person being
sought. A proper UC solution should also provide an
intuitive interface to use so that it’s easy for users to
navigate among multiple collaboration formats. This
allows users to do their jobs in ways that are most
natural to them, no matter when and where, and to
shave precious time from tasks performed multiple
times every day.
Custom Solutions Group
