Why established businesses are incorrectly dubious about Unified Communications
What do ‘advertainment’, big data, leverage, quota and unified communications have in common? They’re all business buzzwords. And while many things in business are pushed as an unnecessary luxury, it’s time to give some buzzwords the benefit of the doubt. Unified Communications (UC) are no longer solely reserved for businesses with large budgets. Enterprises, no matter how big or small, should be looking to introduce such a concept.
What is Unified Communication
This is essentially a method of communication that integrates both real-time and asynchronous (not in real-time) communications with business requirements and processes. The concept behind UC is to bring everything needed for employees to interact both internally with colleagues and externally with customers into one collective user interface. Moreover, many UC platforms are also based on the cloud – this allows them to provide a user experience that is consistent across multiple devices and media types.
How Unified Communication works
Unified Communication tools pave the way for businesses to manage various modes of communication across several devices in one environment; this applies to any business, regardless of size. Having to switch between devices and applications to make a call, send an email or launch a conference can hamper productivity and UC is here to put a stop to that. It’s time to stop being dubious about UC and introduce it for increased agility and efficiency. Components of UC include text-based communication (email, chat and SMS), web conferences, real-time presence, file sharing, calendaring, video-calling, voice applications and much more.
Why it’s time to get onboard
Unified Communications by Gamma and other providers can help businesses in many ways, improving agility, efficiency and productivity. You don’t need a high-tech office to be able to do so, UC will ensure that employees have the necessary tools that will work best for them. Such tools may include desk phones, soft-phones or mobile devices with cloud-based applications installed. The business world is continuing to grow and technology is advancing at a frightening pace; the growth of globalisation, remote working and artificial intelligence paves the way for UC to grow concurrently.
Collaborations and UC are beginning to overlap an increasing amount. Companies have started to realise that this is the best way for employees to work together and communicate in a streamlined environment. UC also spells great news for customer satisfaction; customer experience has long been an important differentiator in the business space and even more so in such an instant world, UC can now coincide with technologies for a contact centre. With the UC stack integrated with contact centre technologies, employees in the contact centre can instantly access relevant support from colleagues to unlock information in an instant to settle customer queries. No-one likes to be kept waiting!
Cons of Unified Communication
Interoperability
Admittedly, there are drawbacks to UC but in comparison to the pros, these are few and far between. Now and then, technology can struggle to make sense of everything and this can sometimes happen in the event of UC. If your business is operating on a system deemed outdated then it may be that such software is incapable of supporting new UC technology. However, service providers and dedicated cloud-service implementation teams can assist in the merging and even the updating of existing facilities.
