In our recent Unified Communications (UC) blog series we have covered both the definition of and the common challenges encountered when first rolling out UC. We defined UC as a set of technologies that help companies, employees and customers communicate anytime, anywhere, work more efficiently and potentially even change how you work by streamlining certain processes. Of course, that all sounds like UC utopia but implementing a UC strategy is often harder than it appears. Common challenges that organizations face include:
- Finding the business reason and budget to move forward with a fully integrated UC solution
- Ensuring your preferred system works with existing on-premises technology or your hybrid environment
- Creating an environment of employee adoption
These challenges are all surmountable when one understands the benefits that a fully deployed UC solution can provide the three key stakeholders – which includes firstly, the organization as a whole, secondly, the individual employees and thirdly, the customer. Benefits that cut across all three groups include:
- Increased flexibility and productivity
- Effective collaboration
- Improved speed to market
- Reduced costs
With the global unified communications market set to grow to over $143B by 2024 there is certainly organizational momentum to have the right UC technologies in place in order to communicate and collaborate both internally and externally more effectively. Let’s explore each of the benefits for the three stakeholders in more depth.
Increased Flexibility & Productivity
Whether you are an enterprise company or a cloud-based start-up there’s no denying that today’s UC technologies can enhance your overall flexibility and productivity.
When employees are not tied to having to work in a certain location or a certain time because their communication tools allow them to work anywhere, anytime – there is a natural morale booster and increased productivity that occurs.
Effective Collaboration
With the right tools in place employees can more easily collaborate on projects, which in turn creates a more positive culture, drives sales, and enhances overall customer service.
Today’s employees do not want to be told where and when they can work and having both the tools and a culture that supports this type of collaboration allows organizations to be “geography blind” when hiring – giving you the opportunity to hire the best for your company no matter the location.
Improved Speed to Market
When you’re not weeding through lost emails, disjointed files, and missing graphics you can accomplish your objectives in a more efficient manner.
Enhanced communication and operations processes allow you to get your idea, product, and answers to market more quickly. The faster you respond to your customers the stronger your bottom line becomes.
Reduced Costs
Last but not least is of course the bottom line – and this works in two directions when it comes to unified communications. The first aspect is why UC is taking off in the first place.
As Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) becomes the predominant solution – especially for SMB organizations – it allows smaller companies to implement a UC solution with all of the bells and whistles of the on-premises ones of the past, for a fraction of the cost.
Gartner found that “small businesses will adopt cloud and voice conferencing faster than their large enterprise counterparts though 2021.” In turn, by implementing effective UC, organizations find themselves improving productivity, as noted above, which also directly impacts the bottom line.
Insightful communication internally helps respond to customer inquiries and drive innovation and revenue in the long-term.