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Unified communications 'has varied benefits'
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The advantages a business implementing unified communications experiences depends on what they set out to achieve with the technology, an expert has claimed. Carl Potter, research director at Bloor Research, writes on IT-Director.com that many organisations are unsure what unified communications actually involves, but understand joining telephone, instant messaging, email and other services will result in advantages. Mr Potter claims businesses which are based in several locations can use the solution to achieve simplified management, lower call costs through services such as VoIP and decrease cost of ownership. In addition, the expert suggests these firms will also experience improved communication across their sites, while it could be easier to engage customers and suppliers with the new, joined-up system. However, Mr Potter also writes: "Organisations with more ambitious goals than just cost savings, such as seeking to gain competitive advantage through creating innovative new UC enabled business processes, gain extra benefits." Admitting it may be hard to express these benefits in monetary values, the writer points out that productivity and efficiency gains achieved from using unified communications can be "substantial" and result in closer relationships with customers and partners. The expert also claims presence is one of the most powerful services unified communications can offer a company, as it can streamline the way employees reach each other. By making use of presence, colleagues can quickly identify the most appropriate and effective way to contact one another, while desktop-based 'drag-and-drop' interfaces can easily allow the conversation to escalate from email to instant messaging to VoIP. Mr Potter concludes the article: "These types of gains are being made across a broad range of industries, not to be sneezed at in these days of increasing economic slowdown." A recent report from companiesandmarkets.com claims the increased use of unified communications will have implications for the way businesses collaborate and operate. However, it also suggests mobile users will see the most advantages, as they will find themselves with greater ability to communicate on the move in a wider variety of ways. Azzurri is helping organisations combine services and applications for secure unified communications and convergence.  |
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