Getting Started With UC
The widescale adoption of IP networking and IP Telephony has provided a foundation to allow the convergence - or unification - of all forms of communications.
It’s generally accepted that, to achieve their full potential, organisations need the ability to communicate and collaborate better and Unified Communications (UC) enables that.
UC can improve customer service by simplifying the interaction between customers and the enterprise, and by making workers more available and responsive. Productivity can be increased measured not just by the seconds or minutes it can save an employee to execute a task, but by the compression of overall business processes measured in hours or days.
Full UC is achieved through the convergence of real time, near-real time and non-real time business communication applications including: calling, conferencing, messaging, contacts, calendaring, collaboration and rich presence with voice, video, text, and visual elements.
Users can access these capabilities through telephones, PC’s and mobile devices. These communications services are increasingly designed to be embedded into structured and unstructured business processes.
However, there is no single strategy via which businesses will move forward with UC, since each business has a unique set of needs and existing infrastructure.
And right now, the proliferation of multiple modes of communication and users devices has led to increased complexities of communication. UC has to simplify as well as integrate how we interact with one another if it's to be of any benefit.
Suggested entry points to Unified Communications
- Improve integration of mobile workers into enterprise
- Bring telephony to the PC
- Bring computer applications to the telephone
- Establish Unified Messaging
- Enterprise Instant Messaging Integration
- Introduce Unified Conferencing
- Add Video
How should an Enterprise move to UC?
As the above list suggests, a Unified Communications solution does not have to be implemented as a single project. Rather, it can be implemented as a series of initiatives, all based on a single vision.
Avaya has prepared a document that helps organisations to consider where to apply UC by identifying where there are delays in business processes caused by the interaction of individuals. This should be done in parallel with a technology assessment to determine the state of readiness for moving forward and leveraging current investments on the path toward Unified Communications.
Read more (White Paper: How should an Enterprise move to UC, PDF)