Unified communications delivers more than telephony infrastructure; it can revolutionise how people and systems communicate.
While many people have heard the term Unified Communications, not everyone is clear as to what it means or the value it can bring to an organisation.
Unified Communications (UC) refers to a solution that facilitates seamless interaction for inbound and outbound communications between users and various communications systems and applications.
These include instant messaging, texting, email, calendaring, voice, video, web collaboration, CRM solutions, portals, document management systems and bespoke desktop and mobile applications.
At the very least, these capabilities allow users to communicate with each other using instant messaging and voice communication, establish presence, and utilise additional capabilities through customisation. Intergen believes the future of UC lies in the incorporation of these capabilities in line of business applications, further optimising business processes.
The benefits of UC are numerous, ultimately improving productivity and reducing cost by helping people and systems communicate to each other more effectively.
Microsoft's unified communications strategy aims to benefit organisations by simplifying the delivery of UC functionality, ensuring it is cost effective to implement and maintain. Its capabilities can also be delivered using existing infrastructure, further reducing costs.
For users, as applications are already familiar, operational and administrative staff won’t experience excessive change or require large amounts of training.
In essence, by deploying Microsoft Unified Communications, you can reuse the majority of your infrastructure and corporate intellectual property, enhancing your company-wide communications for less.