Unified communications (UC) may sound like one of those slightly fuzzy buzzwords the IT industry is rather fond of inventing, but it's got real meaning for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The business benefits are manifold. It can reduce costs, increase employee efficiency and add flexibility to working practices.
Its major selling point is that it unties staff from their desks with no adverse impact on productivity – the holy grail of the SME, especially in the current economic climate. Indeed, it can actually improve productivity.
Unified communications explained
To put it simply, UC consolidates different types of communication over a single physical network. Nearly every small business with more than a couple of staff will have their PCs running on a network these days. The individual machines talk to each other digitally.
In a UC environment, voice traffic is also digital, meaning that voice and data can run over the same network using the same format for content transfer - IP, or internet protocol.
This means companies can save a lot of money from simplified network management – and, of course, from only needing one physical network where before they would have needed two.
Feature-rich applications
This enables a whole host of feature-rich applications. For a start, an organisation's phone and customer relationship management (CRM) system can be integrated in a UC environment. When a customer calls, employees can see a pop-up window with all the customer's information on their phone or PC.
One phone number can ring simultaneously on multiple phones, so employees never miss a call.
Automated attendant facilities can be used to answer the company phone and intelligently route calls. Employees can customise call screening and message handling.
Calls made within the broader company network or over the internet are also free, thanks to IP – which is (as the name suggests) the 'language' of the internet. The person called could be in the same building, at the other end of the country, or abroad. Think of this type of application as an industrial-strength version of Skype.
Unwrapping presence
But UC offers much more than that. Because everything is digital and runs over an IP network, calls and messages can be received and managed alongside other forms of communication – faxes, emails, instant messages, and web- or video-conferencing.
Communication and collaboration become extremely flexible - calls and messages follow the user around. This makes staff more easily contactable, without the need for the person contacting them to establish where that person is, or which number to call.
A very handy feature is the way in which UC can cut to the chase, quickly filtering messages and identifying whether someone is available to be contacted at any given time.
That's because most solutions harness a feature known as 'presence'. This shows who's online and available to be contacted - and how. So if Bob needs to get hold of Karen while in a meeting with a customer, he can see immediately that she's working from home and free to receive a call or IM. The crucial information is quickly obtained, and the meeting moves on.
Making the business case
Making the business case for UC isn't difficult. For Derby based Volkswagen dealer and service centre VW Parkway, a Cisco UC solution will have paid for itself within a year because of its ability to consolidate tasks across two locations. When the business acquired a dealership in Leicester, it wanted to keep costs down by running the enterprise as a single entity.
As VW Parkway managing director Sean Booth says, "The motor industry is having a tough time at the moment, so every customer enquiry that comes in is more valuable than ever. We needed to be able to service those enquiries efficiently. That meant standardising processes across the business so we could benefit from economies of scale. UC offered us a great starting point.
VW Parkway now has multiple dialling codes, which allows it to modify how it 'looks' to the customer.
Companies with modest internal IT skills may be concerned about the upheaval involved in trying to run voice over a data network, not to mention the cost, but systems integrators specialising in these solutions note that a range of options exist now which have been designed – and priced - with the SME in mind.
Cloud computing
"There are many attractive vendor finance options and special deals available at the moment," notes Neil May, managing director of POSTcti, a distributor specialising in UC. "Often, there are also 'try-before-you-buy' options available."
Since UC exploits IP, it also lends itself very well to the emerging trend of applications being run 'in the cloud'– ie over the internet as a subscription service, where someone else owns all of the infrastructure.
"This allows for very low-cost entry level solutions that integrate directly with your existing ICT infrastructure, but without upfront capital expenditure," May explains.
So even in these tricky economic times, UC is a safe bet. It needn't cost the earth, and can revolutionise the way your business operates.
