Business VoIP is the Hub of Integration

Businesses in search of an efficient communication system might find themselves looking at what’s known as a unified communications (UC) system, a term used to describe any communications system, usually a business system, that encompasses a broad range of technologies and applications that have been designed, sold and supported as a single communications platform or as one entity.

Unified communications systems generally enable companies to use integrated data, video, and voice in one supported product. What does this all mean? It can be summed up in one word: integration.

To be efficient and cost effective, businesses want their UC services to also work with other services, like CRM software or other management tools. Thus, they are turning UC into UC&C, the latter “C” standing for collaboration. So, how can a company’s integrated UC system play nice with other systems? This is where business VoIP comes in.

No one needs business VoIP to implement UC, but business VoIP does make it easier. VoIP services already include mechanisms for forwarding voice mail to e-mail and other features used in a UC system. With VoIP, there is more scalability and better integration than with UC-type products that rely on traditional phone services.

Infonetics Research noted that many organizations are adopting VoIP as a way to influence unified communications, as the number of VoIP and UC users will double between 2012 and 2016. The research firm adds that $377 billion will be spent on business and residential/SOHO VoIP services over the next five years from 2012 to 2016, driven primarily by SIP trunking and hosted VoIP/UC services.

Using business VoIP as a way for integration for systems like CRM software solutions means businesses can reduce costs by consolidating technologies, improve customer service, increase productivity and enable more sophisticated operations.

UC is really a maturation of business VoIP, as it allows vendors to replace older messaging platforms, conferencing and desktop collaboration solutions.

The growing adoption of business VoIP makes it easier for companies to implement UC, and the increasing recognition of a need for UC is helping to drive the adoption of business VoIP, which leads to better integration. The two technologies complement one another, and it’s a perfect case of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Edited by Alisen Downey