How to Deploy an Effective Unified Communications Strategy
October 20, 2015
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Unified Communications (News - Alert) – is it a trending buzzword or a concept you need to consider when trying to run an efficient business? Do decision makers set out to unify or are they simply looking for innovative solutions that reduce the impact on call accounting and produce better communications outcomes?
A recent press release from Ovum (News - Alert) suggests that the Unified Communications solutions market is going through a significant transformation. New ways of purchasing are appealing to both large enterprises and small to medium enterprises. The goal is to optimize the ways in which they deploy and manage communications technologies. The main cause for this shift is cloud-based communications.
“Enterprises considering UC solutions in 2015 will encounter a market undergoing considerable change,” said Brian Riggs, principal analyst of enterprise services at Ovum, in a press release. Video will become ubiquitous as consumerization, WebRTC, and other factors make videoconferencing available from any application and any device. Meanwhile UC services will become better enabled to support complex hybrid cloud deployment models.”
As such, Ovum has identified four trends to watch in the Unified Communications solutions market, including the fact that it will continue to remain diverse, regardless of consolidation. At the same time, hosted Unified Communications services are becoming mainstream, especially within large enterprises. Video conferencing is becoming ubiquitous thanks to a wide array of options that are both quality-based and easy to use. Hosted solution for video conferencing will continue to gain momentum after this transformation introduces new services and revamps existing options.
But how do you assure adoption, even if the newer tools make sense from a call accounting standpoint? According to Mitchell Weiss, director, Unified Communications products for ISI (News - Alert) Telemanagement Solutions, one of the biggest challenges in end-user adoption is you can’t always tell who is and who is not using the new tools being provided. Until this changes, it’s difficult to determine proper approaches to training, technical challenges and even culture.
In a recent blog post, ISI suggests there are a couple of ways to determine whether or not communications technologies are successful within the corporate environment. First, there has to be a priority on training. If people don’t know how to use the tools provided, they won’t use them, regardless of the perceived benefit. Second, it’s important to monitor pain points in your software as you monitor deployment. Third, just because you aren’t hearing from users, doesn’t mean they understand the technology provided.
Finally, thoroughly assess needs, communication methods and more before implementing a Unified Communications strategy. Just because it looks good on paper doesn’t mean it will work in application. Understand user habits and build your strategy around them and their needs to deliver a better solution with greater success.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi