When it comes to keep operations running smoothly and efficiently, conferencing seems to be playing a key role to help companies achieve those goals.

 

Conferencing, like many other forms of unified communications, helps businesses achieve a quicker time -to-resolution and improves customer communication. Those are just some of the reasons why more and more companies are deploying unified communications, or UC.

 

And recently, Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based research firm, uncovered another reason why more companies plan to use UC. A recent company report concluded that UC delivers measurable business value.

 

The report, called "Unified Communications: Gaining a Competitive Advantage While on the Move," found that businesses can boost their telecom spend and increase productivity with UC. In addition, it found that they can also reduce customer churn.

 

That’s good new for companies like The Conference Group, a provider of audio, Web and video conferencing services.

 

According to the report, 79 percent of the 154 companies surveyed broke even on their UC investment within the first 12 months. Companies realized the savings by streamlining internal and external communications, maximizing telecom spend, boosting productivity through improved collaboration and reducing customer churn through increased customer responsiveness, the report said.

 

What’s more, UC increased knowledge sharing among workers by 35 percent and workplace flexibility by 35 percent. The report also found that UC improved organizations competitive performance by 25 percent, and heightened collaboration for decision making by 16 percent. It also helped accelerate the speed of conflict resolution on average by 11 percent.

 

"Unified holds enormous promise as a coherent approach to business communications, as a way to cut through 'communications clutter,' and more directly connect a customer to a company, employee to employee, and more tightly bind business partners and suppliers," Andrew Borg, senior research analyst, Aberdeen (News - Alert) Group, said in a statement. "The challenge of our connected era is that the greater the number of communications options, the more difficult it can be to connect with a specific individual when you want to. UC therefore becomes increasingly important to mend the fractured digital communications landscape."

 

Conferencing solutions have become popular not only for the cost savings they offer users, but their ability to help companies improve the collaborative process and boost employee productivity. In fact, a recent survey by Insight research found that conferencing and collaboration are predicted to overtake the UC market. And companies like The Conference Group (News - Alert) are reaping the rewards.

 

As organizations cut travel budgets to reduce expenses, companies are instead using audio or video conferencing solutions –sophisticated telepresence solutions or simple desktop video solutions – as an alternative to travel.

 

And officials from The Confernece Group said they anticipate an uptick in business as more businesses are look to deploy the technology as a way to combat new outbreaks of the H1N1, or so-called “swine flu” virus.