Ways to Improve Business Efficacy Through Communication

A recent blog series at InformationWeek discusses the fall of private branch exchange companies, the rise of do-it-yourself communications, and the need for enhanced communication architectures to improve the lives of workers and the efficacy of businesses overall.

According to the news site's analysis, email communication takes up 28 percent of the average worker's time, internal communications tools 14 percent, and external calls another 12 percent. Those values are both a combination of research-driven data from a recent McKinsey survey and estimations based on infrastructure capacity. If those values are accurate, however, it means that employees are spending over half their time using communications tools. That is a lot of time spend completing one type of task, and it informs the need for efficiency in that area.

Time spent communicating is not necessarily bad. There is a difference, though, between a worker who can complete only two phone calls an hour and one who can complete twenty, and it is likely improved architecture that helps make the latter worker more productive than the former. InformationWeek, therefore, argues for the implementation of unified communications tools that can "streamline communications and eliminate bottlenecks."

Better tools can allow employees to quickly figure out which communications modality is best for them in any given moment. If they need to reach a co-worker through email, they should be able to access email without hassle. Similarly, if their manager prefers an internal text chat, the software that handles that modality should be easily accessible as well. The right communications tool can make it easier to reach others inside and outside the office, and proper UC architecture supports finding those tools quickly.