This morning I started my day with a call to Thailand, chatted a few hours later with a business partner in India, and video conferenced at night with a client in San Francisco. If there’s any doubt that we’re living and working in a global economy, spend a few days with me or a startup and you’ll be convinced.
Part and parcel of this global life is VoIP and unified communications (UC). No matter where I’m working, no matter what device I’m on, UC connects me with those I want to reach. But even if you’re not global, UC still makes sense. Here are four reasons why.
1. Multiple locations
Calling from another country certainly is a good reason for using VoIP, but it also can benefit those who don’t travel. VoIP and UC make calling internationally cheap, too, and they facilitate connecting multiple locations that are not physically in the same city. VoIP and UC are flexible and far more adaptive than traditional calling.
2. Mobility
One advantage of this flexibility is making communications mobile. Whether in the office or on the road, workers can always receive calls and chat when a business uses VoIP or UC.
Many think that mobile phones offer fully mobility. They don’t, however. While they do enable people to take calls and chat outside of the office, they also suffer from cellular connectivity and network coverage. VoIP offers greater range because it functions on cell phones but also when working in the office, internationally or anywhere else that Internet connectivity can be achieved.
3. Unified communications
As the name implies, UC brings together what otherwise are disparate communications channels. Flipping among applications and services is doable, of course, but it is inefficient and complex. UC, on the other hand, unifies these communication channels and brings them all together in one place.
4. Management
Traditional PBX (News - Alert) systems are anything but easy to set up and administer. Many otherwise competent IT personnel have been stumped by simple questions like how to forward calls from the office phone system or set up a new voicemail inbox.
VoIP and UC, by contrast, usually are simple and easy to set up and administer. Browser-based control panels make configuration a breeze, and setup can be simple—especially when a cloud-based provider is used.
Global business makes VoIP and UC a no-brainer. But just about every business can benefit from the technology, too.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson