Summit Taps Into Unified Communications

By Eve Sullivan, TMCnet Editor

Due to the increased need to stay productive and deliver the best services in the shortest time, organizations are deploying various communications tools that enable real-time customer interaction around the clock.

As such, the concept of Unified Communications (News - Alert) is the new buzz word in the business community. Although UC tools have been around for more than a decade, it’s only lately that businesses are exploring the wider spectrum of UC beyond the basic tools of e-mail and telephony.

“Growth is the top priority for any enterprise,” says Manoj Menon, partner at Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert). “In order to stay on the growth track, enterprises in Asia-Pacific are looking at Unified Communications to stay agile, productive and customer-centric. UC holds the key to enhanced team collaboration, improved business processes and increased cost-savings.”

Frost & Sullivan predicts that the UC market will grow by 13 percent, to reach revenues of $4.55 billion by the year’s end. Much of the growth is expected to come from telephony upgrades, IP telephony migration and e-mail upgrades embedded with UC applications.

As UC takes prominence with various solutions available today, leaders from a variety of service sectors gather today at Frost & Sullivan’s 2^nd Annual Unified Communications Executive MindXchange Summit. Held at the Sheraton Towers, the one-day event features speakers from Avaya, Aspect, Microsoft (News - Alert) Unified Communications Group, along with industry analysts from Frost & Sullivan.

Frost & Sullivan partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company’s TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies.

Menon is presenting the opening address on the landscape of UC in Asia-Pac, discussing the trends and predictions in the market. In conclusion, he will elaborate on future directions to enhance collaboration and compatibility providers.

Other topics include discussions on the business benefit of UC, case studies on actual UC deployment, enhancing customer service with UC, collaboration, and the key success factors in a global economy. The summit also discusses issues that are often cited by C-level executives on the lack of utilization of UC tools at a panel discussion and case study analysis on successful UC deployments.

Special delegate-driven think-tank sessions are also conducted on the “dos” and “don’ts” of deploying UC and justifying the business case for UC. The sessions allow individual participants to openly discuss real concerns and constraints faced by business leaders in the process of implementing UC that best fits their organizations.

The summit is sponsored by Avaya, Aspect and Plantronics (News - Alert). Business Today, Enterprise Innovation, Network World Asia and ZDNet Asia are official media partners, while the Association of Telecommunications Industry of Singapore is a supporting organization for the summit. For more information, please visit www.frost-uc.com.

Eve Sullivan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Eve’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

(source: http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/topics/unified-communications/articles/35702-summit-taps-into-unified-communications.htm)

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