Shift Toward Mobility Demands the Management of Call Accounting
November 02, 2016
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Productivity in the workplace means different things to different people. Therefore, the means to accomplish productivity goals can also vary. One thing that seems to be picking up steam is the trend towards mobile unified communications and collaboration as companies recognize the importance of enabling employees to be flexible in their location.
Making the move does challenge traditional approaches to call accounting. How do you ensure that the right plan is in place for the right people? Call accounting solutions in place help with this management for in-house solutions. When mobile is added to the mix, demands and expectations change. Over time, a lack of close management can lead to too many contracts, unused devices and even errors on billing, making the need for a robust solution an even bigger priority.
Still, the need to shift to mobile isn’t changing. To be competitive, companies have to adopt an “always connected and available” approach to customer and colleague interactions or get quickly left behind. It’s driving the demand for greater access to mobile unified communications and collaboration, something that IDG suggests will continue to grow rapidly. In a recent CIO Review piece, the company is cited as reporting a surge of adoption over the next three years.
In fact, within 2016, 56 percent of enterprises and 66 percent of SMB organizations plan to implement or upgrade unified communications or collaboration solutions. Budgets to support this move are expected to increase by 9 percent. As this shift is also moving towards mobile, CIOs will have to adopt not only stronger call accounting solutions, but also examine broadband capacity, Bring Your Own Device opportunities and business globalization, while also reducing costs.
For those companies that have already embraced the next generation of collaboration tools, the focus will be on cloud services. There is a definite benefit to moving to cloud options as companies gain access to scalable, easy, sustainable and affordable storage and computing platforms that deliver considerable access without the need for extensive expertise or network resources.
With cloud access in place, companies can adopt unified communications and collaboration without investing considerable resources into infrastructure build outs that won’t sustain demand for the long-term. And, with call accounting in place to help monitor resources and activity, CIOs will have insight into asset resource consumption to make more informed decisions moving forward.
The demand for mobile is significant and isn’t going away. While companies of all sizes have unique challenges to adopting mobile solutions, the opportunities are significant and worth pursuing for the long-term, especially when unification and collaboration are a priority.
Edited by Alicia Young