TMCnews Featured Article

As markets tighten for just about every industry, thanks in large part to the Internet and the global economy, finding a business edge is more important than ever.

For many businesses, technology is one way to have the edge—and unified communications is giving them that edge.

“When businesses are looking for a new feature that can improve their standards and expectations of a specific market, turning to VoIP and unified communications can be an effective strategy,” a recent blog post by REVE Systems noted. “The new technology offers a number of benefits, which can range from improved service to thousands of dollars saved per year.”

A late 2013 study by Evolve IP (News - Alert) found that currently only 40 percent of businesses with less than 2,000 employees are leveraging unified communications. But 84 percent reported that they are looking into it. This total rises for larger firms, with roughly half now using unified communications.

Part of the delay for small and medium-sized businesses has been figuring out which system to implement; roughly 60 percent of those surveyed by Evolve IP said they were having difficulty figuring out which system to choose.

What is less uncertain is why unified communications can give an edge: Videoconferencing, collaboration among out-of-office workers, and unified messaging.

“VoIP stands to improve freedom of workers,” noted the REVE Systems blog post, referring to the voice aspect of unified communications. “Businesses with unified communications found that 20 percent more of their employees can work from home, which is indicative of the ease VoIP provides owners and workers alike in contacting who they need to.”

Roughly 60 percent of companies that have unified communications leverage telecommuting programs, according to the Evolve IP study. Among firms that don’t have unified communications, telecommuting is only offered at about 40 percent.

Half of all businesses using unified communications said that unified messaging was extremely important, and 72 percent said they were using videoconferencing.

“As adoption rising quickly,” noted REVE Systems, “these features are being increasingly noted by a number of companies, which is spurring new levels of adoption.”