"This is not about working 25 hours a day, it’s about
eliminating inefficient communications"- Steve
Blood research vice president, Gartner.
With the deployment of integrated
communication services there is an opportunity for organisations to
significantly improve employee productivity, augment business
processes and foster innovation. (Butler Group, Enterprise
Communications, February 2010 )
In essence, Unified Communications takes all of the means by
which a modern business communicates – data, voice, messaging and
wireless – and unifies the experience. This is achieved
through the integration of real-time communication services such as
IP telephony,
instant messaging, video conferencing and Telepresence with
non-real-time services such as
email, SMS, fax and voicemail.
It is not a single product, but a solution based on a set of
products unified in such a way as to provide a consistent user
interface and user experience across a wide range of devices and
media types. This means that an individual user can send a
message via one medium, whilst the recipient can access the same
communication via another medium – for instance accessing voicemail
messages through email or a cell phone. If the sender is online and
available, a response can be sent immediately via text chat or
video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non real-time message
accessible via a variety of media.
This unification of communication technologies and interfaces is
made possible by the consolidation of different types of
communication over a single physical network. Both voice and
data can be delivered over the same network, using the same format
- IP, or internet protocol.
Since unified communication is based on IP, it is also relevant
to
Cloud Computing, whereby communication services are delivered
via the internet on a subscription basis.
The strength of a Unified Communications
solution is that an organisation has a trusted partner who
understands their strategic goals and direction. That partner
is able to build an end to end solution which is specific to the
organisation’s business environment, ensuring that Unified
Communications effectively underpins collaboration-intensive
business processes.
Contact us to learn more about Unified Communications
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