Unified Communications: Top 3 Things You Need To Know

I recently heard a client speak about his vision for creating a collaborative organization.   On his mind was surely more than just communications, but he understood the challenge of creating such an enterprise and also understood the benefits.  What separates the dreamers from the doers is that they know it will take a systematic approach to setup their company with the right infrastructure to support such a vision.  This particular client understood that better than most. 

If you want to move toward a connected enterprise you'll have some work to do.  We share our thoughts on three broad areas of focus: 

#1 - The Network:  You can't build up without a foundation.  You can't put together a serious UC effort without the right network in place.  This network must support voice, video and of course the rest of your critical business applications.  Want a connected global enterprise?  If so, then latency, jitter and packet loss will be constantly on your mind if you have failed to properly build a network to support your technology.  Don't lose sight of what matters in this regard, it is all about performance across the network. 



#2 - The Technology:  Your choices will seem limitless.  Will you build your own or buy as a service?  Will you adopt all of what UC has to offer or take small bites at a time?  People underestimate the power of a good UC deployment.  For example, what would a video call between two employees really do for your company?  Well for one, a lot of research supports the idea that people listen more intently when video is involved.  It also creates a more intimate communication, which can help foster good working relationships.  I'm sure if you put your mind to it, you can think of how video would offer other benefits to your company.  What used to be an expensive undertaking is much more affordable today, the only thing that stops organizations from creating a UC environment is will power, not money. 

#3 - The Culture:  Change is easy, everyone knows that.  If you've been in management or IT long enough I'm sure you can appreciate the heavy sarcasm of that statement.  We need to go on a bit of a tangent here and talk about the new role for IT.  "Do more with less" is a constant for IT, but that seems to be changing in our estimation.  The new role is not one of "hey, this is broken can you fix it?" It's not "listen, I found this software, can you get it up and running for my department in a couple of weeks?"  Ok, sure, those things still happen, but we're seeing a shift toward the realization that technology is an engine that makes a company go.  The smarter and more efficient that engine, the better its resources will be used.   IT is at the heart of that, and a good IT executive finds a way to not just deliver solutions internally but to be a part of crafting them.  Proactively sitting down with other departments or even going to the line-level to understand the user experience is both impressive internally but also quite helpful in making decisions.  We recommend that IT people be part of changing the culture in an organization and not just reacting to it.  UC is a great way to start because you can get a sense of how departments communicate and ask them to help you find the benefits of UC.  Chances are that the insights gained by your internal conversations will help you find the best source of technology.