Unified Communications and Your Business

Unified communication technology leverages hardware and software technologies to integrate the different communication methods that businesses presently use. Over the years, businesses have fostered communication channels like voice telephony, fax, audio and video conferencing, e-mail, instant messaging, voice mail and Web conferencing.

These newer channels have reduced travel and communication costs significantly. For example, video conferencing can eliminate much travel by allowing people in different locations to discuss face-to-face from their respective offices. However, these new facilities often came at a cost that the smaller businesses might not find affordable.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Communication

More importantly, the diverse channels can lead to some loss of effectiveness. You might send an urgent e-mail to a recipient who might actually be available for instant chat, and who might not access the e-mail until perhaps it is too late. Unified communications typically incorporate a facility to indicate the presence (availability) of all persons.

Many email programs, such as Google's Gmail clearly indicate the availability or otherwise of your contacts for instant chat. In addition to availability, the recipient must also be willing to communicate. In Gmail, for example, you can set a "Busy" status to warn your contacts about being busy. Unified Communications extend the availability of presence and status information across the different communication channels.

With the extended presence information, businesses can locate any person in their organization and use the most appropriate means of communicating with that person. For example, a person on the move can be contacted using a cell phone call or an SMS.

Reducing response time is a key objective of unified communication systems.

Implementing Unified Communications

IP telephony, voice mail, sophisticated call manager (control), VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) are all mainly software based communication solutions. Hardware solutions in the forms of routers and other equipment, and cell phones with Internet access also contribute to the new technology.

Companies like CISCO, IBM and Microsoft are offering unified communication (UC) solutions. CISCO is offering routers and other hardware to facilitate integration of voice, video and IP communications. IBM and NEC have joined forces to offer communications integrated into business applications. Microsoft has an Exchange Server and Communications Server for unified communications.

Unified communication solutions integrate all the different channels of communication into an integrated communication infrastructure. You can send your message using one channel and the recipient can access it using another channel.

Business Benefits of Unified Communications

Unified communication infrastructure can reduce costs in different ways. IP telephony, for example, is inexpensive compared to traditional telephone company services. The high costs of long-distance calls and video conferencing can be significantly reduced using the unified infrastructure.

Presence information is a key feature of unified communications and it can improve business processes significantly. For example, a salesperson faced with a technical query from a customer can locate the right person to answer it in minutes and put the customer in contact with that person.

Generally, unified communication benefits include:

• Streamlined business processes by enabling speedier and the most appropriate communication with the right persons in any process
• Reduced costs of long distance calls, phone moves, additions and changes, videoconferencing fees, travel costs, meeting costs and cell phone charges
• Freeing up expensive space by allowing employees to work effectively from lower cost locations (even from homes)
• Unified communications even contribute to the green cause by reducing fuel consumption for commuting.

Unified communications is a method of integrating the different communication technologies into an integrated communication infrastructure. It provides concrete business benefits in the forms of lower communication costs and improved business processes. Major vendors like CISCO, IBM and Microsoft have entered the unified communications solutions market.