Do UC Success? Early Adopters of Unified Communications Say Yes.
Industry movers and shakers are investing in unified communications (UC) and reporting impressive results – which should give those of us in their shadows more confidence as UC gains momentum and adoption.
One early adopter, IBM, is sharing results that include hard savings of 10-75 percent, depending on the category, in addition to soft savings and improvements in intangible areas like customer satisfaction (1). In a recent white paper (2), CDW cites an Aberdeen Group study that identified improvements of 49 and 53 percent in customer service metrics and workforce productivity, respectively. The same CDW white paper, by the way, reports enterprise adoption rates of 19 to 47 percent of UC applications ranging from speech recognition to VoIP to conferencing. Something big is happening. Some companies have already caught the wave and others are paddling hard to catch the next one.
If you take a look at industry publications, you’ll see trends that point to steady growth of UC:
• The increasing adoption of IP telephony and VoIP drives growth of UC because multiple types of communications can be run on the same network.
• Workforces are globally dispersed and mobile, and they require support for communication and collaboration.
• Corporations are mandating cuts in travel costs and pursuing greener ways of doing business.
• Industry giants like IBM and Microsoft are promoting upgrades of e-mail and instant messaging applications to UC, another boost to adoption.
Lots to ponder…and apparently, lots of opportunity for businesses to streamline communication processes for employees, improve customer service and save money through integration.
Sources:
1. Unified Communications and Collaboration, a white paper by CDW and TechTarget. Retrieved 15 April 2011 from http://go.techtarget.com/r/13162762/10738028/1.
2. Transforming Your Voice, Video and Collaboration Infrastructure, a Thought Leadership White Paper by IBM. Retrieved 15 April 2011 from http://www-935.ibm.com/services/au/itsn/pdf/GL_11907_ANZ_IBM_Transformation_Journey__CIO_White_Paper_04.pdf.