BYOD becoming factor in unified communication switch

The trend of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and the ever increasing mobility of the work place have more businesses looking for ways to stay connected. This new need is pointing companies toward investing in a unified communication (UC) solution.

A new survey by IDG Enterprise found that, of the 1,105 corporate IT officials who responded, 67 percent have already deployed or plan to deploy a UC system in the next three years. The study indicates that mobile devices and BYOD are a major factor in making the change.

The utilization of many different devices can be a cause for concern as introducing new software will require testing on a multitude of operating systems and hardware before deployment. The BYOD trend does not appear to be slowing down, however, which makes this concern unavoidable.

According to the survey, desire to improve employee productivity is still the top reason why enterprises turn to unified communications, with improvements in employee flexibility listed as another important concern.

This also factors into a study from last week – reported on this blog – about the effect cloud storage is having on a businesses decision to adopt UC.

Despite the positive trends there is still reluctance in the business world to make the switch. According to the survey the biggest obstacles companies have before the adopt a UC system include high costs, integration concerns with older systems and lack of in-house expertise.

Business officials in Ohio looking to implement unified communications solutions but have those concerns should partner with a Cincinnati IT partner to find out what steps need to be taken for a switch.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.