Identifying an organization’s UC focus area

While unified communications (UC) are often perceived as a natural evolution of enterprise-level communications, a recent article published by Network World suggests that many business officials have not undertaken a fully-developed UC strategy.

For example, officials may have difficulties understanding how UC implementation will affect ROI or become wary of the complex deployment effort that requires disjointed processes to be amalgamated under one umbrella service.

As a way to respond to these concerns, the article's author John Dix – Editor in Chief of Network World – described the results of a study the organization conducted to determine how businesses are approaching a UC infrastructure.

For example, after surveying more than 1,100 business officials, researchers determined that even in the face of adversity, many are identifying specific focus areas and developing a UC program centralized on those tasks. For example, 43 percent of respondents built a system that was voice/telephone-centric while 27 percent were focused on unified email and messaging capabilities. Only four percent reported an emphasis on voice integration.

Furthermore, the study identified common barriers to UC success. For example, 54 percent of respondents encountered cost-related issues while 47 percent expressed a gap in employee skill sets.

Regardless of these challenges though, Dix suggests that UC elements are going to continue their penetration into the corporate world. And as Dix states, "Do you wait to see what develops, or do you get out ahead of it and plan accordingly?"

As such, officials in Ohio interested in a UC program but who still harbor reservations would be well-advised to consult with a Cincinatti IT support firm that can provide technology assessment and planning. These professionals can analyze the particular needs of an organization and recommend strategic goals that a UC infrastructure can help accomplish in a measurable time frame.

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.