CIOTechOutlook >> Magazine >> March - 2016 issue

Integrate UC with communication channels to empower businesses

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Headquartered out of Russia, Softline Group, a Global IT solutions Softline stared in 2014 in India. The company offers comprehensive information technology solutions and currently operates out of Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi & NCR regions.

Unified Communications is beyond a phone system - it's a tightly integrated communications platform connecting you across multiple platforms and locations, whether you are on your desk or in a chauffeur driven car you are bound to get connected. UC has increased its relevance in recent past and evolving from bulky, often unreliable systems to today’s streamlined and far more flexible cloud-based solutions. It is continuing to evolve steadily with much of the advancement in technologies now centered on effectively leveraging the growing number of mobile devices entering the business environment.

The Unified Communications market has been a significant entity in the enterprise communications industry since more than a decade now. The market witnessed growth and increased adoption from somewhere around 2010 if I can recollect it right; and what I had noticed is that enterprises since, mostly the matured ones had really begun to appreciate the benefits of UC and value of integrating multiple communication applications in their enterprises for enhanced collaboration amongst employees, business partners as well as end clients

If you look at the workforce landscape today, the mobile trends and user dependence on smartphones and tablets has increased with these devices playing a prominent role in enabling and empowering business communication channels with access to text messaging, video conferencing and voice communications regardless of his location. The “bring your own device” (BYOD) has taken up a large hold within organizations of all sizes, I have personally seen the trend how the industry has evolved extensively, the corporates who solely relied on Video Conferencing for communicating via the dedicated VC rooms or VOIP based Conference bridges breaking the tradition and moving towards a more comfortable integrated system of UC solution integrating their mobile phones, laptops, VC rooms and their traditional desk phones. However, let’s be clear that UC is not just about internal employees that need to communicate and exchange information, but also external users like business partners, as well as customers. As they all increasingly exploit multimodal mobile smartphones and tablets, they will all need the flexibility to talk to each other!

Constant innovation in the communications market is likely to result in greater choice, flexibility, and cost savings for IT buyers and their end users. While desktop phones, at least I would like to believe that it will no longer remain the primary source for voice communications in both an enterprise as well as in the consumer market where smartphones are gaining grounds at the rate of knots!

In the future, efficiency & productivity will differentiate businesses from their competitors. The most efficient companies will find themselves ready to outpace their competitors - and the most efficient are the ones that will invest, intelligently. Today the market has expanded a lot with UC offerings as a traditional on premise to cloud based subscription with various integrative solutions and in my opinion, this will evolve further to make the world communicate much better to each other in the future.


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