Business Cases for Unified Communications

Kent Yunk

March 03, 2020

Relying on outdated technology, communications, and phone systems can limit your businesses potential. Unified Communications can bring together all of your organization’s communications in a cloud-based solution. This can create enormous efficiencies that have not existed before.

One of the most typical challenges businesses face is the inability to reach the right coworker on the first attempt. Even though communication tools have improved, workers today are increasingly mobile. Whether they are mobile in-house, at remote locations, working remotely or working at home, or just on the move, communications can be difficult without a unified solution.

Even with improved systems, such as desktop phones, mobile phones, instant messages, and conferencing applications, if the devices are not properly integrated, the net effect can actually be counterproductive. Employees have to guess which method is the best one to reach colleagues.

This delay in reaching team members quickly and efficiently leads to missed deadlines and delays work. In addition, it can lead to worker frustration, which is one of the leading causes of poor performance and employee turnover.

Unified Communications Business Case

The business case for implementing a unified communications strategy is easy to make. Connecting your teams in a single collaborative platform – regardless of where they are – increases efficiency.

It creates more effective – and smarter – communication between team members. By providing multi-channel communication pathways, employees can pick the best method for contacting co-workers before starting contact. Instead of calling and leaving a voicemail, they can check availability and connect by voice or video conference, chat, or text.

The ROI business case for unified communication is fairly significant. Studies show that the better a unified communications application is, the greater the overall return in both time and cost savings.

The Cost Savings of Unified Communication

United communications can provide direct savings that go right to the bottom line.

Video conferencing can cut down on travel costs and the need to visit distant locations. Virtual collaboration tools can allow managers to oversee multiple locations or remote workers. Managed cloud-based unified communications reduce the need for dedicated IT resources.

Reduced infrastructure costs, including servers, PBX systems, and software licenses can save significant dollars. VoIP integration can drastically reduce phone carrier fees.

Greater Efficiencies

By instantly connecting team members, decisions can be made more quickly. Remote employees can be included in real-time discussions. Meetings can be scheduled ahead of time or put together on the fly. Unified communications allow all team members to have access to the documents and files they need. They can collaborate on projects with improved file sharing and other collaboration tools whether they are in-office, on location, working remotely, traveling, or working at home.

Integration with other internal software solutions, databases, filing systems, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software can facilitate a single system to manage and access nearly all aspects of your information storehouse.

Improved Response Times

By reducing the latency with communication, you can improve response times. Instead of waiting for a worker to return to their office and retrieve an email or voicemail, chat and text can lead to faster interactions. With integrated and unified communications, all the information they need will be accessible regardless of where they are. Studies have shown that Unified Communications deployment can speed up response by 20% or more.

The Advantages of UCaaS (Unified Communication as a Service)

Using a managed unified communications solution will cut down expenses for individual applications and reduce your risk of becoming technology obsolete. When CapEx budgets are tight, you can eliminate the costs of buying and maintaining expensive equipment. While there are monthly fees, the total cost of ownership is dramatically less than buying hardware and maintaining it.

UCaaS (Unified Communication as a Service) is growing rapidly as more businesses discover the benefit, efficiency, and cost savings it provides. You can improve collaboration and innovation while decreasing response times and expenses.

Choose Right Unified Communications Provider

Your business needs every cog in your machine to be as productive as possible. With 8x8's Team Messaging System your business gets the unified messaging it needs without the need for multiple disparate systems. Call 1-866-879-8647 or fill out an online form to request a no-obligation quote from an 8x8 product specialist.