5 Common Unified Communications Questions Answered

Still looking for answers on Unified Communications? You aren’t alone.

That’s because whether you’re looking to make incremental gains in your IT strategy, or you’re starting your organization’s digital transformation journey, your unified communications strategy is at the center of everything.

MicroAge experts, Rob Cook, our Unified Communications Manager and Todd Graham, Solutions Engineer for Unified Communications have you covered. We sat down with them to tackle some of the questions that CIOs and IT Directors alike ask when assessing their organizational UCaaS goals.

Our UCaaS Subject Matter Experts share their knowledge:

In addition to UCaaS being central to supporting collaboration and productivity in our digital age, there are a few other reasons that IT leaders should consider. First, having a Unified Communications strategy supports lower costs—giving organizations the ability to repurpose IT resources and costs. Next, think remediation time, UCaaS can support reliability and faster resolution times. Finally, having a UCaaS strategy is imperative to attracting and retaining talent in today’s market. Beginning next year, millennials will make up more than half of the workforce and they are driving behaviors and demand for Unified Communications. UCaaS provides both the flexibility and the functionality to meet those demands with the right tools while supporting business goals.

2. How has the mobile workforce changed the approach?

Unified Communications has always been paramount to an effective and collaborative business. Improvements in interactions and response times and bringing disparate team members together are key UCaaS business drivers. With more businesses expanding across locations—and continents—and including remote workers, the right video and soft phone options bring teams together for increased collaboration and quicker turnaround. Couple that with operational expenses versus capital expenses. It should be no surprise that Unified Communications as a service is quickly becoming the best practice.

3. Does every organization really need a Contact Center?

No, every organization is different. It depends on your business model and overall approach to customer service. Contact Center isn’t for every company—it’s more important for specific organizations looking to manage multiple customer communication channels—email, SMS, chat, voice and social media—all in one place. Depending on your industry and organizational structure this may or may not be the right fit for your organization.

4. Are the days of hard handsets numbered?

No, there is and will continue to be the need for handsets. Albeit the usage of handsets is steadily decreasing with the advent of the soft phone, handsets still have an active role in our modern working environment. With that being stated, soft phone and soft phone capabilities continue increasing and will be a viable solution moving forward.

5. How can the right UCaaS strategy unify remote workers while helping organizations build a global presence?

Today’s business market is fast-paced, constantly shifting and even virtual. Organizations must stay ahead of changes in order to keep pace with the methods clients select to do business. UCaaS delivers a consistent user experience wherever your employees reside. For employees to collaborate effectively, they need to use the same tools and a common interface for sharing information. When using different versions of an application, or even if a browser or operating system doesn’t support it, collaboration suffers. That defeats the purpose having widely dispersed teams working together—making it more challenging to be productive and communicate across the board.