South African companies that want to drive the best possible return on investment from their unified communications projects must invest in end-user training and change management to ensure their employees use the tools to their full potential.
That's the word from Frank Mullen, chief operating officer at Itec Enterprise Solutions. He says many South African companies have started to roll out unified communications tools and infrastructure in a bid to improve their efficiency, agility and responsiveness.
However, many of them neglect to ensure their end-users have the knowledge they need to make the most of the features and benefits that these systems offer. The end result is that many users don't make proper use of the technology to enhance their productivity or to bring about cost-savings for the business.
Mullen says unified communications is starting to take off in South Africa, with many companies already starting rollouts of platforms that make end-users reachable through a single telephone number, whether they're away from the office and using their mobile phones, or whether they are at their desks.
Many are also rolling out functionality that allows users to access a range of messaging platforms - such as e-mail, voicemail, fax and SMS - through a single interface wherever they are.
“Companies are looking to unified communications for competitive benefit - it helps them to be more responsive to the needs of their customer and ensures employees can be productive wherever they are,” says Mullen.
Mullen notes the barriers to entry for unified communications are reasonably low, since unified communications applications will be built on many pieces of infrastructure that the average company already has in place, including the enterprise network and the PBX.
Mullen says calculating return on investment from a unified communications project can be complex because many of the benefits it delivers are hard to quantify. Providing sales staff with a single phone number and remote access to e-mail and other messaging services will make them more accessible to customers and more able to provide good customer service, but the direct benefit to the bottom-line might be difficult to quantify.
Another reason that ROI is difficult to quantify is that most companies don't have a baseline of what certain business processes and tools cost them before they roll out a unified communications platform.
However, there can be little doubt that most companies should achieve cost-savings from unified communications by using features such as video and audio-conferencing, says Mullen. Having unified communications software on the desktop makes it easier for users to set up conferences, helping them to save on travel costs and time, for example.
Concludes Mullen: “The business case for unified communications is a strong one. The technology can help companies to vastly improve productivity and collaboration, as well as improve customer service. Many of the technologies that underpin unified communications are mature and proven, so the concept is now ready for use by mainstream businesses.”
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