Unified communications offers the ability to improve how individuals, groups and companies interact and perform tasks.
Enterprise planners and managers should review how this emerging generation of communications software and systems can improve their business operations and processes.
What you need to know
Unified communications (UC) offers the ability to significantly improve how individuals, groups and companies interact and perform. UC also enables multiple communication channels to be co-ordinated.
In some cases, separate servers may be consolidated; however, more frequently, UC adds functionality to existing communication applications. Key technologies include Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VOIP), presence, e-mail, audioconferencing and Web conferencing, videoconferencing, voice mail, unified messaging (UM), instant messaging (IM), and various forms of mobility.
Another key capability of UC is that it offers a method to integrate communication functions directly with business applications; Gartner calls this capability "communications-enabled business process" (CEBP).
Although there is significant interest in UC from many enterprises, it remains a daunting and confusing topic. As a result, many enterprises find it difficult knowing where and how to start.
One approach is outlined in "Developing an Enterprise Unified Communications Road Map". This research advises enterprises to review their inventories of communication equipment and business partners, then develop a vision for where their communication could be in five years. This plan can be accompanied by developing a UC centre of excellence; this group brings individuals together from multiple areas, including IT operations, business applications and the line of business. This group then provides broad guidance and direction for the plans.
Despite the emergence of complete UC portfolios, these are still in an early stage, and no vendor product adequately addresses all of an enterprise's UC needs. As a result, a best-of-breed approach remains the surest way of ensuring adequate functionality, and planners should require vendor products to be interoperable. The evaluation in this research focuses on enterprise-premises solutions, and considers how well vendors can work with other vendors and with hosted solutions.
The term "unified communications" sometimes is misused. This results in confusion. Users should be aware that some products that are labelled as "unified" cannot be integrated with other vendor products into a full portfolio. These mislabelled products are capable of being used only in a standalone and non-integrated manner.
Many leading enterprises are developing UC roadmaps and plans, and some have trial or phased deployments under way, but few enterprises have a fully integrated communication environment. Adoption should continue to increase through the next several years as UC technology solutions mature and enterprises update their installed bases of communication infrastructures.
This research reviews relevant technologies and vendor offerings that can assist in these goals (see Figure 1).
By Bern Elliot, Steve Blood
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00201349
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