Unified communications (UC) is still in its early phase of adoption in SA and most companies have just begun the journey.
So says Johann Henning, acting managing director of Telkom Business, who is of the view that UC will have a profound effect on how business will be done in the next two to four years.
"We see unified communications as one of the key elements of the bigger digitalisation drive that will play out over the next few years as customers start to leverage other areas such as big data and cloud services," he says.
According to Henning, many are still not clear on why this is and, therefore, why UC needs to be adopted as an integral part of business operations.
Last month, Telkom Business, in partnership with ITWeb, ran an online survey to gain insight into the UC strategies within local organisations.
"In our view, the main objective for this unified communications survey is for us to get a clear perspective and flavour, particularly from the market in South Africa, of what their unified communications needs are," says Henning.
He says that the purpose of this survey was to also ensure that Telkom Business does not develop product offerings based solely what the rest of the world is doing.
"Given that we aim to develop solutions that are relevant to South Africa, we also need to test readiness as well as get a sense of just how big the market is, tying in with expected growth patterns," he adds.
Henning believes that organisations are also faced with challenges to optimise costs and to automate processes to ensure that their businesses are lean, agile and efficient.
"In the current economic climate, an increase in operational efficiency is imperative in order to remain competitive, not just in the local market, but also in the global market. Efficiencies in business processes are needed in order to continue to deliver high value to customers," he advises.
According to Henning, the capability of quickly engaging in the most appropriate form of communication to deliver the desired output can make a big difference to workplace efficiency.
"When UC is purposefully imbedded into a business process, the integrated nature of the solution allows employees to move from one task to the next more seamlessly than with stand-alone communications tools," he says.
Henning also points out that UC is used so that employees are able to share knowledge and expertise without physically being in the same environment. This is essential for productivity, but equally important to cater for the needs of the new generation of employees, he notes.
"Not embarking on the unified communications journey may leave certain companies struggling to build collaborative workspaces and ultimately inhibiting their ability to effectively compete against companies that have harnessed the full potential of unified communications," says Henning.
According to Henning there are a number of key considerations that contribute to the success of a unified communications project: having a clear long-term view of the business and what role technology will play; the importance of user adoption of UC; business processes must be redesigned to incorporate unified communications solutions; and identified solutions should not be evaluated purely based on short-term cost saving.
When it comes to factors leading to possible failure of unified communications adoption, the following needs to be taken into account: having a short-term cost view; the technology is deployed but not used properly; and that there is no clear strategy for the future.
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