Unified comms makes sense for SMEs

The realisation of unified communications (UC) remains elusive for most SMEs, according to a study by research firm IDC.

The adoption of UC is primarily concentrated in the telecommunications and financial services industries, due to their large-scale operations and multiple branches, both domestic and international, says Jiaqi Sun, research analyst at Frost & Sullivan. Organisations of this size require effective and efficient communication solutions.

The adoption of voice over Internet protocol (VOIP), however, is prevalent among enterprises of all sizes, and SMEs have demonstrated a strong uptake of VOIP since 2008 in the retail and tourism industries in SA, he says. In contrast, UC systems remain expensive for SME adoption, Sun notes.

Medium-sized enterprises are those that have between 51 and 250 employees, he says.

Unified messaging systems, including instant messaging, voicemail and fax, that are delivered via a managed or hosted model and cloud computing, illustrate how infrastructure costs are eliminated, demonstrating why these technologies are viable for SMEs in emerging markets.

Unified messaging solutions are experiencing strong growth in the medium-sized enterprise, he says. With increasing dominant mobile communications, smartphones, SMS and social networking applications in the market, the adoption of unified messaging systems is expected to be driven even further, Sun says.

With the quality of fixed and mobile broadband services in SA and other African emerging markets such as Kenya improving, medium-sized enterprises are expected to drive the growth of UC systems comprising VOIP, unified messaging and collaboration projects within the next five to seven years, he says.

“Emerging countries in Africa follow similar trends of cost-effective deployment for both internal and external communications,” Sun notes.

Sun is a speaker at the ITWeb Business Communications forum, taking place on 22 November. For everything the enterprise needs to know about the communications technologies to use today, and how to drive down the cost of communications, be sure not to miss this event. For more information, click here.