Unified communications emerges as a must-have in a tight economy

Hannes van der Merwe, Mitel product manager at Itec.

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South African companies are increasingly turning towards unified communications (UC) solutions as a way of boosting productivity and controlling costs in an increasingly mobile workforce.

That's the word from Hannes van der Merwe, Mitel product manager at Itec. He says that even though most companies are watching their IT spend very carefully, many of them see investing in UC as an ideal way to drive more value from their IT investments and to get more work done with the same headcount.

Says Van der Merwe: "In a tight economy, businesses need to work hard to control operating costs and are wary of unnecessary capital expenditure. However, they are interested in solutions that will allow them to improve customer satisfaction and increase sales. UC is a natural fit in this environment.

"UC solutions enable companies to be more responsive, collaborate more efficiently, get more productivity from their workforces and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. They enable end-users to work wherever they are, using a rich, real-time communications environment that makes them accessible to customers and co-workers at all times."

UC solutions deliver powerful business applications to give organisations the freedom to implement tailored communications solutions on any network, any infrastructure and any platform. They enable companies to improve efficiencies by deploying solutions that integrate voice, e-mail, unified messaging, mobility, presence, conferencing, collaboration and applications.

UC is an umbrella term for a wide range of communications applications and features. The starting point is unified messaging, which enables users to access all voice, text and e-mail messages through a single interface.

Other key features include 'one-number', which allows users to be reached with a single number irrespective of whether they are out and on their mobile phones, working from home or at the office.

A more advanced application is presence management, which allows employees to route incoming communications according to their presence status. For example, all calls could automatically go to the mailbox with exceptions, such as key customer calls, that would go through to the cellphone.

The flexibility UC provides to an increasingly mobile workforce is one of the biggest reasons it is becoming a must-have, says Van der Merwe. "The workplace isn't necessarily the office any more - it could be the local Mugg & Bean or your back garden. With the right infrastructure in place, employees can work from home or in-between meetings without needing to return to the office," he adds.

The high cost of mobile bandwidth in South Africa remains the most significant obstacle for businesses that want to roll out advanced mobile solutions to their workforces, adds Van der Merwe.

He says that despite the dramatic drops in the costs of mobile bandwidth over the past few years, it is still too expensive to enable mainstream deployment of advanced applications, such as unified communications.

Van der Merwe says companies should be looking for open and flexible communications platforms and applications to enable UC. They need to implement systems that can easily integrate into their environments to make the most of UC's potential benefits.

Because of the complexities of integration and business process change in UC, organisations need to partner with solutions providers that can provide them with good consulting and support services, he adds.