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Business requirements shape unified comms

By Suzanne Franco, Surveys Editorial Project Manager at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 12 Feb 2013
Unified communications has definite benefits for expanding a workforce's mobility and ability to be in contact no matter the location, says Mitel's Andy Bull.
Unified communications has definite benefits for expanding a workforce's mobility and ability to be in contact no matter the location, says Mitel's Andy Bull.

Unified communications is fast becoming a necessity for the South African workforce and there are many reasons why organisations are opting to embrace unified communications strategies.

The term 'unified communications' covers many different communication areas, including instant messaging, presence awareness, conferencing, collaboration and mobility.

"It is important for organisations to identify which aspects of unified communications can add tangible benefits to their business and which of their employees are likely to derive the biggest benefit from the adoption of the technology," says Andy Bull, director of Mitel.

"Companies can choose a ubiquitous unified communications deployment strategy or focus the initial roll out on knowledge workers within their organisations, expanding the footprint as business requirements demand," he added.

The adoption and appropriateness of any unified communication technology varies from organisation to organisation.

On this note, Mitel, in partnership with ITWeb, is conducting an online unified communications survey.

"The main objectives of the survey are to profile the understanding of the business benefits, acceptance and deployment of unified communications in South Africa," says Bull.

He also points out that profiling of the unified communications sector in SA has not been done adequately and this will be the first survey to take a quantitative view of the state of unified communications among South African organisations.

Location-independent working

"Unified communications increases the speed with which organisations are able to make vital decisions by allowing location-independent participation in the decision-making process by an organisation's employees having access to all the required information," Bull adds.

There are many reasons why organisations are opting to deploy unified communications; however, management may be unclear as to what strategies or timelines should be put in place to achieve this.

"I do think unified communications awareness is growing, but it is still in the early stages in South Africa. Organisations are still in the process of understanding, and therefore are slower in adopting unified communications," Bull says. "And South African organisations are still in the early adopter phase of the adoption curve."

When asked what factors may contribute to the success or failure of an organisation's unified communications implementation project, Bull stressed that a lack of technology training and incorrect users being targeted are two of the main reasons for project failure.

He added: "Organisations need to define their unified communications requirements and who exactly in their workforce needs to be targeted first, for example, who needs to be location-independent, who needs productivity enhancement, and who in their organisation is deskbound."

Bull also noted that unified communications rollout within an organisation must first be allocated to the section of the workforce that needs to be location-independent, and it must be rolled out over time.

Unified communications has definite benefits for expanding a workforce's mobility and ability to be in contact no matter the location, and is a beneficial business tool to increase productivity, says Bull.

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