enterprise

One of the most exciting technology advances for businesses today are unified communications services that facilitate communications among employees and clients. For companies that don’t have the capability or desire to operate UC services in house, third-party solutions are available that offer UC as a service, or UCaaS.

UC services offer dramatic benefits to enterprises in terms of creating efficiencies and simplifying communications throughout the operation. Services can include video conferencing, VoIP telephony, instant messaging, chat capabilities, and even data sharing. UC tools allow for a seamless and consistent experience despite potentially different access devices. In additional to operational efficiencies, UC tools can help reduce costs by eliminating travel for on-site meetings and can allow employees to work more easily in the field, or from a remote location.

But UC tools, like any new technology, can be challenging for companies to deploy, particularly if they don’t have the necessary personnel resources in house to deploy and support the technology. UCaaS offers a tidy alternative for companies that would prefer to outsource their UC platform to a third party that can manage and maintain the tools for them.

The growing popularity and availability of cloud services further simplifies UCaaS, as many UC tools and services can be hosted via the cloud. The benefits of delivering UC services via the cloud are numerous. This deployment model allows UC services to be accessed any time, anywhere, which creates significant efficiencies for enterprises.

As with most services hosted in the cloud, cost efficiencies are created by eliminating in-house infrastructure requirements while increasing the effectiveness of business processes. Updates and maintenance of UC tools hosted in the cloud can be undertaken remotely, which creates further efficiencies and cost savings.

An additional benefit of hosting any technology, including UCaaS, in the cloud is that a company can enter the service at a level they are comfortable with, but then scale larger or smaller to meet their changing business needs. Deploying UC tools in house requires a fixed investment and a level of commitment that many businesses and enterprises aren’t prepared to make.

In today’s fast-paced business market, some companies don’t have the time or resources in terms of capital and personnel to build technology systems, such as a UC platform, from the ground up. UCaaS providers have worked to become experts in providing such services to a variety of companies of various sizes and with different requirements.

Once the decision has been made to delve into UC services, companies should take a careful evaluation of their in-house capabilities to deploy and support the platform and also consider the alternative of a third-party deployment. For companies that have hesitated to deploy UC services because of the complexity of building the platform in house, UCaaS might be the open door they’ve been looking for to bring UC services to their operations.

Video conference Web conferencing is not new, but video is fast finding its way into web conference venues. The reason is clear. Face-to-face communication, even in a virtual setting, engages the human psyche in a more personal and interactive way. What words can’t say body language will.

In the corporate world, businesses must look for ways to more effectively communicate with all stakeholders in their organization–business owners, employees, customers, suppliers, and the rest of the supply chain. With video technology, businesses can create a new corporate face in the midst of increasing competition to help elevate corporate reputation and brand.

Video as a transformative technology

According to a decade-long Wainhouse Research study, the main drivers for increased video preference are:

A mobile workforce
Millennials

As mobile workers and the Millennial generation populate the human resource pool, the need for video in corporate conferencing is gaining ground. Mobile workers don’t stay put in permanent workplaces. Growing up when technology was beginning to boom, Millennials generally think that they can perform their tasks better with the click of a button. Yet, the need to see faces and meet people offers an empowering experience that can make them better team players.

In the same research, Wainhouse Research learned that 70 percent of employees had access to collaboration-enabled devices. Enterprises saw this development as an opportunity to expand their web conferencing services to their employees. Big screens are the preferred devices, but tablets and smartphones are equally useful.

Benefits of enterprise video conferencing

There is nothing like a personal meeting experience, but video conferencing is the next best thing. In a progressively wired work environment, video allows for the opportunity for better interpersonal communication and minimizes the risk of miscommunication.

On the business side – Video conferencing helps increase productivity, operational efficiency, and sales. For example, real-time document sharing and editing, like Microsoft PowerPoint or Visio, are dynamic features of video communications that were previously not possible. Decisions can be made faster and products can be brought to market quicker, significantly streamlining the sales cycle at reduced costs.

On the employee side – Video conferencing can offer a better work-life balance and mean less strain on employees and their families. Employees can be burnt out by physical travel stresses like flight delays, traffic, or bungled accommodation arrangements. Video conferencing also keeps employees connected while on the road or working remotely.

On the customer side – Video conferencing is an effective tool to improve and maintain customer relationships. in addition to verbal communications, live video conferences allow business owners and managers to determine what customers want by analyzing facial expressions and body language.

What to expect from a video conference service

The features that create a great web conference experience are varied depending on a business’s needs. Real-time screen sharing, targeted application sharing, meeting scheduler tool, provision for animated discussions among participants, and seamless security to protect confidential information are a few examples.

Dominating the web conferencing market are Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft’s Lync, Onstream Meetings, InterCall, GlobalMeet, Adobe Connect Pro, ClickMeeting, and many more. Businesses have many choices, but the final choice they make should be anchored on what they need to truly communicate in meetings.

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