Unified Communications - How it can Save you Money

Unified Communications is growing in popularity with small businesses right across the country. Unified Communications is not a software package, but is a principle to combine instant messaging, telephony (VoIP), video conferencing and email into one singular solution with real-time capabilities. Microsoft's UC product is known as Lync which has the following features:

• Video Conferencing
• Instant Messaging
• VoIP Phone System
• Heavy Exchange/Email Integration

Having used Lync here at the office since 2009, I can safely say it is a huge productivity tool for our business. So much so, I named it Our #1 Way to Improve Staff Productivity in a recent article. The facility to have cheap, simple access to Video Conferencing alone has saved some of our clients tens of thousands of dollars in travel and accomodation costs.

Unified Communications is such a powerful concept that has so many applications, however some we have witnessed after deploying it within our clients are:

• Video conferencing directly from the desktop for staff members in multiple offices expected to attend board meetings
• Checking the status of other staff members at other offices (eg. Away from Desk, Online, on the Phone etc) - think MSN for business
• The ability to broadcast short status messages across the company or department - again, MSN for business
• Full VoIP Phone system capability (although if the client already has a phone system they can continue to use this instead)
• Improvements in the ability to communicate quickly and easily across multiple locations or within the office without having to phone or email
• Staff able to be transferred calls appearing to be in the office whilst at home
• Having voicemails left on staff extensions delivered to their email
• Using the PC to make and receive phone calls as opposed to having a physical handset

As Lync is now available as part of Microsoft's Office 365 Cloud Platform, many businesses are taking the opportunity to evaluate this technology with no upfront capital expenditure required. Being an Office 365 Cloud Partner ourselves, it is exciting to see so many customers getting huge value from this solution.

Unified Communications is the future of integrated real-time communication, and just like it's predecessors (Email and Faxing) it will eventually become the default standard. Companies that adapt early will gain a competitive advantage in their businesses for the small investment in setup & configuration required.

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