Are False Promises Making Enterprise Unified Communications Technology Fall Short?

The majority of businesses have at least some basic form of enterprise unified communications in their organization. In a study done by ZK Research, they found that while 43% of businesses have basic Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) technologies and tools, only 5% of businesses have a fully integrated UC&C solution.

The benefits of Unified Communications are widely known.

[Download our "UC in Practice" eBook for practical examples of how companies like yours are gaining huge benefits from UC.] 

Why is it that so many businesses aren’t leveraging Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions to the fullest?

It seems to us that it’s a classic case of the vendor who cried “UC”. Too many vendors, resellers, and manufacturers have been singing the praises of UC from the rooftops for the last decade. They push the technology at their clients, claiming they need it, without first examining the business environment or processes.  Then, when the communication systems don’t work together or integrate with legacy systems, frustration sets in. Companies like yours now feel jaded when the subject of UC is mentioned because of a promise that wasn’t fulfilled. Don’t think we can’t hear you rolling your eyes!

In an article from TechTarget, Zeus Kerravala from ZK Research reveals why adoption of UC&C solutions isn’t spreading like wildfire. The number one reason why the deployments are falling short is that companies are rolling out more and more collaboration tools. This is an attempt to try and solve the problem of increasing productivity, both in the office and across locations, but more is not necessarily better!

Throwing more tools and technology at the users without proper training is actually making employees less productive.  Confusion and frustration will set in due to the complexity of the technology itself and lack of understanding of how it will help employees do their work more efficiently. Not only are there issues with the business users' learning curve of the new technology, but the even bigger issue comes from a lack of integration of the UC infrastructure.

There was a perfect sentence from the article that really paints the picture of the biggest problem surrounding a Unified Communications deployment:  

       “Islands of collaboration tools thwart efficiency rather than facilitate it.” 

These "islands", which we call "Point Solutions", refer to tools and technologies that function fine on their own but don't streamline work, enhance business processes or provide a single interface for communications. By keeping communications and information siloed, the benefits of UC are greatly diminished.

[Read our blog post about what can happen when your business gets stuck in UC Point Solution Prison.]

To leverage all UC benefits, integration is needed with:

• Legacy systems – Some legacy equipment can function just fine with a state of the art Enterprise Unified Communications infrastructure, but most often legacy technology will hold back new communication systems.
• Business processes – UC infrastructure needs to support business processes to make work flow seamless and intuitive.
• Device of choice

  – 53% of knowledge workers are using more than 3 different devices to get their work done (Forrester). Unified communications applications need to span all of these devices for maximum productivity and collaboration.

This is what’s necessary to leverage a fully deployed Unified Communications Infrastructure that can fulfill the promise of UC, finally!

So we ask you this: How close is your organization to reaping the full benefits of integrated Unified Communications?