Unified Communications is really about simplifying the user experience

Unified Communications breaks down the communication silos between separate products such as: voice, e-mail, Wi-Fi, video, cellular, IM, web conferencing, unified messaging, calendar functions and more. The result is an integrated, intelligent, communications experience that empowers knowledge workers to spend more time being productive.

Unified Communications also simplifies the communications experience by providing a centralized application interface as well as an integrated management console that can be configured to work with any development environment.

Unified Communications is really about simplifying the user experience. In today’s work place, employees have to deal with multiple forms of communication. In fact, a study conducted by the Sage Research group in 2005 concluded that as of September 2005, business and technology decision makers averaged having at least six communication devices and each employee had almost five communications applications to manage.

That’s not expected to dramatically improve anytime soon. In another survey from the Telecom Intelligence Group that was performed in 2007, they found that by 2009, over 40% of enterprise IP telephony users expect to have two or more devices that can access the features of their voice systems as well as Unified Communication applications. In addition, up to a third of Enterprise IP telephony users could justify replacing their desk phone with an advanced wireless phone in five years.

So what is the industry definition of unified communications?

Currently, there isn’t one. Unified Communications is confusing because the concept is so new and there are lots of different ideas and definitions of what comprises Unified Communications. The vendors and analysts have different opinions about what protocols, applications, and features should be/not be included within unified communications.

The following list summarizes a sample of the different definitions:

Definition from Gartner (Magic Quadrant Report, 2006)
"Gartner defines UC products (equipment, software, and services) as those that enhance individual, workgroup, and organizational productivity by enabling and facilitating the control, management, integration and use of multiple enterprise communication methods."

Definition from Yankee (Unified Communications Leverages Existing Technology to Increase Productivity, July 2003)
The concept of unified communications … is to break down all distance, time, and media barriers to allow people to communicate with one another anywhere, anytime, and across any medium from a single device.

Definition from Microsoft (Microsoft website, June 2007)
"Unified Communications bridge the gap between telephony and computing to deliver real-time messaging, voice, and conferencing to the desktop environment."

Definition from Cisco (Enhancing Business with Smarter, More Effective Communications Whitepaper, 2007)
"Unified Communications is an emerging class of applications and services designed to improve communications within the modern organization – to keep workgroups connected, enable them to collaborate effectively, and streamline business processes."

Definition from Strategic Path International (What is Unified Communications? And Is It Worth the Extra Investment, 2007)
"Unified Communications integrates existing communication methods like instant messaging, email, voice telephony and audio and video conferencing, making it possible for each interaction to work across different hardware devices."

Definition from Forrester Research (Unified Communication Industry Study, 2006)
"Unified Communications is not about replacing existing applications; it is about improving the functionality of existing applications through the use of SIP, which enables businesses to connect quickly to the intended party for actionable results."

Definition from NEC
Unified Communication enables customers to experience greater productivity through the convergence of communication channels and business processes using a combination of technologies, devices and services, including presence, status, mobility, collaboration, video and voice conferencing, and messaging.

As you can see, depending upon who is talking about unified communications, the story changes. A common theme does emerge. Unified Communications focuses on communications for the user.

If we then extrapolate back from this, elements of a Unified Communication portfolio could include the following:

- User Mobility
- Presence
- Telephony (voice, fax, etc.)
- Voicemail/unified messaging
- Email/calendaring
- Conferencing (voice, video and web)
- Instant messaging
- Administration and management
- Contact center

If we break Unified Communications down further into usable functions, this list summarizes the key benefits for businesses:

- Allows companies to react to change better and faster
- Creates an expanded business reach
- Improves business continuity scenarios
- Improves Customer Service
- Results in fewer integration issues/costs for the IT department
- Industry standard solution for interoperability
- Ability to optimize geographically diverse people (seamless teaming)
- Low product and administration costs
- Lower training costs with integrated solution
- Productivity improvement due to less mail boxes to manage


From an end user perspective, these are the key user benefits for unified communications:

- Empowers users with single number reach
- Delivers rich Presence
- Results in speedier decision making
- Collaboration (application & doc. sharing, whiteboard, chat)
- Enables Instant Messaging
- Easier for end users because there are fewer devices to manage
- Reduces travel costs
- New IVR services for users


The greatest user benefits are single number reach and rich presence. Between these two features, the user can control who contacts them and by what medium (terminal) that is best for the user. Available options also include no contact, i.e. a diversion to voicemail or another number if that is preferred. The main point is that the user is able to take back control and manage their devices instead of their devices managing them.

Unified Communications

While cost saving has been the primary driver for the adoption of converged communications, the concept of unified communications - the ability to communicate in real-time from any location, to access any application using any device delivers the productivity gains many organizations have failed to see before.

A rapidly connecting real-time world creates challenges and opportunities that the chief executive needs to understand and embrace. Unified communications will fundamentally change the way in which organizations serve their clients.

Technology and the evolution of the virtual organization
Since the 1990s, the world has grown 's maller' as advances in communication technology have closed the geographical gap between people around the world. Telephony, fax, email, conferencing and now instant messaging enable 4/7 communication and impacting the way we look at interaction.

Technology has changed the way organizations communicate, resulting in fundamental changes to the way they structure their operations and business models. Structures have evolved from a top-down approach, through a horizontal model designed around processes, and on into a new 'adaptive era', made possible by new communication technologies.

As organizations evolve towards a virtual model, so communication technologies have become even more important. Convergence results from standardization and it started in the early nineties with the emergence of the Internet Protocol (IP) as the de facto network protocol. Today, IP has brought man advantages to communications applications. Standards make it possible to consider using a single network (IP network) to carry all types of communications traffic; voice, data and video.

It manifests itself across the communications spectrum right down to devices. Executive PDAs and corporate CRM systems highlight the blurring of distinctions between phones and computers. Dual-mode handsets that use voice-over-wireless networks do the same for fixed and mobile telephone technologies. And the mobile device is getting more powerful by the day with multiple functions being performed on a single device which enables collaboration on a real-time basis.

The Presence phenomenon signifies a step change in the usage of new tools and technologies in the corporate sphere. Presence provides the means on integrating the numerous forms of communication into a single integrated environment associated with the individual, not the device (laptop, office phone, mobile phone, etc.). A fundamental shift occurs when we are no longer reliant on email addresses and telephone extensions for identifying people, but identify people and associate a mechanism with them base don their preference. Be that on their mobile phone when they travel or Instant Messaging because they are in a meeting.

Transforming business effectiveness
Business effectiveness increasingly depends on having communications tools and an infrastructure that can harness diverse talent, knowledge and skills across boundaries of time and space. Virtualization enables an organization to leverage 'connectedness' to generate significant gains.

These business effectiveness gains play out in different ways across a range of business functions. We take a quick look at the implications for: maintenance of business services; offshore manufacturing; customer contact; and home working.

Maintenance of business services and continuity
Tragic events in recent history have highlighted the need for an effective business continuity plan. Arguably the most critical portion of this is the ability to maintain communications with customers, staff and suppliers. By deploying a robust, integrated communications and collaboration infrastructure organizations are able to maintain these communications and business activities. As these environments support communications from any location, organizations are able to divert staff to branch offices or have them work from home with no effect on how they communicate with customers, colleagues and suppliers.

Offshore manufacturing
Virtualization was pioneered by the aerospace industry back in the 1970s. Then it was all about coordinating teams around the world to build new aircraft. Today, many organizations design their products in one country and manufacturing them in low cost production centers like China and India. So there is a pressing need to connect teams across continents.

The new communications infrastructure enables individuals and organizations to work together more effectively. It delivers feature-rich, real-time communications using video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaborative applications that can be accessed at any time and from any location. And the fact that information is stored online in a common repository rather than in a team or individual 's file means that those with clearance can access this as and when required.

Customer contact
Voice portal solutions allow users to access online services using a telephone. The user might use his mobile phone to dial in and request information using voice or touchtone keys. The information is sent back using a special voice-producing programme on the website. Alternatively it could be provided as a visual display and/or email on a 's martphone'.

This new technology which takes convergence to a new level offers business enormous benefits. Self-service through voice portals cuts costs and streamlines processes, allowing customers to automatically access information and perform transactions that are captured by the providers' database. This saves operator time and provides customers with a new channel for interacting with suppliers.

Home working
The virtualisation of the workspace means that it doesn't matter where you are based. So people can continue to work on projects whatever their physical location, whether it is home, a satellite office or a hotel in another country. Using virtual private networks (VPN) employees can connect with the office and use any of the tools or directories remotely.

This has considerable benefits for organisations who wish to retain key staff. Many families today may have two people with careers and it could be that one person has to relocate. In the old days that could have meant a change of job for the other and the loss of their talents to the organisation. Virtualisation allows employees to relocate without having to change jobs, or conversely change jobs without relocating.