Collaboration. It's become akin to the word "synergy" - everyone uses it. But it's so much more than a buzzword - it's extremely important to your bottom line. Companies that promote better collaborative environments were five-times as likely to be high performing than those companies with poor collaboration tools. And as the makeup of your workforce grows globally and becomes more remote, collaboration tools are critical to getting practically anything done. Our recent research shows that 76% of IT leaders in medium and large enterprises are planning to increase their investment in unified communications and collaboration (UCC) tools next year. These organizations have seen the impact that communication and collaboration tools can have on an organization's growth and success.
Here's what you need to know about UCC: the What, Why and How!
What is UCC?
UCC can be simply put as an all-in-one solution for businesses. It combines enterprise communication, collaboration, and telephony into a single user interface and management system. Users can find all their communication tools in one place, and admins only have one pane of glass to manage these tools through.
UCC includes various communications and collaboration tools including:
- Voice and telephony
- Real-time communications and instant messaging
- Web and video conferencing
- Meeting tools like screen sharing and scheduling
- Conference room solutions
Why UCC?
When you choose one vendor for UCC there are tangible benefits you can see right from the start. We dig a bit deeper into these benefits in this blog post - but we'll recap the highlights for you here!
- Consistent Service and Support - work with one point of contact for training, onboarding and support. Learn about feature improvements, bug fixes, and more for your whole collaboration suite all at once.
- Simplified User Experience - a consistent UX across the entire collaboration suite will lead to more productive workers and happier customers.
- Lower Costs - consolidation of your collaboration tools leads to simpler billing - and best of all, a lower bill.
How to UCC!
Now that we've sold you on a unified UCC solution from one vendor, it should be a breeze to switch right away and get rid of all your other vendors, right?! We know it's not that simple, especially considering how many tools you probably have in place. Our research shows that over a third of today's IT leaders (39%) have at least four tools implemented for their communication and collaboration needs, and 8% said they have seven or more.
So if you're operating with 7+ collaboration tools now, the transition to one will take time and thoughtful planning. Consolidation and unification should be approached thoughtfully by each company, as a part of their own unique digital transformation strategy.
Based on in-depth research and lessons learned by today's global IT leaders, we compiled the 10 imperatives for successful UCC adoption in your organization. Download the whitepaper and learn how to forge your own path to UCC success!
