Unified communications solutions are all-encompassing tools businesses can use to ensure maximum productivity within teams throughout the enterprise, allowing them to seamlessly communicate with both customers and each other, all through a single, easy-to-use platform. Including options for instant messaging, email, voice chat, video conferencing, file transfers, collaborative tools and more, unified communications removes the need for numerous legacy tools and excessive subscription fees, instead housing all the communications tools a business needs in one convenient app.
In this blog, we’re going to cover the many benefits of switching to unified communications, as well as the positive implications of a successful implementation, so you can make an educated decision about the best move for your business communications.
How Unified Communications Will Prove to be a Difference-Maker in Your Business
Raising Collaborative Efforts
According to research by Elite Group, 37% of IT workers in large companies believe their teams are “not very collaborative” which suggests serious improvement is needed if businesses hope to utilise collaboration effectively. This is especially true for businesses with teams working across different departments, buildings or even cities.
Cloud communication solutions, like unified communications, are infinitely useful in these scenarios. Because the solution is cloud-based, rather than being reliant on on-site hard drives, the communication tools employees need to remain productive can be accessed from anywhere, as long as the user has a suitable digital device and a stable internet connection. This allows multiple branches of a business to remain in constant streamlined connection by sharing the same communications solution, regardless of location. It is also useful for remote workers to remain as effective in their roles as their office-based colleagues.
Plus, with digital collaborative platforms built-in, team members can log onto a project and view updates in real-time, even if team members are spread across various locations, ensuring everyone is kept up-to-date at all times.
Reducing Scattered Communications
According to the same research by Elite Group, 7% of large companies are using six or more separate methods of communication daily, while a unified communications solution could consolidate them all into one platform. While scattering communications over multiple platforms may have been, and may still be, the norm for countless businesses, it is not effective in encouraging productivity and can even lead to stalls in business progress or missed messaging. For example, if an important piece of information is sent via one platform, while the receiving party is expecting it on the other, they may not know to check the first platform and believe the message has not been sent in the first place.
But by keeping messaging of all types in one application, missed messaging can become a thing of the past, allowing businesses to operate as they should without hold-ups caused by lost messaging.
What are the key benefits of unified communications for businesses of all sizes?
Raised Productivity and Efficiency
According to a report by Harvard Business Review, the average employee at medium to large enterprises toggles between various applications over 1200 times per week, which equates to around four hours. Taken on a day-by-day basis, this may not seem like much time spent toggling. But when examined over a longer period, it represents a huge sum of hours lost to toggling; hours that could have been better spent by the employee pushing the business forward.
Because unified communications platforms house all the communication tools a worker needs to communicate effectively, both internally and externally, the need to constantly switch between communication applications is eliminated, saving countless hours, and allowing workers to use their time more productively on important business matters.
Unified communications also encourage more streamlined decision-making by giving teams and individuals at various levels of the business hierarchy a consistent view of all relevant messaging, without needing to trawl through messages scattered across various communications platforms. In turn, businesses can push important changes through much faster and pivot quicker in the face of changing markets and business environments.
Cost Savings and Return on Investment
Reducing unnecessary spending is one of the key benefits of unified communications solutions. As discussed previously, many businesses are still spreading their communications across multiple separate providers and platforms. These individual platforms often carry their own subscription costs, meaning these businesses are spending a fortune on communications solutions they may not even need. Not only is this a disadvantage to the business wallet, but it also creates more work for finance managers who are charged with tracking spending; the more subscriptions a business has leaving its accounts, the more difficult it is for these managers to monitor them and make decisions regarding where cost cutting can be made.
Thankfully, unified communications solve this problem and help to streamline business spending in more effective ways. By adopting a unified communications solution, which contains all communications tools a business needs, businesses can cancel existing subscriptions with external providers, instead opting for a single comms solution with a single, affordable monthly price. Along with this, the improved productivity businesses can expect to benefit from with unified communications will lend itself to raised profits in the long run, offering an excellent return on investment.
Maximising Efficiency for Remote Workers
Remote and hybrid working has quickly become a constant in most developed countries since the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses slowly opened up their offices again, many of them chose to offer their staff remote or hybrid working opportunities, having seen the success and benefits home working brought during lockdown. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, between May and June 2024, over a quarter of workers in the UK split their time between their place of work and working from home. Because employees choose to work away from the office in such large numbers so frequently, businesses need efficient and reliable communication systems to ensure these workers are still able to fulfil their roles outside of the office.
While remote and hybrid workers have previously suffered numerous speedbumps, including not having instant access to the data they need, or unreliable phone and text communications, unified communications solutions can help workers avoid such issues. Thanks to being hosted in the cloud, unified communications solutions can be accessed by any worker, at any time, as long as their internet connection can sustain it (most can) and the application can be installed on either their laptop, smartphone or tablet.
This way, employees can remain in contact with customers via VoIP-powered voice calls, if that is the nature of their role, or contribute with their office-based colleagues through instant messaging, video conferencing and file transferring, to name but a few common options. By giving remote and hybrid workers access to the tools and services they need to remain productive, businesses can continue to streamline their success by avoiding the pitfalls of home working that used to affect the colleagues in-question due to unsuitable legacy technologies.
PSTN Switch-Off
A major development that is set to cause significant disruption to business operations (if they don’t prepare for it) is the PSTN switch-off. The PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) is the term given to the wiring that has been used to power telephone communications and network connections in the UK since the advent of telephone technology. However, when they were originally designed, nobody could have foreseen the sheer amount of data people and businesses utilise in the modern day, meaning these lines are no longer suitable to meet these needs. As a result, British Telecom has chosen to switch off these lines, leading businesses and individuals to rely on fully digital communications instead. If a business opts to not replace its analogue communications system with a digital alternative (like unified communications) by the time the switch-off happens, it will lose its communications avenues instantly, which could prove to be a costly move.
Most homes in the UK have already made the move to internet-powered communications, having connected their landline phones to their broadband modems. But given the complexity of network connections and network needs, many businesses are lagging. This is partly why BT has decided to push back the date of the switch-off, from 2025 to 2027, giving businesses more time to make the necessary adjustments to remain connected with their customers and internal colleagues.
By making the move to a cloud-based communications system like unified communications before the analogue lines are shut down in 2027, businesses everywhere can ensure they are still able to keep internal and external communications active, while also continuing to perform daily tasks that are critical to business success and growth.
Make the Move to Unified Communications with an Experienced Provider
If all of the above sounds like it will help you streamline your business operations and serve your staff and customers better, it’s time to onboard a unified communications solution with an experienced, reliable provider. Working with a third party who has experience in cloud communications will guarantee you’re able to fully utilise the technology in the shortest time possible, in a way that suits your business, without the need for excessive downtime or technical problems.
