What are Unified Communications, Exactly?

As businesses have advanced, the use of tools to improve their communication has become paramount to success, with ongoing global developments only contributing further to their importance. With new challenges and opportunities presenting themselves each day, your team needs the tools that allow them to work together and accomplish all that needs to be done.

Let’s go over why a unified communications system is precisely the thing to satisfy this need.

Understanding Unified Communications

When you hear the term “unified communications,” you should know that it describes a business communications strategy that relies on a diverse mix of solutions to ensure that everyone is able to collaborate freely and comprehensively. In fact, it isn’t uncommon to see this strategy referred to as UCC, or unified communications and collaboration.

Of course, while communications and collaboration are closely related, they are not synonymous terms.

How Communications and Collaboration Differ

As a real-life example, let’s say that Mary and Bob are neighbors who both enjoy gardening. “Communication” would describe the fact that Mary and Bob could converse with one another, without considering what the subject is. While Mary and Bob could very well communicate about their gardens, they could also communicate about the weather, the latest episode of a TV show they both watch, or any other topic. “Collaboration” would be more accurately demonstrated if they spent the time they were communicating by exchanging gardening tips or cultivating their shared compost pile.

So, some communication is necessary to collaborate, but there can be communication without collaboration.

How Unified Communications Offer Benefits

There are considerable benefits that businesses can enjoy by introducing unified communications to their operations.

Teams can work more productively and perform better. With improved access to shared resources and the ability to collaborate effectively using their UC tools, more higher quality work can be accomplished by your employees. This is the case whether your team is in-house or operating remotely.

User experience is improved. By giving your team the tools they need to work together properly, their overall experience will be elevated. This will not only allow them to be more productive, as we mentioned, but it will also assist your staff’s workplace satisfaction levels.

Improved rates help businesses budget more effectively. Due to the cloud-based nature of UC platforms, they can be budgeted as an operational expense, rather than the far less predictable capital expense. This makes your business’ available finances much more flexible.

Tie communication into everything you do. This is where the “unified” comes into unified communication. The idea is that all communication automatically flows and gets tracked. All communication for a project stays available for everyone working on the project. Nothing gets lost in the mix, and no one, including your clients and customers, are left out of the loop.

Network Solutions Unlimited is here to help businesses with their essential business technology needs, including the implementation and maintenance of unified communication platforms. To learn more (or to get started) reach out to us at (217) 428-6449.