Unified Communications – Convergence That Delivers

Gas prices are rising rapidly, Mother Nature is on a rampage and disease is spreading at the flap of a wing. When economic, social and environmental circumstances prevent employees from getting into the office, there is a way businesses can mitigate the misfortune: unified communications.

Never before in the history of communications services has the industry witnessed a level of introduction, adoption and seemingly insatiable appetite for new ways to communicate in the marketplace. We went from a simple telephone mode of communications to Web, e-mail, VoIP, instant messaging and cellular technologies in a rather short span of time, with more variants to come. Yet most of the telecom industry and service providers are locked into the conventional paradigm of providing voice services. After all, it is hard to give up your roots, and even harder to accept a new unproven business model rooted in the belief that there are more than voice calls that should be riding on the network. The reality, however, is that when you combine VoIP-enabled applications, a whole slew of opportunities opens up. The most profitable of these opportunities will take a solutions approach, i.e., identify a business problem and apply a communications solution to it.

Enter unified communications – a communications approach that seamlessly combines, voice, fax, data and presence capabilities.

Last year, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast hard, leaving the region in a complete state of distress. The single most important reason for government and emergency officials’ slow response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath can be attributed to the breakdown of all communications channels – a breakdown that could have been avoided. By employing a remotely hosted unified communications service before any threat of disaster, businesses would have been able to set up alternate phone numbers to route their calls to different locations or to cell phones; collect voice mails and faxes for later retrieval or delivery; and establish announcement lines to keep customers, suppliers and employees up-to-date with the latest developments.

Consider a completely different business scenario. Since the idea behind unified communications is to consolidate and integrate the various channels of communications of a user or a business, there is an intrinsic value proposition based on synergies. The same set of unified communications services that served as a disaster recovery solution in the earlier illustration very well can extend to a different purpose in a remote/virtual office scenario. Imagine a virtual phone number which routes calls to different locations based on time of day. This empowerment allows the end customer to be mobile and still be functional. In the face of rising gas prices, many businesses offer a telework option to employees to ease some of the financial pain they are feeling at the pump. Wouldn’t it be easy if communications between a remote worker and the main office became the least of the logistical challenges of such an arrangement?

Unified communications services also have grown in popularity among sales professionals, who – as a result – can be on the road but still have access to faxes or voice mail via e-mail. And if they can leverage this improved access to information to close more sales, their company’s willingness to pay a premium for the enhanced services will only increase as well. Empowering sales professionals with unified communications features such as find-me/follow-me services and specialized call routing can reduce the probability of a missed call and make the difference in how quickly they meet or beat their sales targets.

Then there’s Avian influenza, commonly referred to as the “bird flu,” which has been frequenting national headlines as the United States sits and waits in anticipation of the worst. In light of the growing need to prepare for an outbreak, the need for businesses to conduct their tasks from various unaffected locations or to have a semblance of continued operations to the outside world can be addressed readily by a unified communications service. In an ideal world, businesses would arrange for these services as part of their disaster recovery plan, but for the many that don’t, they can be deployed in reaction to specific debilitating events.

It is important to understand that the promise of unified communications cuts through various economic, environmental and social circumstances to enhance a business’ communications experience. It is critical for the industry to recognize that executing a unified communications strategy is complex and presents a learning curve, both at the provider level and the user level. But to spread the benefits of streamlined voice, fax and e-mail capabilities among businesses of all sizes, the first step will be to address this learning curve and educate more providers, partners and businesses of the inherent possibilities for growth through widespread adoption. This is far from the “Give me a switch and I’ll provide you the dial tone” mentality that the telecom industry is so used to. Frankly, that’s a tall order.

Harprit Singh is founder and CEO of Intellicomm Inc. He can be reached at hsingh@intellicomm.com .

Intellicomm Inc. www.intellicomm.com

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