In last week’s post on Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC), HP’s Danette Hardin discussed practical uses for UCC including how HP recently helped Black & Veatch implement UCC to overcome the drawbacks of a 12-year-old PBX and voice mail system. We also looked at why UCC is vital to helping companies compete in today’s “new normal” of business.
In Part 3 of the discussion, Danette finishes up with how UCC can be a step change that allows organizations to seamlessly integrate with their technology and how consumers are driving UCC trends in 2011.
Q. In a recent TNBT blog post, HP Fellow Charlie Bess says, “An organization and its technology are becoming one in the same.” Could UCC be a step change toward that next phase of technological advancements?
A. The need for IT to prove itself as a vital part of the business is more important than ever today. And since unified communications spans technologies and organizational silos, it can be integrated with your IT infrastructure and business processes to generate additional operational efficiencies you can take advantage of. At its basic level, UCC is technology that ties your business together, makes it run more smoothly and does so at a lower cost than legacy systems. In a sense, it’s the communications’ glue that holds everything together.
Q. Will consumers be driving Unified Communications Trends in 2011?
A. While the consumer market for UCC is somewhat different than the business market, the two are definitely connected. Telco companies are offering UCC solutions for consumers via numerous mobile devices. As more and more consumers become comfortable with using smartphones, tablet computers, video conferencing and texting, those same consumers will bring those expectations into the workplace.
According to a recent Seamless Enterprise blog post, the consumer is in the driver’s seat, Gen Yers have grown up in the info age with computers, cell phones, texting and videos. As they enter the workforce, they’ll bring their high tech expectations with them and enterprises will have to adjust to meet these demands. And these demands aren’t just for voice, text and email. They also include blogging, Tweeting and Facebook. It’s cutting edge technology that consumers are already using today. How consumers communicate today will be the key to helping enterprises create cutting-edge UCC solutions for business use in the future.
How about you? Could UCC be the “glue” that ties together your business and IT goals? What differences could you see UCC making in your future hiring tactics and decisions?
To learn more about HP Unified Communications & Collaboration, check out What is unified communications and how does it work?, Practical uses for unified communications, a recent UCC feature article or our executive overview.
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