Unified Communications - Generating Efficiency in Business Collaborations

                                        

We are living in the electronically webbed times. Today, most economic, social, political, cultural, and even personal spaces are a complex network of digital interactions. In fact, humans have become almost secondary to the process of communication. The digital world is persistently working towards eliminating the distances as a factor influencing the communication feasibility. As a result, several path-breaking technologies exist today and they continue to evolve even as we speak now. With the advent of numerous devices addressing varying communication types, soon managing the variety of hardware started costing the efficiency. This came out pricey especially in the professional sphere. Therefore, integrating the various modes of real-time and non real-time communication services became imperative and gave rise to the technology called Unified Communications (UC).

UC is a system integrating or unifying multiple devices and media platforms to provide an automated and consistent interaction experience to multiple users. Now, with UC, business functions and processes such as conferences are speedy, adding to the productivity. Here is an example. Suppose that you want to invite ten users for a discussion. At the click of a button, you can send emails and instant messages to the respective ten devices integrated with the unified system. Their responses are recorded and the system generates reminders at the scheduled time of the discussion. The users can then connect to the session by an audio-video or voice mode, depending on their device feasibility. All the while, the information is disseminated in the real-time, while getting stored in the system as well for the future references. You can later generate the minutes of the meeting and mail it to the users.

In the business scenario, UC's application has spread to the rapidly growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Integrating personal devices into the system encourages flexibility and availability, thereby enhancing performance efficiency. However, security and maintaining confidentiality of this connected system are the rising concerns of the technology industry. The most recent milestone for the technology is Unified Communications as a service (UCaaS), the cloud-computing model for UC. UCaas is quite a rage among the businesses because of the low cost outlay. You do not need to put much money in the prolific infrastructure.

Like any multiple device and platform system, UC faces some system integration errors and usage issues. Efforts are on to create a single device that successfully encapsulates the entire process securely and effectively. Soon, a safer UC infrastructure will be a reality. However, largely, Unified Communications is the near future of all forms of interactions. It is definitely here to stay.