Unified Communications
As the technology of VoIP enters its second decade, voice over IP telephony has reached maturity and is considered by many to be in the mainstream. Enterprises and SMBs are forging ahead with convergence, and carrier networks are offering digital voice and video services to both businesses and consumers.
New technologies and applications have popped up throughout the decade, with many more in the pipeline. Consumers and businesses now have a plethora of options on how, when, and where to communicate. Today, the focus is more on how to manage these communication options than on VoIP itself, and has spurred a whole new race for development on what has come to be known as "Unified Communications".
The concept of Unified Communications seeks to blend the technologies of voice and video, instant messaging, email and voicemail, as well as collaborative business applications into one intuitive interface.
The International Engineering Consortium's definition
of Unified Communications:
"Unified communications encompasses all forms of call and multimedia/cross-media
message-management functions controlled by an individual user for both business
and social purposes. This includes any enterprise informational or transactional
application process that emulates a human user and uses a single, content-independent
personal messaging channel (mailbox) for contact access."
Here, we will explore the concepts, principals, and best practices of the emerging architecture of Unified Communications.
The Need to Unify
The introduction of a myriad of communication technologies into the workplace over the past years has given the modern day worker a new set of tools. Email, voice mail, instant messaging, and mobile phones have allowed the user to contact others through the use of contact lists on a number of devices, both in and out of the office. Employees are more mobile than ever, working at home, from hotels and conference centers, partner locations and airports. Video, web conferencing, and the use of collaborative applications have increased productivity and in many cases reduced the need to travel to far off locations, saving companies millions in travel expenses.
As these new communication channels entered the enterprise, they also brought with them a new level of complexity for the worker. How to reach whom on what medium becomes an issue, leaving multiple messages in email and voicemail boxes, hoping that the recipient checks their box or is even available. Each new device introduced has its own application and new applications their own interface, requiring a constant upgrading of skills for the user.
Out of the lack of integration of these disparate devices, and the resulting chaos that ensued, the need to develop a unified communications architecture became apparent.
Unified Communications in the Enterprise
Based on backend connectivity and an integrated set of user interfaces, Unified communications allows the worker to control all of their communication devices and applications together, from a single dashboard, both in the office and on the road. Presence enabled applications show contacts your availability, weather or how you can be reached, even your precise location in some cases via GPS.
User access is through a Real Time Communications Dashboard that contains their contact list, presence information, using click to talk capabilities for audio and video conferencing, instant messaging, unified messaging services, desktop video and web conferencing. For the road warrior, mobile versions of the RTCD installed on handhelds and laptops allow anytime, anywhere access to critical business processes and collaborative applications.
For the enterprise, the benefits of unified communications manifest itself at both the individual and corporate level.
Individual productivity can increase 15% to 20% as users spend less time playing phone tag, retrieving messages from multiple locations, and being able to continue with the work flow from multiple locations.
Integrating unified communications with business processes can contribute heavily to increased corporate productivity.
In a call center environment, the IP PBX could interconnect with a CRM application to automatically update the time, length of call, and the operator who took the call. Presence would allow the operator to see which expert is available to answer the customers question, leading to a much more streamlined customer service approach. What’s more, a unified communications architecture would allow that same operator to do their job from home, having the same tools that are available at work, resulting in a drastic reduction of overhead, and an increase in employee job satisfaction.
Nowhere can the benefits of unified communications be seen more clearly is in that of the medical profession. Most hospitals nowadays have already deployed WiFi networks throughout the building. Healthcare professionals roam the halls with communications devices clipped to their lapels.
Imagine, if you will, a patient experiences an emergency which is relayed to a backend server, and shows up on a dashboard at the nurses' station. The attending nurse quickly locates the nearest nurse and sends them to the patient's room to assess the situation. After determining the nature of the emergency, the nurse checks the dashboard for the nearest specialist on call and finds that they are five stories above and can be reached through their communications badge and a blackberry. The nurse notifies the physician of the incident and forwards the patients vitals to the blackberry. The doctor determines the patient is in need of immediate surgery, sends a text message to the group "surgical team", and heads for the operating room.
In this scenario, the linking of patient information to the back end business process, coupled with the immediate locating and notification of the proper personnel has produced an incalculable ROI: the patient lives!
Businesses are already seeing the value in deploying unified communications, with 17% having already rolled out some form of UC, 79% of IT Execs interviewed in a report by Nemertes Research say they are planning to deploy within two years. With the right infrastructure in place, unified communications solutions can leverage existing communications investments and will obtain ROI quickly through increased productivity, and more effective communication between employees, customers, and partners.
