The world first heard of Unified communications (UC) around the mid-1990s, just when real-time communications combined with messaging. UC increases your productivity by integrating communication systems to improve your business processes.
What Are Cloud Unified Communications?
Unified communications automate and mingle communications between humans and devices to simplify context and enhance the experience. It also removes dependencies between devices and media using cloud computing technologies. Your business processes get optimized, and human communications get enhanced with significant reductions in latency and well-managed flows.
How Do Cloud Unified Communications Work?
First, understand that unified communications resulted from companies deploying IP networks within their business environments, relying upon them to transmit voice communications and multimedia sessions across the Internet.
Have you heard of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)?
VoIP solutions are software-based; therefore, it eliminates the need to install hardware equipment necessary to connect your business to the world. Instead, you get to leverage this technology, called IP telephony, that uses IP-based telephone services.
The Main Components of Cloud Unified Communications
Unified Communications and Collaboration
Collaboration in Unified communications integrates different collaboration tools like real-time audio and video-conferencing with communications to enhance control capacity. UC systems now enable people to collaborate in multiple ways.
Cloud-Based Unified Communications and Presence
It’s now very crucial to know the whereabouts and availability of your intended recipients in real-time. The key benefit of unified communications is that it integrates all systems a user may use to help the systems collaborate in real-time.
For instance, you can now collaborate seamlessly with different people on a single project, even if the entire team is in separate locations. You can quickly access an interactive directory, engage your team members with text messages, or even have a voice or video call.
In another case, unified communications allow you to respond to customer queries quicker by eliminating unnecessary back-and-forth e-mails.
The above illustrations highlight personal productivity enhancements intended to benefit users individually. Let’s consider how Cloud Unified Communications can help transform business processes on an enterprise level.
Integrating unified cloud communications functionality into your business applications allows you to automate business resources identification and determine the business points where they are necessary. In the business environment, presence highlights available skills and capabilities. This approach to integrating UC functionality can reap immense benefits that soar above personal productivity methods.
Cloud Unified Communications and Unified Messaging
Even though they are two different things, people sometimes confuse unified communications with unified messaging. But here’s the difference: Unified communications is the delivery of communications both in real-time and latent times, depending on your preferred service method and the recipient’s location.
Alternatively, unified messaging picks messages from different sources (including e-mail, voicemail, and fax) and stores messages to get retrieved later. Unified communications enable you to check and retrieve e-mails, voice messages, including data communications, and video services, using any connected device whenever you want to.
Mobility
Mobility is an essential feature of Unified Communications, which provides access to data remotely, using any mobile device. Essential elements like fixed-mobile convergence give you access to voice or video services, data, and information without worrying about delivery. Communications automatically get transmitted using fixed, wireless, or mobile networks by switching to the highest quality available networks as users change location.
Contact Center
You can also leverage cloud unified communications to improve your contact center environments and enhance operational efficiency. Cloud communications help you serve customers according to their preferred medium, for example, voice, e-mail, Web chat, or SMS.
You can track and respond to social media interactions. You efficiently manage how you keep customers informed and deliver self-service capabilities using interactive voice response systems.
Your business can leverage the presence features in unified communication strategies to enhance the availability of contact center agents and other available resources to resolve customer issues.
Business Application’s Integration
The majority cloud unified communications systems can seamlessly integrate with business applications to improve business processes. Consider how a customer relationship management (CRM) system gives you instant access to client information as you interact. You can effortlessly deliver personalized, quality service.
Business Benefits of Cloud-Based Unified Communications
As you proceed, do not forget that unified communications simplify how you and your business colleagues work together. They help merge every tool you need to keep in touch to share work and develop your growth ideas. The outcome is usually:
- Increased Productivity: Your teams can maintain a connection and interact efficiently and comfortably which yields in better productivity. And the convenient part is that everyone can use any device they prefer.
- Cost Reduction: Cloud-based unified communication channels allow businesses to switch from a Capital expenditure to an Operating expenses model at minimal while maintaining costs.
- Improved Performance: Workmates can collaborate with efficient communication as they enhance the reputation of a business by solving customer problems quicker.
- User Experience Enhancement: Unified communications can significantly contribute to keeping your work environment happy by letting you work with more flexibility.
Communication and Collaboration
Everyone needs communication to prosper. Before you get deeper, first note that collaboration can only exist in a team when there is fluent communication. However, the two ideas do not mean one thing.
How are they different?
The Difference Between Collaboration & Communication
First, note that communication within most businesses gets implemented using a strategy that may come in one of these two forms:
- External communication: This mainly involves maintaining a connection with all the stakeholders, including clients and suppliers. Communication in this manner has become widespread, leveraging VoIP, social media, text messaging, but to name a few.
- Internal communication: Helps maintain communication between team members. It ensures connectivity for remote workers and in-office team workers using video conferences and real-time messaging.
Collaboration typically gets applied with internal communication strategies because it promotes knowledge sharing between teams, also active involvement in attaining mutual business goals.
Collaboration makes communication strategies practical.
Consider this; if you use VoIP to call someone for a chat about a project, that’s communication. However, if you’re sharing screens and working on a project as you are talking, that’s collaborating.
Understanding Cloud Unified Communication and Collaboration
Some may find it difficult to differentiate between communication and collaboration. Note that collaboration provides alternate avenues for teams in the modern workforce to build projects from anywhere with ease. Communication is a crucial component of good collaboration. It propagates the insight and knowledge needed to make projects fruitful across the entire team.