The road to unified communications

After the global final crisis, 2011 is looking brighter on the economic front and companies are still looking for smarter ways to streamline their internal IT structure - unified communications is one of those areas.

The hype surrounding unified communications can cause great confusion as many technologies are required, such as presence, IP telephony and videoconferencing. Using a managed service provider to bring together all these different elements utilising different suppliers and telecommunication providers will take a lot of the confusion out of the process.

Outsourcing unified communications has many benefits, including:

Greater IT resources: By offloading the cumbersome network and hardware issues related to upgrades and maintenance, the IT team is left to concentrate on doing what it does best, being innovative with technology, reducing inefficiencies and adding value.

A single source for contacts and SLAs: Managing and implementing suppliers and agreements is time consuming and resource intensive. Handing this over to a single point of contact takes a lot of stress out of daily activities and lets everyone know where the responsibilities lie.

Flexible contracts: With technology in a constant state of flux, we need the contracts to meet the same demands. A managed service contract leaves room to manoeuvre.

There are considerable business benefits from effectively integrating  corporate networks with business communications tools. Azzuri has been able to provide the solution for many of its customers helping them significantly increase productivity and drive innovation through collaboration.

One of the most recent companies to sign up for managed service gloablly is OCS, the facilities services and strategic outsourcing company, which has awarded Azzurri Communications a £5 million three-year contract for the design, implementation and management of a unified communications solution, to support OCS’s drive for productivity and innovation based on flexible and collaborative initiatiives.  Today, Azzurri manages over 7000 data circuits globally for clients such as STA Travel, Rubicor group, Reed Employment Services, Law in Order, and BBC Worldwide.

By Jon Evans, Managing Director, Azzurri Australia