Tips for a successful unified communications strategy

A unified communications strategy ensures that organisations are using communications tools to their full potential - to reduce costs and to improve productivity. But, surprisingly, most organisations do not have a unified communications (UC) strategy.

Recently at iVision we conducted research on how 120 Australian organisations used unified communications. Our research found that one in 10 organisations that provide unified communications access to more than half of their workforce say they have no UC strategy.

A common, but misguided, approach is to start implementing communication tools before thinking through exactly where and how to use them. Without a UC strategy, unified communications is just a technology replacement program.

A good UC strategy aligns itself with an organisation’s business processes to reduce costs, reduce communication overload and improve business productivity.

Organisations that successfully implement a UC strategy can look forward to both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ benefits - from measurable productivity savings within the office and out in the field and reduced costs of doing business, to an enhanced ability to recruit and retain staff by offering more flexibility and work/life balance.

To get the most from their UC tools, organisations need a solid UC strategy - from initial specification to end-user training.

Connect the business process to the tools

To implement a UC strategy successfully, an organisation must understand how UC tools can be aligned with business goals, and the benefits they bring to the organisation.

It is important to have a firm grasp of how business processes could be enhanced through UC applications.

If the aim, for example, is to reduce travel, simply installing the UC technology won’t achieve that. An organisation may also need a mandate to enforce videoconferencing and train staff how to use it. If they don’t understand how it can help them, then staff will continue to put in travel requests rather than use the technology.

Executives must lead the way

Implementing a UC strategy needs to be led by executive management. They should be using UC tools - whether it is videoconferencing, document sharing or using presence status - and they need to be seen using the tools. Otherwise, staff will not use them either.

The executive team needs to understand how to apply UC tools to achieve their goals and priorities; for example, how to use videoconferencing to manage a geographically dispersed workforce or how to use single number reach. (Single number reach means people can be reached anywhere on any device - work, mobile phone, home - on a single number.) There are many ways to use single number reach, but organisations don’t use it because they don’t know how it can be used in their business practices.

Staff support and education is essential

Once the executive management team are using UC tools, then the workforce also needs to get on side.

If the workforce does not appreciate the possibilities and opportunities that UC technologies provide, or is ill-prepared for the change, or finds the use of UC inconvenient or impractical, then a UC strategy will have only limited success.

Win over some ‘user group champions’ and get them to become the organisation’s lead advocates and evangelists.

Furthermore, if you are hoping that your UC project will enhance communications with external parties, then it is even more important that you are able to communicate the benefits of UC to them, and make it easy for them to connect with your organisation in ways that offer you and them a smarter way of doing business.

Access across the board

For a UC strategy to be successful, an organisation needs a majority of people to be able to use the tools, and for them to become part of the workplace culture. The reason mobile phones and emails work is that (almost) everyone has them.

Part of the success is having a consistent user experience across the organisation. This means organisations need to understand the impact on the network and capacity to carry videoconferencing. It has to work every time, just as we expect picking up a phone to work every time.

Conclusion

A solid UC strategy is a key factor in the success of any UC project, and subsequent user acceptance and uptake - and thus its return on investment.

*Shervin Fathinia is CTO of iVision (www.ivision.com.au), a unified communications solutions provider.