Social, Mobile and Cloud Technologies Vital to UC Strategy: Report

Recent changes in the enterprise ecosystem have made the traditionally-accepted definition of Unified Communications (News - Alert) rather difficult to attain. Increasingly disparate workforces, the consumerization of IT and the disruptive nature of social, mobile and cloud technologies now stand in the way of enterprises creating a truly unified communication infrastructure.

This is the thesis of a new research brief released today by Aberdeen (News - Alert) Group, which has created a best practices approach to enterprise communication and collaboration called Integrated Communications. While the terms seem rather similar on the surface, there is one main difference: Integrated Communications merges the aforementioned trends rather than fighting them.

The research brief stresses that the days of a static on-premise workforce or over, and that organizations need to integrate mobile, cloud and social technologies into their UC platform to compensate for the evolving work structure.

"As this shift occurs, companies seeking to optimize productivity and reduce the total cost of ownership associated with their communications environments are focused on integrating both mobility and cloud-based infrastructure," Aberdeen research analyst Hyoun Park (News - Alert) noted in a release. "By doing so, they are better positioned to align technological functionality with business processes."

To encourage productivity in the current market, organizations must allow their employees to work from anywhere, on any device, and through any channel, said Mohammad Nezarati, CEO at cloud-enabled UC solutions provider Esnatech, one of the underwriters of the research.

"Integrating social networks, mobility and cloud allow communication and innovation to happen at any time," he added. "We help our customers to leverage their current telecommunication investments and make big gains in productivity through integrated unified communications for their workforces."

The research brief explains – through case studies and surveys – how UC solutions that integrate with voice, mobile, PBX systems and cloud-based software programs like Salesforce.com, Google Apps and Microsoft (News - Alert) Office 365 can maximize employee productivity and responsiveness.

An Integrated Communications approach can also accelerate the adoption of UC technologies and provide a greater ROI, says Aberdeen.

The report can be downloaded for free for by clicking here.