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Unified Communications

Converged solutions have changed the entire communications fabric. The convergence between telecommunications and Data Communications has made it possible for both voice and data traffic to be carried through the same infrastructure and this has immense benefit for business as a whole.

A lot of businesses and home-workers will be familiar with the concept of IP-telephony, because of applications like Skype, which facilitate low-cost or free voice calls through the Internet. Unified Communications (UC) takes this model and expands it to incorporate other types of communication as well.

New Communications Experiences

Global value chains, mobile work-forces, social networking, pervasive video, and information overload: this is the new norm. To address these business complexities, Unified Communications products connect people, information, and teams, helping to enable comprehensive and effective collaboration. With Unified Communications, your organization can:

  • Connect co-workers, partners, vendors, and customers with the information and expertise they need
  • Access and share video on the desktop, on the road, and on-demand, as easily as making a phone call
  • Facilitate better interactions, dynamically bringing together individuals, virtual workgroups, and teams
  • Extend the corporate network so mobile workers can be productive anywhere
  • Innovate across the value chain by integrating collaboration and communications into applications and business processes

Unified Communications major Benefits:

  • Productivity: UC is designed to help employees carry out their work more efficiently and in a timelier manner, whilst being free to work from anywhere. To start with, it offers advanced telephony functions. These include short-number dialling, which eliminates the use of area codes, and is particularly helpful with businesses that are located across geographical areas.
  • Efficiency and Reach-ability: UC also offers advanced call forwarding to different types of devices, and hunt groups, where incoming calls can search for an idle extension in a department. UC can also offer multiple device rings where the desk phone, desktop, and mobile can ring simultaneously, regardless of their location. The aim of this is to help the caller get through to the right person at the right time.
  • Mobility: Phone users can also benefit from having a single number for all of their phone devices; and companies can keep the same geographic number across properties and mobile phones.
  • A single voice mail with a unified voice-mail box is another feature of UC, and this works for multiple communication devices, such as a desk phone, home phone, mobile phone, or VoIP (Voice over IP) phone, connected to a computer.
  • Cheaper calls and simplified Billing: Being based on a digital network, UC can also offer cheaper calls than traditional telephony. With voice and video being carried as data over the public network, there is scope for businesses to lower their phone bills by using a unified system.
  • Another attraction for businesses is that UC systems can simplify billing and systems administration, and potentially lower the overall costs of conferencing by combining disparate services through one vendor. UC can also give the business predictable bills, so they know what their monthly expenses will be.

Connecting your UC to the Outside world:

  • A SIP trunk is a direct connection between your organization and an Internet telephony service provider (ITSP). It enables you to extend voice over IP (VoIP) telephony beyond your organization’s firewall without the need for an IP-PSTN gateway. This simpler configuration is easier and less expensive to design, operate, maintain, and upgrade. And because ITSPs deliver services (notably long distance) at substantial savings, your investment in SIP trunk can give a quick and substantial return on investment.

Technological facts for small & medium business enterprise:

  1. Don’t assume top technology will cost more.
  2. Tailor-made technologies are available at a very low cost without loosing the feel and features of high-end UC products
  3. Buy a solution that will grow and change with your business.
  4. UC/IP-PBX is scalable i.e. can be installed in phases thereby spreading the initial capital expenses over time.
  5. Choose UC products from a vendor that builds solutions specifically for mid-market enterprises.
  6. Pick a Company like ours that has excellent professional service skills.

Product Recommendation:

  • Recommendation for medium Business Enterprise:
    We recommend Business Edition 6000 solution for medium business enterprise. The Cisco BE is a UC platform with simple network design for the mid-sized enterprise. The solution provides customers with voice, unified messaging, mobility, presence availability, contact center agent support, and video capabilities. Cisco positions it as a cost-competitive solution that out-performs other solutions in terms of quality, reliability, features and upgradability.
  • Recommendation for small or other medium Business Enterprise:
    Due to budget constraints and or necessitated company savings, we recommend Kerio or 3CX. You will experience the full functionalities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager with these products and additionally almost all major phones can be used with these IP-PBX including Cisco phones.

To read more on our offerings, please download the below white paper on Implementation of Unified Communications at the best price ever.

Implementation of Unified Communications at the best price ever :