In early 2020, the coronavirus pandemic sent the workforce home in droves. What has been a full-steam-ahead initiative to foster on-site collaboration through huddle rooms, in-room conferencing, and whiteboarding suddenly ground to a halt. IT had to dramatically shift gears and develop a unified communications strategy that revolved around remote workers and addressed the potential limitations of home networks, which could include speed, latency, and security. This guide explains why UC is essential for businesses, its associated technologies, and the steps required to produce comprehensive but agile unified communications to arrange for collaboration over the extended enterprise.

What is Unified Communication, and why is it essential in businesses?

Unified communication deployment is less about rolling out just one unified business technology and more about having a technique for how myriad real-time communications and asynchronous tools help users communicate and collaborate efficiently to enhance organizational workflow.

Most companies must be able to clearly and quickly identify UC’s business needs.

• Improve existing processes
• Boost employee productivity
• Increase team-based productivity
• Enhance organizational agility
• Streamline IT operations
• Reduce costs

Unified Communication platforms and applications provide the mobility critical to next-generation business plans, with some well-developed mobile-first apps. At a minimum, Unified Communication tools enable users to see team collaboration identically across desktop and mobile phones, on the network, and remotely.

Compelling features of building a unified communication strategy

You must consider some key features when building a unified communication strategy.

Develop and justify a vision

Unified communications affect how employees relate with one another. It’s key to determining how they communicate since it can help them discover how their actions affect their colleagues. You must collect vital information from your users before implementing the technology aspect. Be very considerate while formulating your vision and document everything for picking a UC that needs to produce sense in your organization.

Reverse workflow

Unified communication end users are the most influential individuals to request information on the forms of channels and tools appropriate to them. Examining the enterprise communication system already in play, particularly if you aren’t with them, can help you know how the plans are now being embraced or rejected in other business areas.

The insights help you choose the enterprise communication system to include in your business. You could select an individual vendor UC approach or the best-of-breed UC ecosystem. Before deciding what to roll out, you’ll need to ascertain the most suitable method for the client’s and workforce’s communication needs. Ensure you engage a provider who conducts intensive research to create critical insight into your end users’ needs, helping you make the most effective decision.

Gather information on current trends

Understanding your end-user needs is vital, significantly how UC will benefit them. Take care to internalize how the selection of UC operates. It’s not an overnight process that takes time, as some challenges that even IT services experts may face take time to resolve. It will help if you give yourself enough time to gather information on current trends in unified business technologies. Knowing the unified business technologies and requirements enables a long-term solid unified communication strategy.

How to build a strategy for enterprise unified communications?

Behind every successful Unified Communications deployment, a robust strategy leads the way. In a sizable organization like the current enterprise, a unified communications strategy is essential to pave the way for a clean transition to UC. In the end, unified communications have many benefits but also re-thinking and reworking your overall infrastructure.

When appropriately used, unified communications allow customers, employees, and partners to get in touch and collaborate over shared information, be involved in video or audio conferences over one platform, and offer comprehensive communication, no matter the device or location. The proper unified communication strategy makes collaboration and communication more accessible than it could be with another group of tools that lack interoperability or consistent accessibility. So, how will you plan for the proper UC implementation?

Below are some practical tips to help IT teams and business leaders create a unified communication strategy for enterprise unified communications.

Work backward from your user

User experience, or “UX,” has become a popular communication term. That’s because you can only embed the proper tools into your unified communication strategy after you know your user needs. Your end user is the most significant indicator that UC tools will support your enterprise goals. You could go through the tools they’re already using and inquire further about which apps and resources they’d prefer to utilize when given a chance.

There is a good chance that different enterprise employees in your network will require other tools to aid their day-to-day operations. C-level executives might need video conferencing services as an example, while call center agents take advantage of instant messaging.

Provide time for learning and discovery

Implementing enterprise-unified communications in the environment means introducing tens of thousands of new users to various tools and strategies.  Be sure you have the time to find out the wants of one’s end-users, how UC will probably benefit your community and things you need to complete to make the transition easier for the employees.

Sometimes, a phased rollout that delivers unified communication solutions to certain teams within your enterprises or specific sites one at a time can be helpful. Phasing your introduction means you can learn from the mistakes that might occur during initial deployment. Additionally, many IT experts will find it beneficial to roll a UC suite out to tech-savvy users, who can test the enterprise communication system and offer feedback before a blanket implementation.

Ensure your Infrastructure is ready

Implementing a UC technique for your enterprise isn’t almost downloading a new group of tools. You should ensure that your enterprise communication system integrates with your pre-existing desk phones and hardware so you don’t need to begin from scratch to serve your contact center agents. On the other hand, you should believe carefully about new security features and encryption solutions you will need to implement to help keep your unified communication strategy secure.

Think of your existing infrastructure and how it should change to aid a UC rollout. Your servers, routers, and data connections certainly need to handle increased traffic loads – especially if you’re considering additional users to the device later.

Opt for Scalability and Interoperability

Finally, enterprise organizations are usually evolving and growing to compete in the current marketplace. With this at heart, you should be sure that your UC & C strategy not only helps you to take advantage of the unified business technologies you’ve today but also the unified communication services you may want to implement in the future.

Search for unified communication services that keep interoperability in the middle of one’s structure to ensure that you’re free to produce the unified communication strategy that works for you – whether you’re transitioning to the cloud or you want an optimized hybrid service.

Wrapping Up

To enterprise unified communication solutions, business is uncertain at the best of times. IT needs a specific communications technique for voice and video conferencing, chat, and other tools. As users are more adept at video calling and conferencing, their appetite for the technology has increased, including a wish for live video editing, the capacity to change backgrounds, launch special effects, and other camera tricks. In addition, they expect to take information, such as that which was once in a personal manual, via short, engaging videos.