A Definition of Unified Communications

The integration of real-time communication services, resulting in increased productivity. These services can be seen as different applications such as telephony, instant messaging, presence information, workforce mobility, video & audio conferencing, call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax.

Putting People First

Unified Communications reduces complexity by putting people at the centre of the communications experience. All of the ways in which people contact one another are integrated into a single environment. This way, you can use software to eliminate geographic boundaries so you can stay connected with team members and partners no matter what device you’re using, and no matter where you are. You can communicate in real time, from your office PC or on mobile devices while on the road, in a security-enhanced environment.

In its simplest form Unified Communications increases overall productivity by simplifying life for your workforce when it comes to internal and external communications. This is achieved by reducing the number of devices and interfaces used for communications during the business day, integrating (or unifying) applications so they work together and making them easier to understand, use and support.

Each individual business is unique. It therefore follows that the components encompassed by Unified Communications will differ on a company-by-company basis, based upon what is relevant and useful to a particular organisation. This means that Unified Communications will be the interaction of some, or all of the above applications.