Next generation unified communications for better collaboration: communications and collaboration will become critical elements of business success as the next generation of mobile communications devices and platforms link the right people, at the right time, through the most appropriate networks.

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AS THE world moves towards ubiquitous, seamless data connectivity to support a global economy, most people will have high quality access to almost any information, anywhere, anytime, on any device.

However, as barriers to access fall away, one of the key challenges organisations will face is how to successfully contextualise and prioritise this information to lower expenses, increase efficiency, and realise the value of information assets they already have.

Therefore, communications and collaboration will become critical elements of business success. Organisations need to enhance their ability to locate the right people, at the right time, through the most appropriate communications medium.

Gartner projects that by 2010, 80 per cent of businesses that deploy communications-enabled business processes will have acquired significant competitive and revenue differentiation because of these investments (Gartner Group, May 2006). In fact, the best rate of return often comes from investments that raise the productivity of not just individual knowledge workers, but enterprise and team collaboration as well.

The next generation of unified communications solutions will break down today's silos of E-mail, instant messaging, mobile and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony, and audio-, video- and Web-conferencing.

Such support and technology should comprise robust, interoperable, server-based tools that integrate with desktop and mobile clients to give information workers (people who are active participants in the flow of business information or business information processes) anytime, anywhere access to critical information. This will not only broaden access, but increase productivity and reduce costs in a new world of work.

Broadening Access

In the beginning, E-mail access was primarily done using LAN-attached clients or dial-up network access, and the few mobile devices that existed then had little or no wireless data capability.

Fast-forward to today and Gartner predicts that wireless E-mail users worldwide will reach 20 million in 2006 and 100 million in 2009. Powerful browser-based clients like Outlook Web Access and VPNs are widely deployed, PDAs and Smart-phones with high-speed wireless data access are becoming ubiquitous, and Outlook Anywhere provides easy access to E-mail data from almost any Internet-connected computer running Windows.

This is further amplified by the demands of a mobile workforce, who need consistent and synchronised access to their E-mail, calendars, and contact data from multiple locations across multiple devices. Broadening access will be a key driving factor of collaboration and competitiveness.

Presence Awareness

Employees today are almost always under deadline constraints, and competitive pressures put a premium on getting the right information to the right people, fast. "Information overload" is already a measurable productivity killer.

The problem here isn't necessarily the ubiquity of access, but people's inability to manage it effectively. One technology that promises to restore some degree of control to workers in an always-on, always-connected world is presence awareness.

Currently, presence is used to indicate the availability of dedicated collaboration. This means that they will be able to control who can reach them, at any hour, on any device, using any channel, and senders will know whether to expect a real-time conversation, a return call or a return message based on the recipient's reported presence status.

With unified communications, information workers will be able to access voice mail and fax data alongside existing E-mail, calendar, contact, and task data, and even manage their E-email, calendar, and personal contacts using the telephone.

Reducing Costs

Many companies have voicemail systems that use different types of voicemail servers and PBXs in different locations. If the company has grown through mergers and acquisitions, or if its offices are in different countries, it is likely that there are several different vendors represented in the organisation's telephony system.

This greatly adds to the overhead, and cost required to provide voicemail services to users, and dramatically increases support costs by removing some efficiencies of scale that might otherwise be possible.

Consolidating voicemail services through the use of new technology is one way organisations will be able to reduce the number of legacy voicemail systems required. This will cut both the initial and ongoing cost of voicemail services.

In the same way, consolidating the ability to receive faxes by co-locating it with the messaging and voicemail services means that the costs of operating fax service drop significantly as well.

As communication and identity management become more integrated across networks, systems and devices, we see unified communications playing an increasingly important role in reducing costs for organisations.

A recent Forrester Research study commissioned by Microsoft found that organisations may achieve significant productivity improvements and cost savings with unified communications. The Forrester study, created from the results of 15 in-depth interviews of Microsoft unified communications customers, found that these customers can achieve more than 500 per cent return on investment over three years by deploying Office Communications Server 2007.

Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific, a Microsoft Unified Communications customer, agrees that the new wave of solutions is set to transform business communications by enabling a truly integrated communications solution at lower costs.

Making the Move

These are just some of the benefits that are making a compelling reason for businesses across industries to adopt next generation unified communications solutions. By supporting remote collaboration and giving information workers greater flexibility, this mobile boost has enabled them to improve their operational efficiencies, as well as their quality of customer service and business processes to take greater advantage of business opportunities.

To capitalise on these trends, telecommunications technologies are also merging and partnering with software technologies to enable a single identity across all modes and integrate communication into people's everyday work processes.

It is clear that the industry believes in simplifying the way people work across departmental, organisational, and geographical boundaries that help lower expenses, increase efficiency, and realise the value of information assets they already have.

Workers and organisations need to prepare for dramatic changes brought about by ubiquitous connectivity. Those who are drawn into the always-on, always-connected world without adequate investment in the right technology and practices risk enormous problems in sustaining information worker productivity, morale, and overall competitiveness.

Conversely, organisations and workers who use and manage connectivity to their advantage will enjoy a number of benefits. Workers will have greater freedom and control of their time, and more flexibility to balance work and life commitments.

Organisations too will be able to sustain productivity and extend their operations and culture worldwide with enhanced management control and visibility because communications and collaboration technology will give them even better connections to their global work force than they experience with a geographically concentrated work force.

KC Phua is manager for the Information Worker Group at Microsoft Singapore.