Aug 16, 2019
ATSG
- As unified communications gain traction, more enterprises are looking for the best solution for their business model. How they tackle that challenge can make all the difference.
- The five key steps to smarter unified communications include assessing your current environment, gaining internal support, choosing the right partner, implementing with a plan, and then evaluating results.
People want to work how, when, and where it suits them best. They expect their workplace technology to enable a smarter way of getting things done. This requires the use of a modern unified communications (UC) stack that inspires more meaningful connections that will drive innovative, fun, and collaborative work. To get there requires a strategy founded on the adoption of continuous innovation. A plan that effectively predicts the future.
Five Steps to Smarter Unified Communications
Let's take a closer look at how you can achieve smarter unified communications with these five steps:- Assess Your Current UC Environment
Audit your existing UC network and prepare a needs analysis as a comparison between where you are today and where you need to go. To do this will require answering some tough questions, like where can the Cloud provide the most significant value. There’s a reason you’re considering a change to more cloud-based communications and understanding how existing on-premise tools are compromising your business is essential.
Speaking with the heads of various functional areas will yield some clues about activities that are prime for a move to the Cloud. Finance may want to reduce travel expenses. Human resources may want to increase employee satisfaction with a work-from-home option or expand the pool of prospective employees. Each department’s needs should be considered and prioritized for a move to the Cloud.
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- Gain Internal Support for Your UC Plan
Inclusion drives advocacy. Regroup with your line-of-business (LoB) leaders to validate goals by:- Evaluating current performance benchmarks.
- Determining realistic goals for outcomes such as improved productivity and cost savings.
- Measure against those goals at regular intervals during the cloud migration—and after.
- Choose the Right Managed Services Partner
While today’s communication needs are essential, it’s smart to consider future needs as well. The right partner can help you do that. Look for a solution provider with a strong track record. A technology partner who continues to innovate and keep up with the latest trends will be more invested in the future.
Partners that deliver more comprehensive solutions will be able to provide more tools for your teams to connect. Look for calling, video, meetings, and team collaboration, as well as contact center capabilities. A flexible platform that can integrate with other applications and services is important. Consider a vendor that offers a non-disruptive transition to the Cloud with the flexibility to support a mixed cloud and on-premise environment for as long as you need it. - Implement With a Plan
Implementation is where the right partner can make a difference. It will have a defined process for bringing your vision of your unified communications to bear. Implementations that work best will often begin with a prototype. This ensures that solutions will work for desktop, mobile, and remote users. Prototyping also demonstrates that routing, reporting, and monitoring also work.
While a proper proof of concept helps, an implementation approach that includes testing, deployment, and room for adjustments is essential. Testing will shake out the bugs, illustrate performance under load, and allow for application tuning. Deployments should start with a small group of power users to identify challenges and make adjustments which will carry into subsequent roll outs.
A final component of any implementation is adoption. Businesses invest piles of money into bringing new unified communications online, and they need to be sure that end-users are engaging with the system. Don’t overlook adoption. Without it, user engagement will take longer and may impact your success metrics. - Measure and Validate Results
Gather metrics and continue to work with your lines of business (LoB) contacts to track efficiencies against pre-deployment benchmarks. Results should steadily improve as employees become more familiar with the new technology and adoption increases.
Make sure your communications platform fosters true collaboration. Read our eBook to learn more.
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