May 30, 2014 By Martyn Etherington

How Unified Communication Can Benefit Your Business

in Cloud

If you’re still unsure of what Unified-Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) can do for your business, then it’s time to get up to speed and take advantage of its benefits and capabilities.

UCaaS is a delivery model in which a variety of communication and collaboration applications and services—all of the regular integrated apps associated with unified communication—are outsourced to a third-party vendor and delivered over an IP network—most often the Internet.

UCaaS Forecast

The UCaaS market is growing. Recent research published in the MarketsandMarkets comprehensive 2013-2018 UCaaS report indicates that 2014 represents the beginning of the technology’s widespread adoption. By 2018, revenue is expected to more than double from its current $2.52 billion to $7.62 billion.

This rise is no surprise, given the need for businesses to support an increasing number of communication channels and interactions, without committing to a corresponding increase in investment.

Benefits of UCaaS

Many businesses understand the benefits of a unified communication solution in improving employee productivity, streamlining processes and boosting interaction across the organization, but economic conditions and budgets can present a challenge to justifying the initial investment.

If this is the case, the flexibility and easy scalability of a cloud-based communications solution, or UCaaS, should be considered.

Is UCaaS a Good Fit?

If you can answer yes to any of the following questions then UCaaS could provide your business with the route to benefiting from unified communication sooner than you may have expected:

1. You need access to the latest communications but don’t have the capital budget or in house resource to implement an on premise solution. This may be underpinned by a need to improve productivity or customer service, or by a time-limited event such as a merger, acquisition or the opening/closing of an office.

2. Agility is key to your business. A cloud-based communications solution could be for you. It frees up capital to invest in core operations and provides you with the flexibility to grow your business.

3. You want flexibility in your approach connecting offices and mobile workers. Blending an existing on premise solution with a move to the cloud can enable headquarter locations to support branch offices and mobile workers. UCaaS gives the flexibility to slowly migrate away from legacy systems while facilitating better communication between your offices and reducing IT complexity where there is little or no support resource.

About the author

As Chief Marketing Officer and Chief of Staff for Mitel, Martyn Etherington is responsible for all aspects of the company’s corporate marketing strategy, brand, and digital programs globally. As Chief of Staff, he is responsible for the execution and follow-through of the CEO and Mitel’s business priorities. Prior to joining Mitel®, Martyn served for 11 years as Tektronix Vice President of Marketing. In addition, he had responsibility for business operations and general management of the Latin America region. In this role, he provided leadership for all Tektronix marketing and business operations worldwide and was responsible for the development and execution of the company’s go-to-market and marketing growth strategies.

Compare and contrast cloud-based CRM with on-premise CRM by reading this free e-book.