Whether you’ve been toying with the idea of implementing UC, or your company is seasoned in the world of UC, you’ve likely heard several myths about its implementation. We put together a list of some of the most common myths we hope to dispel.
Myth 1 – Unified Communications is something new
The concept of Unified Communications is certainly not new, the term “Unified Communications” is just a new name for a group of technologies that have been around for quite some time. As technology continues to evolve, the methods in which various organizations utilize UC to meet their needs is changing. To your business, merging voice messaging with e-mail may constitute a UC solution, but to another company a UC solution may be as involved as using a common interface to unite their entire communications infrastructure. Moving forward, think of UC as an idea or concept.
Myth 2 – Your existing system is obsolete
In many cases, you can enable Unified Communications to enhance the performance of your current systems. For example: Just because you may not have Voice over IP (VoIP), there’s no need to upgrade your phone system to Voice over IP (VoIP) to use Unified Communications. UC can still provide you with the capability to control the phone sitting on your desk, regardless if it is a VoIP or traditional (TDM or Analogue) phone.
Myth 3 – Unified Communications is expensive
The hardest thing about Unified Communications deployment is understanding how to make the most out of it – without breaking budget. In many cases you may already have what is required, so UC deployment can actually save you money in the long run, provided you have an understanding of what you want to achieve and can in turn put a strategy in place to achieve it. If you plan properly, enabling UC can heed greater performance at a lower cost since you may only need to buy one or two new services or upgrades without putting forth a large investment. For example, techniques such as centralization and virtualization can actually save you money because they require investing in fewer trunk lines and result in easier management and deployment.
Myth 4 – With UC, It’s all or nothing
Not at all. In fact, Unified Communications is made up of a lot of individual components, and most are mix and match so you can be sure to get the best unified communications solution customized to suit your needs. This unique benefit gives you the power to determine what makes business sense for your organization, and you enable the components you need to get the most out of the technology. You may rarely see unified communications purchased as a complete package. Since the breadth of what can legitimately be labeled as UC is vast, some companies choose to buy individual components that they see immediate value from, with an eye toward unifying them at a future date. This is a way to first assess the value of the individual components before assessing the value of integrating them. On the other hand, some companies may prefer to use multiple unified communications vendors to purchase best of breed components rather than purchasing a complete end-to end UC solution from a single vendor. NEC gives you the option to purchase either, or both, depending on your needs. To see what they have to offer, click here.
Hopefully this list has helped address some of your common questions about Unified Communication features, benefits and implementation. We’d like to stress the importance in selecting the right vendor so you’re not breaking the bank in your implementation. With the right vendor and proper migration planning you can upgrade so the UC features you have already invested in will continue to work for you – and improve, rather than lose value.
