Unless you are the lighthouse keeper of Maatsuyker Island, it is safe to assume that your job requires you to communicate with others, be it your colleagues, your management, or your
Unless you are the lighthouse keeper of Maatsuyker Island, it is safe to assume that your job requires you to communicate with others, be it your colleagues, your management, or your customers. An advanced, more productive form of communication is collaboration, where people contribute to the success of the company through sharing of ideas and knowledge.
The importance of timely and correct communication and effective collaboration in today’s fast-paced, social world cannot be denied. We all use different mechanisms for this everyday. From phone calls to voice messages to chat clients to emails, all provide mechanisms for getting your message across. We also use a variety of collaboration software like SharePoint, Wiki, idea shares etc. Now imagine if all these different platforms could be combined into a seamless tool. Add to that the availability of this tool on mobile platforms, and you have the perfect productivity instrument. This is the dream that Unified Communication and Collaboration (UCC) providers are chasing.
So compelling is the promise of mobile UCC that Gartner predicts that by 2016, 75% of the mobility solutions will be integrated with the enterprise telephony infrastructure. Mobile UCC finds uses in many industry verticals.
Healthcare
Healthcare is a very time sensitive industry, where a few minutes delay could be the difference between life and death. Knowing who is available to respond in the case of an emergency through calendar integration can be crucial. Sharing reports like x-rays, or video conferencing support from experts during surgery are but a few uses of mobile UCC.
Field services
Field services staff is constantly on the move, shuttling between customer locations. Knowing which resource is where can be crucial for the enterprise for effective time management, and to ensure emergency situations are handled properly. Similarly, the agents themselves need to have access to the corporate knowledgebase to solve problems on the go.
Sales
Being in sales means you need to be always reachable by your customers. Mobile UCC enables this by allowing your clients to dial one single number, and be able to reach you wherever you are. For the salespeople, managing leads, updating meetings, and having access to the right sales artifacts is very easily done on their mobile device.
Knowledge sharing and collaboration
Teams, working on a project from different locations can work together, sharing documents, knowing team schedules, and approving things, all on their smart devices. The entire team, irrespective of their location, is aware of the project’s progress, and can contribute to the same.
Compliance
Just like the fixed lines, UCC allows for corporate calls on mobile phones to be recorded for compliance purpose. Other than just compliance, these recordings may also be used to ensure that the mobile workforce presents the same professional behavior that is expected from the on-premise teams.
Busy professionals
Senior executives, consultants, and other professionals who are constantly on the move get access to corporate resources, and the ability to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and customers alike, thanks to UCC. They can have an “in-office” experience while on the move.
It is easy to see from the number of ways mobility and collaboration together can work the magic of productivity and comfort. However, the devil is in the details. While its utility can t be denied, UCC still suffers from interoperability challenges. Getting all the disparate communication and collaboration platforms to play nice with each other is no simple task. The market and technology is still maturing, and very soon we should see comprehensive solutions.
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