Unified Communications, or UC, is an Internet-based way to bring together your company’s communications–telephony, web conferencing, email and more. With its benefits, it requires a reliable and secure network to keep your employees connected and productive. Read on to learn about Unified Communications and what you need to do to prepare.
The Benefits of Unified Communications
Even before 2020, the use of Unified Communications was growing; since then, it has become even more popular. In a nutshell, Unified Communications is a way of integrating multiple modes of communication–including VoIP telephony, email, web conferencing and more–via the Internet. These new and integrated technologies save time and money by allowing businesses to seamlessly connect and collaborate with colleagues, cohorts and customers with ease. Unified Communications can also help a company gain a competitive advantage, connecting with customers regardless of location. Workers can work anytime, anywhere, with just an Internet connection, communicating and collaborating with each other and customers from work, home or on the road. Integration with CRM can help them obtain information about customers easily, and they’ll never miss a voicemail by routing to email. When UC is supported by software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), traffic can move easily because if one carrier goes down, another can pick up the slack without any downtime.
Prepare Your Business and Network for UC with SD-WAN
Adoption of Unified Communications provides multiple benefits, yet requires planning and consideration. First, you’ll need to examine how it will support your company’s business goals. Second, you’ll need to assess your network’s strength and security; do you have the internal bandwidth it takes to support UC? Auditing your network to detect any weak spots might be a good first step, and inventorying the security of devices connected to the network. Checking to ensure network traffic flows smoothly during peak hours by prioritizing usage avoids service interruption and Quality of Service (QoS) issues. Finally, trace network traffic back to your service providers to identify bottlenecks that can easily be avoided using SD-WAN technologies.
Unified Communications with SD-WAN can be a great help to your business, especially if workers are still remote. To learn more about assessing the readiness of your business and network, contact us today.