Will you choose a suitable Unified Communication solution?

Although many enterprises have high expectations for Unified Communication, they are hesitant to deploy a Unified Communication solution. Why? I didn't know much about this service. So what should I pay attention to when choosing a Unified Communication solution?

Although they are all "Unified Communications", international giants have their own focus on the market layout. Cisco's strength lies in hardware. Its core competitiveness is based on the modular exchange at the underlying device layer. This module can be integrated with different terminals and application software; microsoft, IBM, and later Avaya are more inclined to provide software solutions. Some traditional equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Siemens, Nortel, and Huawei have formed alliances with software providers, provide unified solutions. Regardless of the implementation method, the purpose of the Unified Communication solution system is surprisingly consistent: integrating all types of information such as voice, fax, email, mobile short messages, multimedia, and data, in this way, the freedom and efficiency of choice are improved.

This seemingly beautiful communication solution has achieved remarkable results in foreign countries, but it has encountered an embarrassment in China. Central communication, which can help enterprises reduce their costs, is daunting in China. The high deployment cost and the resulting maintenance cost have become a obstacle for many small and medium-sized enterprises in China to work with central communication, even a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China have little confidence in investment in Unified Communication.

Now, this situation is evolving in a positive direction. More and more manufacturers are paying attention to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. Avaya provides an Avaya IP Office communication system to help small and medium-sized enterprises integrate their communication with their business processes at a price suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises, the most suitable media ensures that information can be quickly transmitted to the recipient. From conceptual hypes to actually providing application services, Unified Communication is moving towards a people-oriented application-layer integration and collaboration, which is also the original intention of Unified Communication.

Smart users and smart choices

Just as a communication supervisor of an enterprise that often hangs on major forums, when selecting a Unified Communication solution, many people list the required components in advance, select the suppliers behind these components, and then go where to buy products, devices, or solutions. However, analysts and industry consultants tell us that such an approach seems to be smart and practical, because it increases the complexity of Enterprise communications and fails to simplify the process and improve efficiency.

Don Van Doren, chief analyst at UniComm Consulting LLC, suggested: "identify business needs, see if the company has nothing special to do, and then make a choice ."

This makes sense, for example, location service (LBS) is one of the company's subsequent strategies. The Unified Communication solution introduced must have this expertise. Otherwise, deploying Standard Unified Communication components will not only help the people, but will not help. Therefore, figuring out your most urgent needs and then abandoning other components to make the purchase and deployment as needed is crucial.

Don Van Doren added: "If you look at a strong point, you should not deny a supplier because it cannot be comprehensive. In today's ever-changing science and technology, technical issues are no longer a problem, and the history and reputation of services and suppliers are the key ."

For example, Avaya's deep accumulation in the landline field means it has the same say in the IPPBX field. Microsoft's software is the world's first choice for enterprises that need to emphasize desktop applications.

However, enterprises need to bypass the hype of various vendors, and there are too many vendors with fake names. This is why they need to understand the history of suppliers.

Suppliers should keep pace with the times and take the initiative

It is not easy for suppliers to follow up on user needs. As enterprise users have different needs and different types of companies have extremely high Personalized Requirements, suppliers face many challenges.

"In the field of Unified Communication, different customers have different emphasis on the system components of the Unified Communication solution, with some focusing on speech and some on video, in addition, only the mail and instant messaging systems are required. This is a challenge to the business of unified communication providers ."

In a recent report, he divided the company's staff into seven categories, from frequent business trips to sales, and then to a manager that is barely out of the door. Different types of personnel work in different ways, rely on different communication methods, and different communication tools ...... These uncertainties will affect the supplier's accurate positioning of an enterprise's needs.

After listing these factors, the supplier can open a new menu for the enterprise. In this new form, the strength of product functions is no longer compared, but the requirement entry point for each function. For example, do not assign BlackBerry mobile devices to employees with a maximum activity range of 5 feet a day or video conferencing devices to employees who are only responsible for production ......

Sometimes, enterprises do not necessarily know what to do even if they know what to do. Therefore, suppliers are "obligated" to help them understand how to do it, help them analyze their needs, and then sell the systems of unified communication solutions to them.