UC: Beyond the Tangible Gains
By Tabrez Khan
Mumbai, May 5, 2008

Unified communications (UC) is a commonly used term for the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices, and applications. This potentially includes the integration of fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, Voice over IP (VoIP), voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler and more effective experience.

Communication can switch from an instant message to a phone call or videoconference on the fly with drag-and-drop ease. One can call a contact by just clicking on their name in a spreadsheet or word document, and can escalate it into a conference or a videoconference with similar ease without disrupting communication at any point.

According to analyst firm Gartner, the largest single value of UC is its ability to reduce "human latency" in business processes.

In the Indian context however, the largest single value of UC can go much beyond reducing human latency in business processes. For UC is all about collaboration and teamwork. For instance, 2 people geographically apart but working on the same project can initiate chats, then convert it into a call seamlessly, further escalate it to a videoconference and add more people to their conference in a single environment.

This not only will raise productivity and bring benefits to enterprises, but also help employees in getting used to communicating more with each other and collaborate better.

Indian professionals have traditionally been known to be individually brilliant, but when it comes to collaboration and teamwork they lag behind their western counterparts. Unified communications through its nature has the ability to change the working habits of Indian professionals. As enterprises increasingly adopt UC, communication and collaboration will no longer be a choice but an important professional function.

Over time, collaboration will become a habit among Indian professionals and this can be a national strength. Collaboration or teamwork is more important in most business situations than individual brilliance. This could to some extent be the reason why western economies have done better than India so far. And while the Indian juggernaut is fast catching up with the West and excelling in certain areas like IT, fostering the habit of collaboration in the form of UC has the potential to yield exponential benefits to Indian enterprise.