Collaboration can be defined as a group of people coming together to work towards a common goal. In the Cloud, collaboration can be defined as using technology such as instant messaging, email, web conferencing, blogs, private and public social networks, wiki’s and VoIP to create a more lean and profitable business. With Cloud Collaboration you can make the most out of your employees and reach out directly to your customers.
Just think of the costs you can save on travel expenses by using online video conferencing software such as webex to conduct business meetings with remote employees and clients in a distant area. According to a study conducted by Bernstein Research in March 2010, “10 percent of external travel could be replaced over the next 10 to 15 years, resulting in an aggregate reduction of 21 percent in corporate travel spending.”
Along with cutting down the costs of business travel, Cloud Collaboration allows you to get answers and make decisions on the fly. Getting speedy well-informed answers to the right people via instant messaging, email, and web conferencing increase productivity and cuts down on cycle times. Cloud software such as SharePoint and salesforce, has helped coworkers share information in ways that weren’t previously possible. Being able to connect with employees in different locations allows employees to tap into more information sources that would otherwise not be available due to location limitations.
Location and distance are no longer an issue with Cloud Collaboration. Breakthroughs in mobile and internet technologies allows you to conduct Cloud Collaboration anywhere – your home, office, the airport or anywhere else that has internet access. You’re also not limited to just your computer, you can use a tablet or your smartphone for collaborating. When you empower your employees to choose to make responsible choices about where to work you can improve morale and efficiency..
Cloud Collaboration is a necessity to reducing travel budget, building teamwork among employees in different locations and creating relationships with consumers. If you’re looking to lean your business and reduce budgets, Cloud Collaboration is an essential investment.
Unified Communications for Business Diagram
A while back I went to a NEC Event in Connecticut. The showstopper in my opinion happened to be the NEC Unified for Business system, a one-server powerhouse! The Unified Communications for business places IM, Phone, Email, Call Queuing, and Call Recording all on the one single server. A perfect solution for any small to medium sized business; with a single server businesses can collaborate more effectively and in general improve productivity. The UC for Business offers functionality that drastically improves the way you handle your business communications.
General features include:
• Presence, which gives staff and operators valuable information regarding call recipients’ locations and availability
• Presence reporting that allows individual users and managers to monitor their own activity and the activity of others through comprehensive reporting functionality
• Softphone and Microsoft¨ Office¨ Outlook¨ integration to simplify call handling and give users the ability to manage all their communications from their desktops
• Click-to-Dial from within Microsoft documents for quick, easy access to the people you need to reach
• Contact center and operator tools to address the unique requirements of each function
• Third party integration to enable organizations to easily and effectively connect UC for Business with other business applications
Managing customer a positive customer experience is vital to a successful business. UC for Business has created an easy to use system for your employees and for your customers. Callback allows contact centers to differentiate themselves from their competitors by giving their callers a choice – offering them the option of an automated Callback, eliminating the frustration of waiting in a queue. When Callback is utilized it can reduce the cost associated with having a customer on hold. Console gives your employees empowerment by being able to see who is calling in and allowing them to prioritize top customers so they are never left waiting. Being a LAN based application, it can be accessed from any PC on the network, which means back up operators can pick up overflow calls if necessary. With Presence you can see the status of your colleagues are at all times and can make better judgments when transferring calls. With a simple click and drag of a mouse you can transfer a call with ease. All of you phone, fax, and email messages are stored all within your PC. Fax and Voicemails can be sent via email as attachments, so you can share your internal communications remotely. UC for Business is also a cost cutting investment. Executive Conference is audio conferencing takes the 3rd party out of the equation saving you money on your telephony cost.
Your agents become increasingly goal-oriented and require less supervision. With all your communications being on a PC you can create a not only a cost cutting paperless work flow but also a leaner work environment. Unified Communications for Business means less IT infrastructure, less complexity and less drain on resources. With UC for Business, an organization can meet all of their users’ needs, implement an enterprise-wide unified communications solution and minimize total cost of ownership.
To find out more about Unified Communications for Business please download the brochure or give us a call!
