Unified Communications

New Communications Experiences

Global value chains, mobile workforces, social networking, pervasive video, and information overload: this is the new normal. To address these business complexities, Cisco Unified Communications connects people, information, and teams, helping to enable comprehensive and effective collaborative experiences. With Cisco Unified Communications, your company can:

• Connect co-workers, partners, vendors, and customers with the information and expertise they need.
• Access and share video on the desktop, on the road, and on-demand, as easily as making a phone call
• Facilitate better team interactions, dynamically bringing together individuals, virtual workgroups, and teams
• Make mobile devices extensions of the corporate network so mobile workers can be productive anywhere
• Innovate across the value chain by integrating collaboration and communications into applications and business processes.

Collaborate with Confidence

Cisco Unified Communications delivers a high quality, highly secure experience across any workspace. This helps your company:

• Shorten sales and customer service cycles
• Reduce time-to-market
• Adapt to market changes faster
• Encourage innovation

From cost savings to productivity, customer intimacy, and innovation, learn how Cisco Unified Communications offer a compelling solution to your most pressing business needs.

Combine communications into a single solution to help your employees, customers, suppliers, and partners communicate quickly and easily.


Cisco Unified Communications benefits people by connecting teams and information, and helping to enable comprehensive and effective collaborative experiences. This helps your company:

• Connect co-workers, partners, vendors, and customers with the information and expertise they need
• Access and share video on the desktop, on the road, and on-demand, as easily as making a phone call
• Facilitate better team interactions, dynamically bringing together individuals, virtual workgroups, and teams
• Make mobile devices extensions of the corporate network so mobile workers can be productive anywhere
• Innovate across the value chain by integrating collaboration and communications into applications and business processes

1. Cisco Unified Communications benefits include next-generation features and capabilities that can significantly reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Gauge your potential savings with the Unified Communications Total Cost of Ownership Tool.

Unified Communications Applications:

Uses and Benefits:

Many benefits of deploying an IP Communications (IPC) system are, by now, well However, once the basic IPC foundation is set, there are many additional applications that can leverage this converged IP network even more fully. Quantifying the real productivity gains and out these relatively new value-added Unified Communications organizations.  

Yet if armed with such information, potential adopters could make a far more comprehensive ROI justification for their planned deployments.  One source of such information is Based on a survey of 244 small, medium, and large organizations in the United States, presently using or planning to deploy Unified Communications applications, this paper outlines both the challenges that those applications address and the actual benefits that current adopters experience. This paper presents very specific results that quantify both staff-time and outUnified Communications applications, thus technology.  Throughout the findings presented in this white paper, three general themes that characterize the results are highlighted: 

• Unified Communications applications lead to more effect traditional channel for contacting employees, Unified Communications applications also enable smarter communication. Employees can consult the best method for reaching coworkers before even initiating contact, thereby improving the efficiency in their interactions with others.

• Unified Communications application benefits include both time savings and cost savings. users’ experiences clearly indicate that these applications provide both employee productivity be direct monetary savings. As a result, the ROI case for Unified Communications applications is fairly comprehensive.  

• The level of Unified Communications application benefits increases as the number of different applications available increases. organization deploys, the greater the overall return in terms of both time and cost savings benefits. While this finding is somewhat intuitive, the actual size of this deployment effect is rather The Adoption Context A typical communications challenge facing many organizations today is an inability to reach coworkers reliably on the first try . Even though communication tools have proliferated, the fact that employees are becoming increasingly mobile makes collaborating with coworkers increasingly more difficult (workers today have no shortage of means for staying in touch).  

Unified Communications applications are defined as applications built on an IP Communications system. These include Unified Messaging, Conferencing and Collaboration (such as voice and video conferencing), Enterprise IM integrated with Communications clients and Mobile Unified Communications, among others.Many benefits of deploying an IP Communications (IPC) system are, by now, well-known and well However, once the basic IPC foundation is set, there are many additional applications that can leverage this converged IP network even more fully. Quantifying the real productivity gains and out-of-pocket cost savings of Unified Communications.

Unified Communications applications, thus giving decision-makers a real-world reference for evaluating the Throughout the findings presented in this white paper, three general themes that characterize the results are Unified Communications applications lead to more effective communication. Beyond replacing a traditional channel for contacting employees, Unified Communications applications also enable smarter communication. Employees can consult the best method for reaching coworkers before even initiating improving the efficiency in their interactions withothers.

Unified Communications application benefits include both time savings and cost savings.users’ experiences clearly indicate that these applications provide both employee productivity bedirect monetary savings. As a result, the ROI case for Unified Communications applications is fairly

The level of Unified Communications application benefits increases as the number of different Simply put, the more Unified Communications applications an organization deploys, the greater the overall return in terms of both time and cost savings benefits. While this finding is somewhat intuitive, the actual size of this deployment effect is rather pronounced.A typical communications challenge facing many organizations today is an inability to reach coworkers reliably .

Even though communication tools have proliferated, the fact that employees are becoming increasingly mobile makes collaborating with coworkers increasingly more difficult (workers today have no shortage of means for staying in touch). In fact, the average organization in this study reports using over Unified Communications applications are defined as applications built on an IP Communications system. These include Unified Messaging, Conferencing and Collaboration (such as voice and video conferencing), Enterprise IM integrated with and Mobile Unified Communications, among others.Five different types of communication devices communication applications (e.g., instant messaging, conferencing applications, etc.) mobility is an ever-present fact of life: on average, 43% of current Unified Communications adopters report that 20% of their workforce travels at least once a month.Working together, these two factors have led to a real communications bottleneck.

Even should lead to easier coworker access, if the devices are not properly integrated the net effect can be counterproductive. In practice, employees must often guess which method (e.g., desk phone, cell phone, email, instant messaging, etc.) is best for reaching their colleagues at any given time. Their first attempts often fail; in fact, 56% of organizations that do not currently have Unified Communications (UC) clients deployed report that employees are unable to contact coworkers on.

Although this scenario might only seem a modest annoyance, it has real economic impact. These internal communication obstacles lead to critical delays over time. In fact, nearly half of all organizations without UC  clients (48%) at one point have experienced a missed deadline or project delay at least quarterly as a result of 

impeded access to key decision-makers. Although the questionnaire did not quantify these setbacks in dollar terms, it is clear that being cut off from key team members will jeopardize core business operations in the long run.

While many first implement Unified Communications as a simple traditional PBX replacement, current users have begun to integrate additional applications into a Unified Communications platform to advantage of new productivity benefits. Companies are implementing an increasing variety of these Unified Communications applications in more and more areas throughout the workplace, as organizations deploy them for an expanding segment of their workforce. 

UC Application Usage:

Adoption of these value-added Unified Communications applications has moved beyond early adopter status and is entering the mainstream of the Unified Communications applications user base (see of progression is expected over time, and up momentum over the last three years. For example, 42% of organizations surveyed in 2008 have deployed unified messaging, an increase of 8% from 2005 deployment levels.  

Further, 58% of Communications surveyed in 2008 use web conferencing and collaboration, representing an increase of 8% from 2005 levels. While adoption for newer applications like Unified Communications clients (27%) is more modest at this time, adoption has increased (8%) since 2005. It is important to note that these statistics only represent organizations that currently use, trial or plan to deploy IP PBX systems today. Nevertheless, it is clear that many organizations that have deployed IP PBX systems have moved beyond the initial step of basic “dial tone” replacement and are now realizing the benefits of increasingly sophisticated Unified Communications applications on top of these IP platforms. 

 Respondents were screened into this survey based both on current use or trialing of IP PBX systems as well as currently using at least one of the applications indicated with an asterisk.

TelePresence

Presence

Mobile Unified Communications

Unified Communications clients*

Team Portals

Desktop Video Conferencing*

Instant Messaging - Enterprise IM*

Unified Messaging*

Contact Centers

Room-based Video Conferencing*

Web Conferencing & Collaboration*

Unified Communications Applications

While many first implement Unified Communications as a simple traditional PBX replacement, current users have begun to integrate additional applications into a Unified Communications platform to take greater advantage of new productivity benefits. Companies are implementing an increasing variety of these Unified 

in workforce.

Communications applications in more and more areas throughout the workplace, as organizations deploy themThe use of Unified Communications applications is clearly on the rise. By deploying a Unified Communications 

system today (or building upon an existing Unified Communications platform), an organization is not only the groundwork for a new world of potential value from existing applications. The current and potential uses of Unified Communications in the workplace are varied and far example, retail employees can use Unified Communications applications to track and manage product inventory in real time using voice commands over an IP phone. Doctors and nurses in a hospital can gain remote access to patient test results over a Unified Communication case that has just been admitted as they all rush to surgery. 

Teachers can take student attendance and even locate their students anywhere in the building from an IP phone. Once a Unified place, the possibilities for new applications are really wide open.Until now, many organizations have adopted Unified Communications primarily in the name of direct costsavings (e.g., toll bypass and reduced support expenses be demonstrated in this research, the more organizations exploit Unified Communications as a platform for higher-end Unified Communications applications today, the more benefits they experience productivity as well as in direct cost savings.Further, these improvements in productivity result in the optimization of business processes that yield a variety of other business benefits. 

The streamlining of communications within the enterprise made possible byCommunications not only enables greater responsiveness within the enterprise but also outside of it. So, improvements in the ability of employees to reach one another within the organization also occur externally in the form of enhanced reachability of employees by customers. As employees become more accessible to customers, problems are resolved faster, which enhances customer service.

Similarly, in addition to the direct cost savings associated with travel avoidance, an organization’s carbon footprint can be reduced by leveraging Unified Communications applications such as traditional conferencing applications and TelePresence. In the current climate of environmentally organizations deploying Unified Communications a goals and run their businesses as responsible corporate citizens. Finally, future plans for Unified Communications applications strongly suggest that this technology will not only bring operation also provide a real source of competitive advantage in these areas the long run.

The use of Unified Communications applications is clearly on the rise. By deploying a Unified Communications system today (or building upon an existing Unified Communications platform), an organization is not only the groundwork for a new world of potential value-added applications but also enhancing the benefits realized 

The current and potential uses of Unified Communications in the workplace are varied and far, retail employees can use Unified Communications applications to track and manage product inventory in real time using voice commands over an IP phone. Doctors and nurses in a hospital can gain remote access to patient test results over a Unified Communications system or even discuss via a conference bridge a critical 

case that has just been admitted as they all rush to surgery. Teachers can take student attendance and even locate their students anywhere in the building from an IP phone. Once a Unified Communications system is in place, the possibilities for new applications are really wide open.

Until now, many organizations have adopted Unified Communications primarily in the name of direct cost savings (e.g., toll bypass and reduced support expenses by combining voice and data). However, as demonstrated in this research, the more organizations exploit Unified Communications as a platform for end Unified Communications applications today, the more benefits they experience-ivity as well as in direct cost savings.Further, these improvements in productivity result in the optimization of business processes that yield a variety of other business benefits. The streamlining of communications within the enterprise made possible by Communications not only enables greater responsiveness within the enterprise but also outside of it. 

So, improvements in the ability of employees to reach one another within the organization also occur externally in the employees by customers. As employees become more accessible to customers, problems are resolved faster, which enhances customer service.

Similarly, in addition to the direct cost savings associated with travel avoidance, an organization’s carbon print can be reduced by leveraging Unified Communications applications such as traditional conferencing applications and TelePresence. In the current climate of environmentally-friendly corporate governance, organizations deploying Unified Communications applications are better equipped to meet their sustainability goals and run their businesses as responsible corporate citizens. Finally, future plans for Unified Communications applications strongly suggest that this technology will not only bring operation also provide a real source of competitive advantage in these areas the long run.

Cisco Unified Communications uses the network as a platform for collaboration. Applications can be flexibly deployed onsite, on-demand, and in blended deployment models. Inter and Intra company collaboration is facilitated using with a wide array of market-leading solutions:

• Conferencing: Give your workforce compelling, productive, and cost-effective conferencing experiences with high quality voice, video, and web conferencing.
• Customer Care: Get closer to customers, while increasing satisfaction, and loyalty. Proactively connect people with the information, expertise, and support they need.
• IP Communications: Enhance workforce productivity by extending consistent communications services to employees in all workspaces using a full suite of IP communications solutions and endpoints.
• Messaging: Communicate effectively, and with a high level of security, within and between companies. View real-time presence information and communicate using email, instant messaging, and voice mail.
• Mobile Applications: Increase mobile employee productivity and responsiveness to customers while controlling mobile costs by making mobile devices extensions of the enterprise network.