Unified Communications (UCaaS): Collaboration Tools in a World of “Business-As-Unusual” 

Since the dawn of Star Trek and The Jetsons, we’ve been told how video-based collaboration would be “the next big thing”. All of a sudden, here we are. 

Driven by a pandemic, we have fundamentally changed the way we communicate. 

The last year and a half have been uniquely challenging for businesses of every size and stripe. New technologies have rushed to the forefront, redefining how we work daily. 

We have seen an explosion in the adoption of video and web collaboration tools, going from the fringe to nice-to-have to must-have in a matter of months. Specifically, we have watched as Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other collaboration tools have become pervasive across dozens of industries. 

A few years ago, the idea of a judge presiding over a trial conducted entirely by video conference seemed unfathomable; today, it’s a regular occurrence. And while you could get a pass in the early days of the pandemic for accidentally joining a Zoom trial with a cat filter over your face, today, that would not be looked on so favorably. We are all expected to know better, especially in the workplace. 

But not every business has thoroughly examined the productivity, security, and value implications of these tools. 

See More: 5 Ways Containerized Session Border Controllers Improve UCaaS

We believe every company should be asking themselves: How can I best take advantage of these tools? How can I maintain the safety and security that my industry and business demand? And what does the proliferation of these collaboration tools suggest about the future of work? 

What Is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)?

UCaaS stands for unified communications as a service, referring to subscription-based voice, video, chat, and online collaboration tools. 

The underlying promise of unified communications is this: anyone can communicate from almost any device, at any time, in any fashion (voice, video, or text). From a business perspective, this is an important concept to grasp. UCaaS not only includes video collaboration but many other important tools as well. 

In the recent past, it was common for our partners and clients to opt into just a fraction of these technology services (e.g., phone service only). Today, almost every client takes the entire unified communications feature set, whether they’re a global private equity firm (5,000 users) or a local urgent care clinic (5 users). 

Led by Webex, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, UCaaS tools now play a critical role in supporting daily business operations, enabling easy document sharing, communication, and collaboration. 

UCaaS: Workspace of the Future Productivity Opportunities

In the “old days” (a few years ago), unified communications tools typically functioned as plugins for other applications, such as Salesforce. Today, these UCaaS tools increasingly serve as the primary workspace, with hundreds of plugins for specific industries: financial services, telehealth, legal services, and beyond. 

As these tools take hold, they are fast becoming the workspace of the future, gradually pushing the desktop to the side. While we previously stored files and folders on our computers or network shares, many organizations are now storing them in Webex spaces, Teams groups, and Slack channels. 

The more specialized the plugin, the greater the opportunity for efficiency. Consider iManage, a document management system with a substantial following in the legal community. Now, users can search iManage documents in Teams, content from iManage can be included in Teams communications, and Teams conversations can be filed to iManage workspaces. 

Or imagine being a lawyer and having a web conference with a client. At the close of the conference, the video recording and transcript are automatically saved to the content management system. The length of the conversation is rounded to the nearest 15-minute increment and entered as a billing record. 

We now have tools that perform automatic transcription and even live translation. In fact, you can now have English, German, and French speakers talking natively to one another and reading their collaborators’ comments in their language of choice, all in real-time.

Some of these advances were scarcely fathomed five years ago, yet industry by industry, these new technologies have begun to take root and introduce new efficiencies. 

UCaaS Security Concerns

Ten years ago, secure end-to-end encryption for voice and video communications was the stuff of Spy vs. Spy. Today, it’s not only a daily occurrence: it is a requirement for many regulated industries. 

When Zoom suddenly and rapidly became ubiquitous in early 2020, functionality was prioritized over security. But researchers quickly discovered it had serious security problems, particularly regarding encryption weakness and server locations (many in China, even when meetings were held entirely within North America). This gave pause to those considering Zoom in regulated industries such as finance and healthcare and alarmed those in other sensitive industries, as it meant that the Chinese government or other malicious actors could gain access to protected information. 

Thankfully, many of these security gaps have since been filled in, thanks to massive software development investment: Microsoft’s CEO quipped that the first two months of COVID-19 inspired the equivalent of 2 years of software development. 

In fact, unified communications are now more secure than the channels we were accustomed to previously. Consider the humble phone line, which can be tapped or eavesdropped upon. Conversely, the end-to-end encryption (E2EE) found in all unified communications tools makes such interception nearly impossible. 

Will My Team Use It?

As fantastic as these technology breakthroughs may be on paper, ultimately, what matters is that they work in the real world. 

There must be adoption by people and integration with the applications, systems, processes, and procedures that make your business operate. 

But how do you meld these tools into daily operations? How do you use these tools to drive additional efficiencies and opportunities? 

In our experience, we can attest that people naturally gravitate toward the tools that make their lives simpler. Although the initial learning phase can sometimes feel burdensome, the eventual productivity gains, increased efficiency, and greater reach inevitably improve daily workflow and lead to sustained adoption. 

In many cases, employees need to build familiarity and confidence in UCaaS functionality. While most businesses have adopted features like video calls, screen share, and on-screen markup, fewer are capitalizing upon or have considered the organizational benefits of transcription, translation, document sharing, and other integrations. 

As we move forward, integrations will continue to get tighter and tighter. These efficiencies increase productivity, which creates a competitive advantage. In other words: done properly, UCaaS tools should be margin-drivers and more than pay for themselves. 

Justifying UCaaS Costs 

Other than concerns surrounding adoption, the main objection regarding unified communications is that it’s too expensive. Sometimes we even hear the myth that the costs of sophisticated technology only benefit the biggest companies. But implemented correctly, UCaaS shouldn’t be a cost; in fact, ROI should be rapid. 

Consider this: if a UCaaS tool costs you $40/month per user, and a typical employee earns a $60,0000 salary ($5,000 monthly), how hard would it be to unlock $40 of additional monthly productivity from that person’s time? How much of their time is spent driving, futzing around on the desktop, or otherwise performing mindless, manual tasks that a plugin could perform instead? If your technology partner can’t make a case for this or help you spot these opportunities, they’re doing it wrong. 

With a technology partner who understands your business, you can and should quickly realize significant gains, avoid potential equipment issues, and put an end to inefficient processes. 

Choosing a Technology Partner for UCaaS Implementation 

Choosing the right partner means looking beyond the solution you’re looking to implement: how well does the prospective partner know my business? How would UCaaS integrate with your other systems? What downstream impacts could occur?

Sadly, there are a lot of traditional IT and telecom companies who sell their system and walk out the door without solving for the productivity opportunities: have they set up call analytics? Can you click to dial from Outlook, Salesforce, or Dynamics CRM? 

That level of care is where the difference lies in a partner. That’s also your greatest opportunity for ROI: choosing a partner who understands not just the UCaaS solution itself but also invests in how that solution fits into and integrates with everything else your business needs. 

Many companies have a sales process laden with inefficiencies: look up an account in Salesforce, pick up the phone, dial the phone, wait. If it takes you 5 seconds to dial a number, you dial 20 times a day, plus time in between dials and lookups, you’re likely losing a half-hour per agent a day. 

Even for a $15/hour employee, this alone would amount to nearly $8 per day in lost value (and $160 per month). So where did that $40 argument go? 

What Does Your Business Need?

It’s tragically common for technology companies to start with a “box”, and attempt to fit every customer into it. You’re not a pigeon, so they should not pigeonhole you. 

Our focus should be on the human side of technology and how to improve the real-world, day-to-day reality of running your business. Does that mean showing you how to prioritize internet bandwidth from home so you can conduct important business while your child plays Xbox? No problem. That’s the attention to detail you should expect from a technology partner. 

We believe that no technology partner should tell you which tools to use until they have spent the time necessary to learn the intricacies of your business. Only then can we make recommendations, drive the implementation, and get you to the end of the road where the value shines. 

Summary of UCaaS Benefits

• Industry-specific efficiencies: Rapidly evolving integrations can offer powerful, industry-specific solutions, realizing more productivity and value. 
• Unparalleled flexibility: UCaaS tools are designed to work from a computer, phone, or tablet, for a more flexible, enjoyable, and ultimately more productive work experience. 
• Security: Unlike phone lines and other legacy communications tools, UCaaS tools offer the gold standard in security: end-to-end encryption. 
• Low cost: The per-employee cost of UCaaS tools, when thoughtfully implemented, is rapidly justified in ROI. This is generally true regardless of company size. 
• Extended geographic reach: By “flattening” the workplace, employees across states, time zones, and even continents can collaborate effectively in real-time. 
• Lowered language barriers: Live translation integration can facilitate collaboration across more than 100 languages for unprecedented collaboration potential.

See More: How SD-WAN Drives UCaaS in a Cloud-First World

Conclusion

In many ways, this new era of business-as-unusual is here to stay. While organizations across most industries will undoubtedly enjoy greater flexibility, efficiencies, and convenience, they must also overcome the new challenges that change inevitably bring. 

Companies that capitalize on the margin-driving benefits of technologies like UCaaS stand to benefit in their market. Those who are slow to adapt or adapt insufficiently due to the wrong technology partner will likely suffer accordingly. 

Savvy business owners should pay particular attention to the industry-specific solutions from which they stand to benefit and see these business-as-unusual trends for what they are: the future of work. 

What benefits have you seen by incorporating UCaaS in your organization? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

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