In a world that’s constantly becoming ever-more connected, organisations around the world are beginning to explore the benefits of a single, unified solution for their communication and collaboration strategy. UC&C refers to a comprehensive set of tools today’s brands can use to improve productivity and efficiency in the workplace by allowing for quicker, more efficient communication. With UC&C, mid-market companies can overcome the silos in communication and connect staff through video, voice, instant messaging and more.
While the idea of UC&C is simple enough, in theory, finding the right strategy to make all your systems work together in harmony can be harder than it seems. If you want to ensure that your UC&C solution empowers your staff rather than holding them back in the throes of confusion and overwhelm, then you need the right strategy. These three tips are sure to help:
Tip 1: Focus on Supporting your Users
Even if you have a business full of digital nomads, you can rest assured that the switch from legacy equipment to UC&C strategies is going to take some time to get used to. With that in mind, it’s important to make adoption as easy as possible for everyone in your enterprise. Here are a few principles to think about:
- Training: While some of the people in your company might be able to pick up on your new UC&C system without help, others will need support to make sure that they’re getting the most out of the technology. A little bit of guidance can go a long way to ensuring company-wide adoption of new tech.
- Standard configurations: While it’s tempting to jump in at the deep end with complex and advanced technology for your UC&C scenarios, it’s often a better idea to introduce new things slowly, with plenty of guidance for those who need it.
- Troubleshooting guides: Make sure that your support staff is ready to offer help when something goes wrong with your UC&C system. If you don’t have support staff, ask your vendor how they might be able to help.
Tip 2: Put Security First
A stronger communication and collaboration strategy couldn’t come at the expense of business privacy or security. That means that before you implement any new technology, you should be working alongside your company’s security team to figure out how you can keep your system safe from day one. Do your research to find out which issues might influence the way you deploy your UC environment. For instance, you might want your workers to be able to access your UC&C services on the cloud, but you don’t want them to log in from insecure environments.
In part, keeping your UC&C solution as secure as possible will be a process that involves teaching your employees how to use the new technology you’re giving them as safely as possible. However, encryption, firewalls, and security from a reliable vendor that knows how to protect its customers can go a long way towards giving you and your customers peace of mind.
Tip 3: Concentrate on Business Outcomes
Finally, make sure that you don’t implement any new UC&C technology just for the sake of it. While it can be exciting to invest in the latest tools on the market, any advancement is only profitable if it can directly support your business outcomes. Keeping an eye on the needs of your users and your organisational goals is a great way to keep your UC&C deployment strategy on track. A few of the things you can focus on are:
- Employee engagement and retention: Which tools will make staff lives easier, so you can keep your talent happy and dedicated to your team? The more comfortable your people feel in your organisation thanks to access to the right tools, the more productive they become.
- Risk protection: Can you implement tools to protect yourself from dangers like fraud, cyber attacks, and privacy problems? A safer business is a stronger business in the long-term.
- Value: In the mid-market, your UC&C solution should unlock value by streamlining operations, helping your team to accomplish more, and subsequently promoting better customer interactions.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to UC&C implementation, a good strategy can help to ensure that you get a great ROI.