Businesses can’t survive without excellent communication and collaboration.
Team members need to stay connected so that they can share knowledge, work together on complex problems, and keep the company running smoothly. Indeed, 98% of executives believe that lack of communication is the cause behind the biggest failures in their business.
A unified communication or “UC” system provides today’s enterprises with all the tools they need to encourage positive interactions between team members, in a space that’s easy to monitor and manage. However, it can be very difficult for companies to determine which UC strategy they need when there are so many vendors out there claiming that their tools are the best.
The following tips will help you to ensure that you’re choosing the right SME UC system for your needs.
1. Focus on Flexibility
There’s more to selecting a flexible UC system than making sure that you can deploy your technology on a cloud or on-premise environment. Today’s businesses need unified communication stacks that can evolve and adapt according to their needs.
UCaaS – services offered through the cloud – is generally a much more versatile option for companies that want to be able to update their communications strategy at a moment’s notice. However, even if you do opt for a UCaaS vendor, you’ll need to check that the company you’re working with can offer you other forms of flexibility too, such as:
- The ability to add new features and functionality whenever you choose
- The option to remove subscriptions when you don’t need them
- Integrations with other tools that your teams are already using
2. Make Adoption Easy
Unified communications tools can make life a lot easier for the people in your business. These systems ensure that team members can access all of the communication services that they need in the same place, without having to jump between various apps. However, getting used to any new technology – no matter how beneficial, can be a complex experience.
Ensure that your new UC system can make adoption easy for your employees. This could mean looking for a company that’s willing to provide training for your staff members. Alternatively, it could require you to look into UC vendors that offer simple and straightforward user interfaces for your team.
3. Prioritise Security and Compliance
In the age of regulations like GDPR, it’s important to know exactly how data is going to be stored and managed by your communication system. Having an insight into the encryption strategies that your UC provider uses, as well as where your data is going to be stored can ensure that you’re more capable of maintaining compliance in your industry.
If you have particular security and privacy requirements, then you’ll need to look for a UC system that’s customised to suit your needs. For instance, some companies may need their communication data to be stored within data centres in a specific country or region. You may also need a strategy in place that allows you to delete data after it reaches a certain age.
4. Look for Excellent Customer Support
The UC system that you choose needs to come with plenty of support from your chosen vendor. This includes things like file backup and storage for when you need to protect yourself against loss and damage. Most UC solutions come with some kind of file storage strategy that keeps your information secure on the cloud for when you need it later.
You may also need to check whether your UC system comes with things like remote management tools that allow you to add users as your company grows and disable or enable permissions at a moment’s notice. The more control you have, the safer your company will be.
5. Make Sure it’s Future Proof
Finally, when choosing the ideal UC solution for your SME, it’s crucial to think not just about the tools that you need now, but the things that you might want to explore in the future too. Does your UC provider have investments in things like AI or 5G mobility if you decide that you want to give your employees more mobile capabilities?
Just because you’re not ready to embrace certain kinds of technology straight away doesn’t mean that you won’t want the option in the future. Make sure that you can update and enhance your UC experience as you go. That way, you don’t have to worry about your UC stack becoming outdated in the next few years.
