Unified communications, the secret to improved collaboration and information dissemination?

Unified communications meet a growing need to communicate efficiently and rapidly within a company, sometimes in real time and at a distance.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a manager or an employee: whatever your position or hierarchical level, you can't afford to miss this dimension of your work. Without efficient communication, collaboration and productivity are impossible!

By centralizing all a company's means of communication on a single platform, with a single interface (thank you, Internet!), communication is streamlined and the number of tools used limited.

Tired of juggling chat, email, telephone and videoconferencing? Are you a multi-site company with mobile employees? Are you looking for the Swiss army knife of internal communications?

We invite you to discover what unified communication is, what's at stake and a selection of solutions adapted to small and medium-sized businesses.

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Unified communications: definition

Unified communication refers to all the tools used by a company to enable employees to communicate and collaborate more easily. We often hear this concept referred to in the plural, derived from unified communications (UC).

But the notion of unified communications goes beyond simply exchanging information between collaborators via dedicated solutions. It also implies :

• easy access to different communication channels, regardless of where the employee is located (teleworking from home, for example) or what medium he or she is using (computer, tablet, smartphone),
• interconnection of the various channels used, so as to have all the necessary means of communication without multiplying the tools,
• the unification of synchronous (real time, like a phone call) and asynchronous (different times, like email) communications.

💡 The revolution in traditional corporate telephony, thanks to cloud telephony technology, is at the root of the emergence of unified communications. Discover all the benefits offered by this type of solution with our White Paper Why you should switch to cloud telephony? The 9 key benefits, co-written with Ubefone.

The different channels of unified communication

Several communication channels can be brought together under a common interface, thanks to a web solution, and accessed from different terminals (workstation, smartphone, tablet):

• Voice and video communications (synchronous) :
  • IP telephony,
  • videoconferencing,
  • audio conferencing, etc.
    
    
• Written communications (often asynchronous):
  • email,
  • SMS,
  • instant messaging or chat, etc.
    
    
• Collaborative work tools :
  • project management software,
  • document management and sharing solutions
  • shared diaries, etc.
    
    
• Social networks, whether :
  • public (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
  • or internal (corporate social networks).
    
    
• Real-time presence and occupation monitoring (status indicating whether the employee is available, occupied or absent).

We can see that 4 major dimensions are thus taken into account:

• voice,
• messaging
• conferencing,
• video.

As you can see, unified communication and collaborative working tools can share many common features. In fact, an electronic document management (EDM) platform, or a corporate social network (CSN), can include chat functionality, for example.

Similarly, unified communications can be found in call center technologies, via automatic SMS or e-mail messaging, or interactive voice response.

The benefits of unified communications

Benefits for the company

The advantages of unified communication are numerous, and include :

• a single tool for managing internal communications,
• increased productivity, thanks to time savings in meetings, travel and document retrieval,
• encourage mobile working, telecommuting and exchanges for multi-site companies,
• eliminate the need for telephone equipment,
• reduce telephony costs (consumption) and collaborative solutions,
• track or retrieve conversations easily,
• attract and retain talent,
• communicate with external customers and service providers.
• facilitate adoption of the tool by employees and managers (intuitive use).

Benefits for employees

Thanks to unified communications, the employee experience and working comfort are enhanced:

• simplified distribution, information sharing and collaboration,
• better organization of working time, thanks to statuses that allow you to make yourself available or not, depending on your concentration needs,
• use of any type of computer terminal,
• telecommuting and mobility.

How do you switch to unified communications?

The transition to unified communications must first and foremost consider the adoption of these new solutions and processes by employees. To achieve this, the project needs to be communicated well in advance, to demonstrate its merits and the various benefits it will bring.

In addition, end-users need to be trained in order to ensure that they are fully and easily up to speed with their new working tools.

Then you need to find the right unified communications software for your needs, objectives and business structure. To make your choice easier, here's a selection of cloud solutions for unified communications.

Unified communications cloud solutions

We're going to focus here on communications software tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, because it meets their needs for interconnection, agility and responsiveness, the main challenges of unified communications.

A unified communications platform can be installed internally within the company, or accessed in the cloud via a web browser. These are known as UCaaS solutions: Unified Communications as a Service.

To make sure you're fully informed before deploying a solution, we present the SaaS market leaders, as well as alternative platforms worth discovering.

Our database includes many other cross-functional communication and collaboration software solutions. Don't hesitate to consult it.

The American giants

Skype for business, online calls and meetings

Skype for business is the corporate version of the software used in many homes to make free calls. It does, however, require the purchase of credits for calls made to landlines or mobiles.

Features include video conferencing (up to 250 participants), document sharing, VoIP calls and instant messaging.

Note: as an American solution, be careful about protecting your data. Indeed, data hosted by an American company is subject to the American Cloud Act and not to the RGPD.

Slack, chat and document sharing

Slack's primary vocation is to eliminate the use of email and to mutualize several communication tools on a single platform, to carry out exchanges in real time.

It is primarily a chat solution for sharing documents, with conversations organized in discussion chains (or threads). The software integrates and synchronizes with other tools such as Twitter, Google Drive, Dropbox, Asana, GitHub, Zendesk, Mailchimp, Trello, Skype, Nagios, Google +, Facebook, etc.

Note: ditto, U.S.-based solution, so be careful about protecting your data.

A few alternatives to discover

FrontApp, unified messaging

Front is a French start-up based in the USA. This unified communications platform is designed to facilitate the collaborative management of corporate messaging.

All communication channels-email, chat, social media, SMS, voicemail-are centralized in a single inbox. And it's interoperable with your business tools (project management, CRM). However, it does not offer VoIP calls.

Note: idem, solution based in the USA, be careful about data protection.

Ringover, corporate telephony and much more

Ringover is an all-in-one communications solution, aimed particularly at SMEs. While the software is perfectly suited to corporate telephony (international numbers, virtual numbers, etc.) and call center management (priority queues, call groups, etc.), it is also an excellent tool for unified corporate communications. With features such as videoconferencing, instant messaging and screen sharing, it contributes to team collaboration and productivity.

Ringover can be integrated with a wide range of business tools, such as your CRM or Helpdesk solution.

Spoka, the new French UC platform

Specially designed for small businesses, start-ups and freelancers, Spoka has been developed by three specialists in telecoms, IT and networks: Arkadin, NTT and Cisco.

A good alternative to Skype for Business, the solution offers a new way of working and communicating thanks to Spoka Connect, a package combining cloud telephony (Spoka Talk) with a unified communications tool.

The latter includes instant messaging (chat), persistent messaging (discussion threads, document sharing, etc.) and collaboration tools such as online meetings and screen sharing.

Talkspirit, the French corporate social network

Talkspirit deserves a mention here as an internal communications and collaboration platform. It does not offer VoIP calls, but its functionalities can meet unified communications needs.

It offers a social network for structured exchanges and collaborative work, with document sharing, and chat for instant communication and conviviality. Not to mention audio and video conferencing and shared calendars.

Comparison table

See all software Telephony

Fluidity, efficiency, speed

As you've seen, unified communications is a vast field, encompassing all kinds of services that primarily facilitate internal communication.

The larger your company grows, the more it will need advanced collaborative solutions, integrating, for example, your CRM tools, a social network or more advanced document management.
For small and medium-sized businesses, unified communication is initially a real asset, enabling them to continue to develop in a coherent, team-oriented way.

The future? According to a 2017 study by IDC (International Data Corporation), the use of UC&C technologies (collaboration and unified communications solutions) will reach 88% in 2019.