Photo by mwangi gatheca on Unsplash

Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) as a technology has unquestionable perks for productivity. In some cases, a good UC&C implementation leads to new revenue streams, a goal that sits high on every CEO’s agenda, yet many are reluctant to take the plunge. The reason itself is surprising.

Business leaders are regarded as anything but fearsome, but when it comes to investing in new technologies, many executives start to get cold feet. In a whitepaper titled Build a Better Business Case for UC, research firm Forrester offers a list of fears reported by the C-suite at 133 enterprises across the US and Europe regarding implementing UC services. Here it is below (complete with our own observations):

• 53% of decision makers considered the technology too expensive, despite UC’s long proved “side effects” of slashing costs and boosting operations
• 44% reported that their IT culture was nos conducive enough, which says a lot about the cohesion between departments at some companies
• 32% said their business processes were too complex to make friends with UC, but the technology is so versatile it can support not hundreds, but thousands of users in scenarios that haven’t even been born
• 26% looked at the technology and concluded that it wasn’t mature enough, although the biggest (real) problem UC faces today is that it is, in fact, ahead of its time
• another 26% believe UC poses security and privacy challenges, an irrelevant topic when making the comparison with outdated legacy PBX systems
• finally, 23% consider UC vendors are not mature enough (a data point that varies heavily from vendor to vendor)

One aspect stands out like coffee stains on a white rug: fear is actually the #1 concern when UC comes into play, not UC itself as a technology. The reason why this is happening, as we noted on previous occasions, is lack of education among business leaders. A brief lesson regarding the technicalities is a must have for every organization stepping into the UC realm. This usually falls in the lap of IT departments but, again, the vicious circle is perpetuated by a lack of understanding at this level as well.

However, UC vendors and service providers alike have long taken stance and provide training to their partners and end-users alike. For our part, here at 4PSA we hold partner & customer meetups on a regular basis, ensuring that our customers not only understand VoipNow, but that they also make the most of it for maximum productivity and profitability.

UC is arguably the best thing to happen to communications since the invention of the telephone itself. The real kicker? It’s actually cheaper (in the long run) to take the plunge than to refuse to grow with the times.