UC End User Productivity: How End Users are Finding Value from Unified Communications

Unified Communications (UC) has been changing the way we communicate, collaborate, and get our work done; affecting the productivity and effectiveness of individual workers, workgroups, and companies, sometimes in surprising ways. UC has integrated disparate communication methodologies, such as voice messaging and video, and introduced new ways of working, such as using presence to determine if someone is available before calling them or sending an instant message (IM).

UCStrategies.com defines Unified Communications as "Communications integrated to optimize business processes." UC integrates real-time communications (such as voice or telephony) and non-real time communications (such as messaging) with business processes and requirements based on presence capabilities, thus presenting a consistent unified user interface and experience across multiple devices and media types. Although a relatively new market, Unified Communications has been embraced by early adopters who understand the benefits it provides to individual workers and how it helps companies optimize their business processes.

How have these early adopters reacted to these new tools? Has UC simply embellished the way that they work, or fundamentally changed their work habits? How has UC impacted the organizations in which they work? This paper draws from recent research conducted on end-user productivity benefits of unified communications and shows what the effects of UC have been on end users, and ultimately their organizations.