And my first two posts in this series I provided an overview of Cloud UC, the associated deployment models and the compelling economics.  In this post I will cover the expanded capabilities that moving to a Cloud UC solution can deliver.  These features are most profound for:

• Small businesses that often want to appear big
• Enterprises comprised of a high number of knowledge workers working in disparate locations where the prospect of communications lag represents a substantive productivity drag
• Businesses with a large percentage of mobile workers, again, seeking to overcome latency in communications and the associated productivity drag

 
Though I am impressed by frequently offered Cloud UC features such as “Voice-to-Text” transcription, "Find Me-Follow Me" intelligent call routing, dedicated and temporary conference bridges as well as HD Voice quality, the most compelling capabilities I've seen from Cloud UC standpoint are:

• EASY-TO-USE IVR AND CONTACT CENTER FEATURES - For example, a small plumbing company of 20 employees can look very professional with these features. There's no need to have a dedicated operator to answer the phone and announce “Joe, it’s for you on line one.” Instead, an IVR tree is set up very easily to route calls efficiently. As such this fictional company can have calls routed to Sales, Field Service, Billing and other functions all handled efficiently. Further, the IVR can even help delineate between commercial and residential needs to further improve the process. All of this makes a small company look much more sophisticated (and from a customer standpoint is much easier to do business with).
• ON THE ROAD AGAIN – Being able to seamlessly extend UC features such as presence, company directory, chat and more onto mobile devices whether they be smart phones, tablets, or laptops is critical to ensure productivity. In December 2012, Sonus commissioned a study via Webtorials which found that approximately two-thirds of all enterprise knowledge workers are mobile at least 25% of the time.  Further, the lack of offsite UC capabilities often creates a substantial “productivity gap” between mobile and onsite workers which, conservatively estimated, results in a productivity loss of 2.5 hours per week per employee (translating to roughly $5,000 per employee per year). The most advanced UC Cloud providers have exceptional tools to provide seamless access to their UC tool suite regardless of location.
• KNOWLEDGE WORKER PRODUCTIVTY DRAIN - Environments with a high concentration of knowledge workers can benefit from advanced UC capabilities for collaboration and real-time collaboration purposes including video. These features become even more important as you try to knit together an organization between headquarters or regional office facility and branch office or home office locations.   In a separate study conducted by Webtorials, Sonus revealed that enterprise knowledge workers can gain an hour of productivity per day through more efficient business communications.  With easy-to-use, intuitive interfaces, many of the Cloud UC providers have set themselves apart by bringing leading edge productivity UC tools into companies of all sizes at a price point previously unattainable.
• CLICK-TO-CONNECT - Easy to deploy plug-ins on many Cloud UC platforms enable ‘click-to-connect’ capabilities in those software environments where users work each day – whether it be the Microsoft Office suite, salesforce.com, NetSuite and many more.  Such UC capabilities bring forward a whole new level collaboration without the heavy integration requirements associated with premise-based solutions.

 
When coupled with significant cost savings ranging from 40-60%, these added capabilities are typically available in an easy-to-deploy, simple-to-use type package  which make the transition to Cloud UC especially appealing.
 
In my next and final post on this topic I will address common myths, mistakes and challenges when deploying Cloud UC.  Thanks for reading.