There\u2019s more to maintaining crucial business connections today than making the occasional phone call or sending an email. Businesses have access to everything from immersive web-based conferencing tools to video communication, instant chat and more.<\/span><\/p>\n To truly understand UCaaS, you first need to understand unified communications (UC).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications <\/b><\/a>refers to the unified framework that companies use to combine various forms of real-time and asynchronous communication. UC delivers an interconnected system of enterprise devices and software solutions, from video conferencing to email and fax.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\t RingCentral Office\u00ae offers a complete unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution with enterprise VoIP capabilities.<\/p>\r\n\t\t\tLearn more<\/a>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n For years, the communications system of the average company consisted of two crucial parts. First, there was the business phone system, complete with a few basic features like call recording and routing. Besides the phone system was email, allowing for digital communication through the rise of the internet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, as time went on and technology evolved, we began to discover new and improved ways of connecting. Calls became more streamlined and efficient thanks to advancements like VoIP technology, and we learned how to send new media over the web, like video and instant messages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Over time, companies discovered that if they wanted to access the best communication stack, they needed a way of bringing all the tools that they used together into a single, easy-to-manage environment. UC ensures that today\u2019s users don\u2019t need to jump between applications to access video, messaging, and audio calls. At the same time, from an IT perspective, there are fewer tools to keep track of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications providers<\/span><\/a> give today\u2019s businesses a cost-effective and efficient way to rein in the complexities of a communication stack, with convenient solutions for various modes of conversation. UC is easy to set up, brimming with scalability, and packed full of simplicity for modern businesses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications definitions are constantly evolving as new technology enters the UC landscape. When UC first emerged in the marketplace, it combined essential tools like voice, messaging, email, and fax into the same platform. Now, the majority of UC systems also include access to things like video conferencing and collaboration tools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To fully understand how unified communication works, it\u2019s worth noting that the average UC solution is comprised of client and server-side components. The server-side or application server component can be offered as a cloud-based unified communications solution, or traditional on-site IT solution. On the back-end, most unified communications tools will include features like:<\/span><\/p>\n User-facing tools of a UC system include:<\/span><\/p>\n Collaboration tools have quickly emerged as a vital part of many UC environments these days, as collaboration and UC tools often overlap. Collaboration tools often come with access to communication features like team chat and video conferencing. Additionally, UC can also overlap with contact centre offerings too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\t Get the complete video and audio conferencing solution included with RingCentral Office<\/p>\r\n\t\t\tStart a free trial<\/a>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n Unified Communications integrates multiple forms of real-time and asynchronous communication. UC providers give their clients an opportunity to replace old-fashioned voice-centric private branch exchange (PBX) systems<\/a> with unified communications systems to allow for a single point of management for all of their communications initiatives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications environments are supported by one, or multiple back-end systems or platforms that allow for integration among various services. For your UC strategy to work seamlessly, your platforms need to allow you to access and potentially integrate all forms of communication within your landscape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For instance, within a UC environment, you would access VoIP for your audio and video conferencing technologies. Your web conferencing system might make use of an audio-conferencing environment, which is also built on an IP telephony platform. Additionally, your unified messaging platform client would allow for things like click-to-chat and click-to-talk functionality by integrating with that IP platform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications also allows business users to jump from one method of communication to another in the same conversation. For instance, you can start communicating via email, but then click a button in your email client to access a video conference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The components of unified communications systems can be deployed in a range of environments, from on-premise solutions to private or public cloud environments. Cloud-based UC offerings are otherwise known as UCaaS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n By giving today\u2019s users the power to collaborate and communicate in a more intuitive way, unified communications can do everything from improving employee productivity to enhancing collaboration in the workforce. The demand for UC is constantly growing, with a market size expected to <\/span>reach $167.1 billion by 2025<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here are just some of the major benefits of switching to a unified communications environment:<\/span><\/p>\n While all businesses have the opportunity to benefit from UC, the advantages can be particularly significant for smaller companies. Unified communications offers plenty of opportunities for smaller organisations to reduce costs and accelerate performance at the same time. You can integrate all of your systems into a singular comms platform, and therefore reduce the strain on your IT team. Additionally, by bringing all your communications into the same platform, you reduce your need to pay multiple bills for your technology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, like any transformational strategy for a small business, the path to UC will be smoother when it comes paired with the right strategy. This is where your communications revolution begins.<\/span><\/p>\n A good first step for any digital project is deciding what you want to accomplish with your new strategy. When it comes to implementing UC technology, you might want to decide whether your focus is on streamlining your current communications stack or accessing new technology. Maybe you want to reduce costs and eliminate some of the bottlenecks in the efficiency of your workforce?<\/span><\/p>\n Deciding what you want to accomplish from day one will help you to work with a vendor to create a plan that can work for your needs. At the same time, you\u2019ll be able to successfully track the results of your new UC implementation and determine whether you\u2019re moving in the right direction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The thought of implementing a new communications strategy can be daunting to any business. However, smaller businesses can find the process a lot more difficult \u2013 particularly when they don\u2019t have a great deal of technical support in-house. If you\u2019re not sure how to transform your technology into a new UC environment, then you\u2019re going to need a vendor that can help you to make the migration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The right vendor, like RingCentral, will guide you through the steps involved in implementing unified communications technology. They\u2019ll also help you to decide how you want to access your new UC solution \u2013 whether it\u2019s on the cloud, on-premise, or in a hybrid combination of both solutions. With the right vendor, you can access everything from specialist support and provisioning to expert knowledge and training.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even with professional support from unified communications providers to guide you every step of the way, you might find that your team needs some time to get used to the new unified communications tech stack. Make sure that you put enough time aside in your deployment strategy to help people experiment with the technology and explore the benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Choosing a unified communications platform that\u2019s built with simplicity in mind will help to ease some of the adoption woes that companies can encounter when choosing new tech. Make sure that your UC platform is built with user experience (UX) in mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Call management, conferencing, HD video meetings, and team messaging in one collaborative solution.<\/p>\r\n\t\t\tLearn more<\/a>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is the new and improved way to provision unified communications technology. Taking advantage of the software as a service (SaaS) strategy, UCaaS allows businesses of all sizes to access all the <\/span>benefits of unified communications through the cloud<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like UC, UCaaS means that you can integrate all of your communications requirements into the same platform, through a cloud vendor. However, unlike other deployment methods, you also get all the scalability and flexibility of a cloud platform too. This means that companies can quickly and easily expand their communications technology with new features, ranging from call routing and video conferencing, to artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cloud-based unified communications solutions remove the stress and headaches that come from implementing a UC strategy on-premise. With a cloud solution, you can access all the software that you need instantly, and immediately upgrade or downgrade your system according to your individual needs. UCaaS features can include everything from presence technology and enterprise messaging, to video conferencing, and more. Additionally, many UCaaS vendors are quickly adding communication platform as a service (CPaaS) capability and application programming interfaces (APIs) into their cloud platforms too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UCaaS, like most <\/span>cloud-based solutions for communication<\/span><\/a>, is evolving at an incredible pace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Today\u2019s companies, no matter their background or size, know that if they want to compete and succeed in the modern landscape, they need flexible and adaptive solutions for communication. The one-size-fits-all stack simply doesn\u2019t apply anymore. Legacy unified communications systems are quickly being phased out by people in search of the flexibility of cloud.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to Gartner,\u00a0 by 2021 will be cloud-based and UCaaS, having risen from only 50% in 2018. Already, countless companies are using UCaaS in some way to help them drive their strategy for digital transformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UCaaS was a natural evolution from the UC environment. While in some unified communications deployments, businesses were able to access some of the technology that they needed through the cloud, many companies started to recognise the benefits of having everything from communication to collaboration running through that same OPEX strategy. The cloud-based strategy for unified communications secures the single-pane-of-glass experience that modern companies are looking for while lowering costs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, UCaaS offers both security and reliability in the modern landscape by creating performance redundancies to protect against downtime. In a world that\u2019s more competitive than ever, companies can\u2019t afford to deal with sudden downtime issues. However, because UCaaS backs data up over the cloud, it can keep businesses running even in complex situations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Going forward, it\u2019s likely that the demand for UCaaS will continue to grow, particularly as new technology appears on the marketplace. The continued rise of distributed and mobile working combined with the growing need to collaborate across global boundaries means that on-premise solutions simply won\u2019t be suitable anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n As-a-service solutions will give companies the flexibility they need to evolve to suit a changing workforce and a more demanding customer base.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the major transformations that businesses have seen in the UCaaS environment over the last couple of years has been an evolution from UC to UC&C. In other words, companies aren\u2019t just looking for communications anymore, they want collaboration too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications as a service solution, built with collaboration tools baked in, allow today\u2019s businesses to access all of the tools they need for a more streamlined and efficient internal workforce. That\u2019s something that\u2019s becoming increasingly important in the age of remote working, where diversified teams present both opportunities and challenges to any company.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the average workplace, UCaaS enables everything from video to instant messaging (IM) and presence tools, desktop sharing, audio conferencing, and more. As businesses continue to embrace the era of integration and interoperability, many UCaaS solutions also come with the option to bake in third-party tools. For instance, RingCentral Glip is a natural part of the UCaaS environment from RingCentral, bringing teams together from around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With RingCentral Glip, users can chat in real-time, using text, video or voice to connect around the world. At the same time, they can create and manage tasks within their workplace, share screens during online meetings, and work seamlessly on the go with mobile applications. Additionally, RingCentral offers integrations with apps like Box, Asana, BitBucket, and dozens of other alternatives so that team members can pull all of the different aspects of their workday into the same environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Unified communications and collaboration tools on the cloud are likely to grow increasingly valuable in the new decade, as mobile workforces continue to grow. By the end of this year (2020), International Data Corporation predicts that mobile workers will make up around <\/span>75% of the total workforce in the US<\/span><\/a>. UCaaS solutions with collaboration tools built in will mean that employees on the go can not only access business phone system tools, but can also connect with their team members wherever they are on the cloud.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UCaaS and collaboration tools allow members from different teams to review and change documents, spreadsheets, and projects, from wherever they are, with access to mobile applications and services that adapt according to their individual needs. As business models change, organisational teams and departments can even be trained as a group at the same time using UCaaS, so the whole workforce remains cohesive. After all, if everyone in your team knows how to use the same tools and knowledge to complete their tasks, companies run more smoothly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Businesses of all sizes and backgrounds are beginning to turn to UCaaS to reduce the operational and capital expenses associated with deploying their own UC service. UCaaS takes the stress and legwork out of building, upgrading, and servicing your in-house communications platform. It gives organisations a communications infrastructure that can handle an ever-changing need for on-demand voice, chat, video, SMS, analytics, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As integrations and APIs become more popular, UCaaS can even open the door to build-your-own communications strategies that integrate everything a company needs from end-to-end productivity. That means that businesses of all sizes can access best-of-breed technology from every environment to suit their needs. With UCaaS, you can:<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Improve knowledge sharing<\/b><\/p>\n The silo effect in workforces is a common phenomenon for many businesses today. As companies evolve to embrace more remote and mobile working strategies, it\u2019s common for gaps to appear in knowledge-sharing environments. However, UCaaS upgrades and consolidates communications strategies into a single source to improve how team members work together. This drastically improves the workplace and removes the bottlenecks that stifle work and communication flows. Through UCaaS, employees can instantly share and access information on any device, from any environment. You can share screens from your home computer, access whiteboard information on your smartphone, or jump into a video conference at the touch of a button.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UCaaS empowers the mobilised workforce in a number of ways. Not only does this technology deliver new opportunities for remote workers, but it also means that it\u2019s easier for people to communicate when they\u2019re on-the-go as frontline or field workers. For instance, a field worker can tap into a video conferencing tool to share contextual information about a topic they need help with from their team members. This can lead to the faster resolution of issues on-the-spot. At the same time, the mobility offered by UCaaS technology means that organisations can better attract talent from around the world. Your business can find the skillsets that will help you to evolve, rather than just settling for the candidates that are close by.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UCaaS technology aligns all of your communication solutions into the same place. When you combine this technology with analytics and intelligent tools, you can uncover useful information about the trends and practices in your workplace. UCaaS makes it easier to identify the friction points and bottlenecks in the workflow, allowing for the constant optimisation of the communications environment. For instance, you might discover that your customers are being misdirected to agents that can\u2019t help them. With UCaaS to highlight the problem, you can find a solution, like adding a virtual assistant to your enterprise, which can route calls to the right department.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"future-of-unified-communications\"](\"\/gb\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/future-of-unified-communications.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat Is Unified Communications?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)<\/h3>\r\n\t\t\t
Unified Communications Definition: Common Components<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Team collaboration with RingCentral meetings and conferencing<\/h3>\r\n\t\t\t
How Does Unified Communications Work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Benefits of Unified Communications\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The demand for UC is constantly growing, with a market size expected to reach $167.1 billion by 2025. <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/blockquote>\n
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How Can Small Companies Take Advantage of UCaaS?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"how-can-small-companies-take-advantage-of-unified-communications\"](\"\/gb\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/how-can-small-companies-take-advantage-of-unified-communications.png\")
<\/p>\nStep 1: Decide what you want to achieve<\/b><\/h3>\n
Step 2: Find the right UCaaS vendor<\/b><\/h3>\n
Step 3: Dedicate time for training and learning\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
Choosing a unified communications platform that\u2019s built with simplicity in mind will help to ease some of the adoption woes that companies can encounter when choosing new tech. Make sure that your UC platform is built with user\u2026 <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/blockquote>\n\t
Find out more about RingCentral solutions<\/h3>\r\n\t\t\t
What Is Unified Communications as a Service?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
An Insight into the Evolution of UCaaS<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Unified Communications and Collaboration<\/strong><\/h2>\n
By the end of this year (2020), International Data Corporation predicts that mobile workers will make up around 75% of the total workforce in the US. <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/blockquote>\n
What Are the Benefits of UCaaS?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"benefits-of-ucaas\"](\"\/gb\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Benefits-of-UCaaS.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Mobilise the workforce<\/b><\/h3>\n
3. Spot opportunities and trends<\/b><\/h3>\n
4. Deliver world class customer support<\/b><\/h3>\n