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March 05, 2010

Organizations Leveraging UC Experience Increased ROI, Productivity

By Jayashree Adkoli, TMCnet Contributor
The convergence of enterprise voice, video and data services and software applications, has lead to the birth of Unified Communications (News - Alert) technology. Already, many organizations are reaping the benefits of this technology with greater collaboration and improved business processes.
 
In order to track the implementation status of UC among organizations, CDW recently conducted surveys of IT professionals as part of its second annual “Unified Communications Tracking Poll.”
 
Nearly 915 IT professionals who identified themselves as actively involved with unified communications work or component technologies in business, government, healthcare and education were interviewed and responses were collected.
 
According to the survey, the implementation rate of UC will remain steady compared to last year. The survey results also indicated that only 8 percent of organizations have fully deployed UC.
 
In addition, the percentage of organizations that have prepared a business case or strategic plan for deploying UC technology, has increased from 55 percent in 2009 to 67 percent in 2010.
 
Among the 8 percent of organizations that have fully deployed UC, 71 percent of these organizations that kept track of return on investment “ROI,” said after deployment of UC it met or exceeded expectations.
 
The study showed that adoption of unified communications platform reaped significant cost reductions as well as an improvement in organizational effectiveness.
 
According to the poll, 54 percent of IT executives interviewed said that reduction in operating cost is the top benefit of UC, while 50 percent said that UC increased productivity and 44 percent said that UC is more reliable for communication.
 
“IT executives report that economic pressures were a greater concern in 2009 than in 2008, but for many, the return on investment from UC deployments is so compelling that they ask, ‘Why wouldn’t we do this?’” said Pat Scheckel, vice president of converged infrastructure solutions at CDW (News - Alert). “The result is reduced costs, increased productivity and improved decision making – benefits that resonate across every industry, especially in a recessionary economy.”

Jayashree Adkoli is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jayashree's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi

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