Unified Communications or UC as the projects team calls it, refers to having all an organisation's communication tools and document collaboration on the single platform in a unified place. I spoke to Lee, our IT Strategy consultant about a project we worked on helping a council figure out what it was they needed from a Unified Communications platform and which platform would suit them best.
We also spoke about financial and time constraints organisations faced in the first few months of the pandemic concerning UC. The unexpected switch to remote work both highlighted the importance of a good UC strategy and presented organisations with UC challenges they hadn't navigated before.
Key takeouts from our chat:
COVID-19 caused many organisations to fast track implementing UC solution due to the need for all staff to work remotely for non-essential workers.
This council shifted to using Teams during the start of pandemic.
We did a UC tactical assessment to work out if Teams was the right fit for their organisation.
Sometimes organisations are better off staying with the platform they already use but need to learn how to get the most out of that platform.
Many Not-for-Profits use Microsoft Office 365 but aren't aware of all the applications available to them on Office 365.
Teams is a great UC platform for organisations that don't have a huge telephony requirement.
This organisation chose to go with a hybrid UC solution which used Teams in collaboration with another platform to meet the councils requirements.
Change management and training is very important when implementing a UC solution.