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Digital Transformation Depends on UC

Transformation is a fast-paced journey that doesn't slow down, and unified communication deployment needs to keep up. Solid UC technology provides the necessary foundation for a successful digital transformation. In fact, a recent study by Nemertes Research found the companies that have the most success with their digital transformations are those that increase their spending on UC solutions more than any other area in IT.

The reason why is clear. Digital transformation can take many forms, but in essence it's about radically transforming how a business operates in order to take advantage of the wave of digital technologies available today. It's about attacking and successfully overcoming this challenge to make gains on the other side, rather than being crushed by it.

Serious Team Work & Tools

This wave of change takes enormous effort. It requires teams pulling together toward a common goal. Teams need to be able to work effectively and efficiently, and find better ways to connect and collaborate with coworkers, customers, and partners. They need to find new ways of doing business better, faster, and more cost-effectively -- and that includes the ability to reach more people in more ways, whether through video calls, real-time chat, texting, online meetings, or mobile channels.

The digital transformation journey cannot happen without highly available UC technologies built on a solid foundation. Organizations that need to transform realize that if their UC capabilities aren't up to par, their progress will stumble. And while they might have applications for everything from online meetings to instant messaging, there is no guarantee the experience will be consistent or unbroken.

A modern UC solution aims to optimize communication and collaboration. It should enable workers to easily reach and be reached by others, and therefore be more efficient and productive. But, too often, that's not happening.

Experience Done Well

What should a proper UC experience look like? For starters, it should allow users to be reachable via the same telephone number over a variety of devices. When my office phone rings in our Denver headquarters, for example, I should also hear a ring on my PC here in my home office in Seattle. And, if I'm out at lunch, I should be able to answer that same call on my mobile phone.

High-performing UC offers a consistent experience across all these different modalities. When everything is integrated, you can work from anywhere, anytime. UC enables people to be their best. And that's how you unleash innovation and free your company to thrive.

Of course, digital transformation powered by UC is easier said than done. Even though 70% of companies will have implemented some digital transformation program by 2020, Gartner estimates that only 30% of these companies will be successful.

Growing IT complexity is one reason for the lack of success. New UC technology solutions seemingly hit the market every day. Moving to the cloud means adding even more vendors -- and layering on yet another level of complexity. In this multivendor environment, troubleshooting issues that arise becomes increasingly hard.

Identifying problems among all this complexity is not a question of finding the needle in a haystack. It's about finding the needle in fields and fields of haystacks. For instance, why do my videoconferencing sessions keep dropping? Why is the audio constantly cutting out? What's the root cause of my network glitches?

These are serious issues that impact not just your internal users but also your external customers, and you must solve them. What if one of your salespeople is on a video call with a customer and the connection is jittery? The customer, who's looking to purchase your product, is getting more and more frustrated. This is the moment of truth, yet your technology is not up to the task -- and all the money you've invested to get to this point is about to be wasted.

Demanding Future

The fundamental problem for many organizations is that existing network infrastructure isn't prepared for the new demands of digital transformation. Digital transformation puts a lot of strain on the network, especially legacy networks that have been cobbled together over many years.

IR found some surprising results in a recent survey of 511 senior IT decision-makers in the U.S. One-third of respondents said they think their existing infrastructure is not ready to support the high traffic resulting from the new productivity and collaboration tools that will drive their digital transformations.

What organizations need is a holistic solution that can help them seamlessly monitor, manage, and optimize their multivendor UC environments from the application down to the network layer devices. When issues arise, as they inevitably do, companies need the visibility and insight that allows them to figure out what's wrong and immediately fix the problem. In other words, they need an insurance policy that guarantees their digital transformation investment pays the dividends they expect.

The reality is that if your network is too slow or your technology is "glitchy," your employees will never adopt UC and your organization will never reap the benefits of digital transformation.

But this is not the way it has to be, at least where UC systems are concerned. If you have the proper experience-management solution, then when something goes awry during a videoconference, Web chat, or mobile interaction, that solution will automatically look across your entire digital ecosystem and find the issue -- it will pinpoint the needle in that field of haystacks -- then understand what the root cause is and fix the problem in real time before any damage is done.

This will give you the power to pursue your digital transformation secure in the knowledge that all your interactions -- and, ultimately, your business -- will be successful.