In today's business climate, organizations are faced with the choice to drive change through technology or fall behind. 96 percent of executives believe digital transformation is crucial. While exploring emerging technologies is critical, upgrading the communications tools you use every day should not be underestimated.

Relying solely on outdated email and phone services could limit your organization's potential for mobility, cross-functional collaboration, and providing an innovative customer experience. Unified Communications can bring your organization's communication to the cloud, unlocking remarkable agility and best-of-class features.

Many IT professionals believe their organization is saving money by staying with on-premises phones instead of making the switch to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). However, understanding the true total cost of ownership (TCO) for premise-based phones versus cloud solutions is more complex than monthly costs and implementation costs, or capital expenditures (CapEx). To understand how UCaaS could impact your organization, expanding your cost comparison to a TCO analysis is crucial.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how the CapEx of premises-based communication tools stacks up to the operational expenditures (OpEx) of UCaaS. Cloud-based Unified Communication tools are generally billed on a monthly basis at a flat, predictable rate that’s based on the number of users and features. While this monthly fee may appear slightly more costly than the initial hardware investment of a premises-based phone system, it’s not reflective of the true OpEx of both options.

While more than 90 percent of organizations have adopted cloud-based apps and technologies, not all of these firms have unified multimedia communications, like phones, email, chat, file-sharing, and web conferencing, into a single cloud-based platform. However, as organizations realize the massive business benefits of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) (superior reliability, mobility, and smarter collaboration), many are realizing the time is now to make the switch.

Experts predict that by 2020, more than half of organizations will have adopted UCaaS.

To learn more, check out 11 Valuable Business Benefits of Unified Communications as a Service.

The internet and mobile technology have had a profound impact on consumer behavior, which is why industry analysts like Forbes' Brian Rashid believe digital transformation is critical for organizations to survive and win customer loyalty in 2017 and beyond. Simply having technology for communications isn't a competitive advantage.

Making the switch to Unified Communications (Unified Communications) tools is a top priority for numerous organizations. In one recent study, over two-thirds of IT managers revealed that their employees are using communication tools beyond email and voice systems. Today’s next-most popular app options for cloud-based business communications are:

• Audio conferencing (79%)
• Web conferencing (76%)
• IM/presence (73%)
• Video conferencing (68%)
• Screen sharing (67%)
• Social collaboration (43%)

There’s little secret why adopting Unified Communications is a top strategic IT priority for many companies. Unlimited access to technology and the opportunity to integrate multiple methods of communication like voice, instant messaging, text (SMS), video conferencing, mobility, productivity, presence and more into a single platform can streamline communications. The result is new opportunities for collaboration.

Every technology carries some risks. Communications technology are inherently high-risk because of how critical they are to your businesses operations. Organizations with better internal communications are 50% less likely than their competitors to experience high employee turnover. 28% of work projects that aren’t delivered on-time are doomed by poor communication between team members. Your organization can’t deliver high-quality customer service or great products if your employees struggle to relay information and understand each other.

Any communication technology your organization chooses to adopt is going to offer both risks and rewards to your business.

As organizations explore new ways of organizing global teams to better serve their customer's needs, multi-site communications have become a common challenge. 92% of today's organizations are "redesigning the way they work," around people, teams, and organizational structure.

There's been a rise in functional teams, or teams of people assembled across multiple sites, time zones, and even countries for project-based work. As technology enables companies to connect people across time and place, IT professionals in 2017 are tasked with finding the right technologies for seamless collaboration across multiple sites.

Twenty years ago, customers primarily communicated with brands through just two channels; phone and mail. Today, consumers don’t think twice about using a combination of channels for communication, including sending an email, SMS messaging, phone calls, chat and social media.

87 percent of today’s customers wish organizations would work harder to provide a pleasant customer experience. An additional 35 percent expect to be able to communicate with the same customer service representative on multiple channels, such as phone, email, and chat messages. Companies who offer omnichannel customer service even experience 91 percent higher customer retention than their competitors.

Providing multiple avenues for seamless customer communications, or omnichannel communications, is not only convenient for your customers, but it’s a highly effective tactic for enterprise organizations as well.

The average professional spends 19 percent of their time searching for information and trying to gather the right resources. If you're assuming these individuals all put in 40 hours each week, that's 7.6 hours or nearly an entire weekday spent trying to navigate technology that feels unnatural, confusing, or just not unified.

The most effective organizations in 2017 have likely figured out how to use the right technologies in the right ways. Social Technologies that support interactions between colleagues and aggregate information into convenient platforms, such as Unified Communications in the cloud, can revolutionize the way firms work. In fact, some research suggests that implementing tools for communicating and collaborating can increase productivity by 20 to 25 percent.

One of the most pressing and universal challenges in business today is communicating effectively. No matter what industry you're in, your success depends on your ability to relay messages internally, to vendors/partners and to your customers. Misunderstandings and lost information are incredibly costly to today's organizations, with experts estimating the impact of miscommunication in the US and UK at $37 billion each year.

While the science of effective business communications isn't simple, it's important to avoid underestimating the value of the right communication technology. Today's cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) tools aren't just an effective way to prevent lost voicemail or phone system outages. They're a means to integrate your company's communications across platforms into a single system that's easy for your employees to use with confidence.

Finally, everyone in your organization is on board with adopting Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). After learning all the valuable business benefits they are ready to make it happen.

Now what?

Should you call the UCaaS vendor whom you think has the best deal?

Should you opt for a provider who has been touted as the best vendor in your area?

As we’ve written before in this quick list of pitfalls in choosing the wrong Unified Communications provider— there are good UCaaS vendors, and there are also good vendors who just aren't the right fit for your company.