Confusion ended and efficiency began with a sticky note that said, “I’ve had it.”
But we’ll get to that later.
It was tough for Bill Stagnet. He had just started his company, Ten Acre Imports, two years ago. They had gotten through the bumps and growing pains, and now he had a team that was serving clients on two continents.
That was the good news.
The bad news is that disorganization was plaguing their workflow and no one seemed to know what was going on with any particular project on any given day. Unfortunately, people outside the organization – long-term clients – were starting to notice the chaos.
Sure, everyone was communicating. But everyone was communicating in their own way on their favorite platforms. And why not? Skype, texting, phone calls, Facebook instant messaging, video chat – that’s what they used at home, so why wasn’t it working for them at work?
To put it bluntly, they didn’t have a unified communications solution.
The final straw came when Bill Stagnet sent a mass text to everyone in the company.
It was a picture of a sticky note that said – “I’ve had it.”
Bill had received yet another call from a client wondering when the team was going to get better at communicating – “when,” the customer wanted to know, would they “get their act together.”
That was the day that Bill called Mac Daniels – their in-house IT person – into his office and told him to, “Find an answer and find it fast, before we have to start bailing water out of a sinking ship.”
That was the instruction that Mac was waiting to hear. With a few phone calls, he found a managed IT support team that specialized in Cisco Unified Communications Consulting.
The next week was a whirlwind of activity as the company’s landline phone systems were replaced by Cisco’s internet-based phone system and everyone got a crash course on how to leverage their new Cisco Unified Communications system.
The Ten Acre Imports team quickly found out that what the Cisco Unified Communications consultant had implemented was far more than a simple replacement for their landline telephones. It was a new way of communicating where everyone was connected by every device and every communications method. They could call, message, and meet with ease because everything “communication” was housed under one Cisco platform.
It was a learning curve, but once the Ten Acre Imports team started to understand how much time, effort, and hassle their new Cisco system could save them, they were all in.
It’s been a while now since the day of Bill’s meltdown sticky note. Thankfully their Cisco Unified Communications consultant was able to tailor an integrated communications system that would work for their unique global needs. Bill’s customers no longer see a team in turmoil. Instead, they see the professional communications organization that the Ten Acre Import team leverages from Cisco products.
What is Cisco Unified Communications?
Cisco advertises their system as a “compatible, innovative communications technology.”
For a more detailed definition, Wikipedia describes Cisco Unified Communications as “the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax).”
In short, Cisco Unified communications is a hardware and software solution that brings together your instant messaging, voicemail, email, video conferencing, pagers, computers, mobile phones, and desk phones into one coherent, easy-to-use business communications powerhouse.
Why do companies look for Cisco Unified Communications Consulting?
By bringing in someone with the experience to implement and harness Cisco Unified Communications to its most significant benefit, companies see the following advantages:
- Cost Control
- Productivity Enhancement
- Mobility
- Encouragement of Innovation
- Faster communications
- Easier collaboration
- Scalable
- Secure
Cisco Unified Communications Consulting moves your communications from people moving messages back and forth through the use of technology to a virtual human network that is always secure and where information is always accessible.
Conversely, business leaders reach out to a Cisco Unified Communications Consultant to avoid the negative impact of weak communications systems and strategies.
- Slow processes
- Lack of company agility
- Disappointed customers
- Lost revenue
- Lost productivity
A company that moves toward Cisco Unified Communications is looking for an intelligent communications platform – not just another way to talk, email, or text.
There are dozens of tools out there that claim to be the answer for business communications. The problem is you have to use several services to meet all your communication and collaboration needs. Those individual services don’t “talk” to each other or work in sync to help your team get more done in a workday. Cisco Unified Communications does just that. It brings everything you need to get your team on one page into one solution. It is the new way to communicate.
By integrating all your communications and collaboration requirements, you end up with a system that allows for more personal communications and a streamlined business process.
Customers notice the difference too.
Cisco Unified Communications isn’t just about your internal communications needs; it puts a professional face on your communications with your clients – helping them to be more responsive.
What can a Cisco Unified Communications Consultant do for your business?
The obvious answer to this question is “consult,” but it’s more than that. Bringing an expert into your business to survey your internal processes and help you build a strategy and implement a strategy of Cisco Unified Communications ensures that you get the most from Cisco’s revolutionary product line. The Cisco Unified Communications product line includes.
- Call Control
- Hosted Collaboration
- Mid-Market Call Control
- Unified Communications Integration
- Collaboration, Management, and Licensing
- Communications Gateways
- Video Gateways
- Voice Gateways
- Telephony Extensions
- Unified Communications Applications
- Messaging
- Presence Software
What’s the big deal about Cisco Unified Communications?
Omnipresence. It’s the way forward for businesses in 2018 and the foreseeable future.
What is omnipresence? It’s the ability to be everywhere – all at the same time.
Cisco Unified Communications allows your team to do just that. Phone, text, video call, instant messaging, paging, email – connected to everyone, in and out of the office, at the click of a button and all on the same platform.
But there’s more.
Your team’s omnipresence doesn’t end with the message that they are delivering or the project on which they are collaborating. Cisco enables:
- Security Omnipresence – Whether your team is at their computer terminal or on their smartphone on the other side of the globe, they can communicate with security – everywhere.
- Data Omnipresence – Because Cisco Unified Communications is also a collaboration platform, your data is securely available to you at any time, regardless of device or location.
Three specific Cisco Products you should discuss with your Cisco Unified Communications Consultant
- Cisco Spark – Cisco Spark brings everything “communications” into one place for the small to mid-size business. Meetings, messaging and content sharing, calling, whiteboarding, integration and bots – it’s all there ready for your team to leverage it into your company’s next big win.
- Business Edition 6000 – Business Edition 6000 is a step up from Cisco Spark and is intended for the mid-market enterprise. It is the comprehensive solution used by companies with up to one thousand employees. The main benefit of Business Edition 6000 is its ability to simplify the complexities of large-scale collaboration and communication.
- Unified Communications Manager – This enterprise-level offering enables globally-diverse corporations to bring people together anytime, any place, anywhere, on any device – all using a single architecture for video, voice, and data.
To learn more about the importance of engaging a Cisco Unified Communications Consulting firm, contact us.