Many businesses lack unified communications, poll indicates

Despite that fact that the VoIP telephony services industry continues to grow, many companies have been slow to cut the cord on their traditional phone systems. However, a new study indicates that this could potentially have a negative effect on businesses that haven’t transitioned to these new solutions.

According to PCWorld, 62 percent of business managers say they have a completely un-integrated communications system for their company, meaning that their voice, email, video conferencing and fax services all function separately. In addition, only 7 percent of these respondents indicated that they have a fully integrated system, where all these communication tools were on the same network.

By comparison, 18 percent of IT managers said they had a fully integrated system, and only 45 percent of these respondents reported that they had a completely un-integrated unified communications system.

PCWorld indicated that the results of the survey aren’t surprising, as there isn’t one solution that can simply get all of a businesses communications on one network. However, the news source did suggest that VoIP business phones are the first step toward achieving this sort of business integration.

The media outlet says business owners that embrace VoIP phone systems will see lower phone bills and a lower overhead, the latter of which is a direct result of the increased communication employees, customers and business partners are provided through a unified network. Without these advantages, a business’ internal and customer communications could lag behind that of their competitors, which may in turn lead to decreased profits and wasted resources.

To get the benefits a unified communications system can provide, business and IT managers may want to speak with an experienced company that can also provide installation and training to ensure that its clients stay up and running during the transition.

To get the benefits a unified communications system can provide, business and IT managers may want to speak with an experienced company that can also provide installation and training to ensure that its clients stay up and running during the transition.