Small- to mid-sized businesses lack unified communications, but making progress

The second in a string of recently released polls about small- to mid-sized businesses and their adoption of VoIP technology found that few have taken the steps to join all their communications resources together. Following on the heels of a similar study by PCWorld, the International Data Corporation (IDC) released the results of research that detailed the use of VoIP telephony services in these companies on October 11.

According to IDC, around 33 percent of small businesses – defined as those with fewer than 100 employees – have at least one unified communications technology. This includes VoIP business phones, video conferencing capabilities and unified messaging. By comparison, nearly 75 percent of mid-sized companies had at least one of these capabilities.

However, just like the PCWorld study, IDC found that very few businesses have joined all these tools together to increase the productivity of their workplace.

“Small businesses are interested in both underlying capabilities and specific UC technologies,” Justin Jaffe, research manager for small and medium-sized research at the IDC, said in a press release. “The real challenge for vendors is to effectively connect the benefits of unified communications to improved business performance. Show how UC can make a real difference in productivity and efficiency and SMBs will flock to it.”

Jaffe, like many VoIP experts, says that small business owners may be reluctant to upgrade to the technology due to a lack of awareness or an unwillingness to invest in new products even when they might provide benefits.

However, this may soon change, as the study found that 30 percent of small firms are planning to add one UC component within the next year. For the best experience, these businesses may want to consider working with a trusted provider that can offer support and installation along the way.

The second in a string of recently released polls about small- to mid-sized businesses and their adoption of VoIP technology found that few have taken the steps to join all their communications resources together.