Voice over IP (VoIP) and Unified Communications are two fast-growing areas that can lead to great productivity improvements, better ways of working collaboratively and cost benefits. Waterstons are a Mitel Select partner and a Microsoft Gold Partner, and have experience in delivering VoIP and Unified Communications solutions.
Cost benefits include reduced call costs, reduced support costs (no need to support traditional telephony equipment) and increased flexibility with office moves being greatly simplified. A VoIP system enables a business to standardise their telephone system, and a single electronic telephone directory means that multiple sites run like a single office. A whole range of features are available such as voicemail, music on hold, call control and call handling.
Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), Office Communicator and Exchange 2007 provide greatly enhanced communication. Presence information enables employees, suppliers and customers to instantly see whether key contacts are available, busy, on holiday, on the telephone, in a meeting. The Presence feature can greatly increase the efficiency of contact, particularly when communicating across sites, countries and time zones, and for mobile and remote workers. Instant messaging enables messages to be sent in real time between colleagues and other parties, allowing a query, issue of problem to be resolved very quickly in real time. Data collaboration enables employees to work on documents concurrently, from different offices, sites or locations.
Unified Messaging (UM) is the ability to access different types of communication (voicemail, e-mail, calendars, fax functionality) from one device, e.g. computer, mobile phone or PDA and is provided by Exchange 2007. Studies have shown that UM can greatly improve employee productivity, particularly for more mobile workers.
Audio and video conferencing facilities can provide great cost benefits in reducing travel for face-to-face meetings and greatly improve the communication experience for calls. Conferencing is provided with OCS, and Microsoft RoundTable is a video conferencing facility, featuring a built-in 360 degree camera, that can be used for group meetings.
As an IT Services company with broad and deep expertise in Telecommunications and IT, Waterstons can recommend, design, configure, integrate, project manage and support a full Unified Communications and VoIP solution.
Download the case study: Unified communications breaks boundaries
Download the case study: Benefits of IP telephony realised