SMBs Continue to Leverage Unified Communications

Unified communications is expanding at such a rapid rate that virtually all aspects of business communication are being completely transformed. Although typically only big corporations and enterprises have the funds available to invest in next-generation technology, unified communications is so cost-effective that small businesses are increasingly hopping on the UC train.

According to a recently released report from IDG News Service, these companies are turning to UC for multiple reasons, including significantly slashing costs, driving productivity and raising efficiency to an all time high level.

"[Small and medium-sized businesses] need sophisticated communications that should be easy to manage and use and affordable to implement in order to drive efficiency and productivity leading to more informed, faster business decisions that grow revenues and improve time to market," Expert Ray Tekse commented in a recent Teo blog post.

With new companies making their way into every vertical on a daily basis, SMBs need a go-to portfolio filled with innovative solutions that will help them gain and keep a competitive edge for the long term. In conjunction with UC, a lot of small to medium-sized businesses are also implementing bring your own device (BYOD) programs, with currently around 75 percent of SMBs currently having this initiative in place. Luckily with a UC offering in place, these firms can easily support a various operating systems from anywhere in addition to enabling workers to complete time-sensitive tasks no matter where they are located.

Moreover, InfoTrack is forecasting that U.S. spending on unified communications will grow by nearly  10 percent each year through 2016,which in part is being cause by SMBs beginning to heavily rely upon unified communication systems.

"In 2011, SMBs represented 46 percent of the U.S. installed base of [IP telephony] lines but accounted for only 30 percent of the spending on UC applications," Ken Dolsky, senior program director for InfoTrack commented.

Looking ahead to the next couple of years, Dolsky added that SMBs will spend more than twice the amount on unified communications than U.S. enterprises. This is pretty significant as it shows that these organizations are realizing that by pumping their limited capital into UC-related expenditures, the positive results will be overwhelming.