Siemens Explains Why Unified Communications Matters

In addition to insights from Siemens exec Shayna Kaneshiro, SmallBizTechnology.com also presents some revealing stats on how small and midsize companies communicate.I was struck by these numbers in the blog post earlier this week:

and

Ideally, a UC solution would:

The piece goes on to recommend five basic keys to UC for smaller companies:

1. Built-in Presence, showing who is available and accessible.2. Drag and Drop Conferencing, letting users create meetings by dragging and dropping contacts into the conference screen.3. Built-in Fax Message Box, which lets you receive and respond to faxes quickly, just like emails.4. Built-in Info Status Pop-Ups, to keep you informed when new calls come in, for example.5. Microsoft Outlook Integration means users can handle all their communications in one applications that they already know.

Along with my recent story on 8 Essential Questions On Unified Communications, this post makes a great introduction to world of UC.