“Operator, can you connect me to Mrs. Betty White please?” asked Mrs. Flintstone with her ear to the receiver, eagerly waiting to hear that familiar click that signaled she’d been connected.

When you read that, what did you picture? Sometime pre-21st century, the scene probably played out in black and white or sepia – all grainy and jittery. And rightfully so, because this model of communication is ancient, so ancient even Mrs. Flintstone from the cartoon wouldn’t be subjected to it.

Thankfully most of the world has moved on to bigger and better unified communication solutions compared to the PBX systems. But maybe a little too fast, with the leap VoIP offered along with the cloud, companies scrambled to make use of it. They started by throwing away their PBX boxes and moving toward a more software-centric approach to unified collaboration.

In today’s world, where there’s an app for everything under the sun, it only makes sense to have applications that streamline workplace collaboration and communication. Unified Collaboration Apps are not radical ideas, they have been around for a long time. And as a result of this, there are tons and tons of Apps out there but a lack of a singular platform that support uniformity.

Sudden Influx

With the rise of smartphones, people essentially have a mini-computer at the palm of their hands. It didn’t take long for companies to realize that this can help fill in the gaps and give employees a greater range of mobility. They no longer had to find a fixed terminal to access and work but instead could do it remotely while remaining secure.

The advantages of mobile collaboration apps is apparent - it increases productivity while allowing employees to work remotely without having to compromise security or functionality. And with that, the market was flooded with Apps -Apps for everything imaginable and businesses were quick to eat them up.

The Collaboration Apps gave businesses and employees newfound mobility that they never before experienced. Suddenly your Team Leader, who was at home, is able to weigh in on some critical situation that you absolutely needed him for, and the branch office was able to use the resources at the main office and so on and so forth.

Convergence Point

The new problem at hand was that – in order to complete one task that required collaboration, employees would have to use App 1 to group text, App 2 for web conferences and App 3 to manage scheduling. This innately caused discord among employees and affected productivity. There is a clear need for a truly unified communications solutions as the fragmented conversations and fragmented tools seemed to create a bigger problem.

Integration is the name of the game, whether it be integration with multiple software applications or with varied hardware. Empower your employees to be able to work on any device of their choice, whether it be a smartphone, a desk phone, a tablet or a computer.

On the other hand, your employees should be able to get everything they need from under the same roof. Integrate multiple software applications to give you a more complete tool by combing the functionalities of phone, fax, text, video conferencing and web meetings.

Case at Hand

It might seem like a minor inconvenience, something that can be worked around. But imagine all those minutes wasted gathering resources, migrating from one platform to the other, losing some data in the middle – now multiply that with the number of employees you have. That’s a pretty big number.

It is the difference between manageable and optimal. The need to win can even be as mall as a hair’s width in today’s competitive market. Consider your employees as trained warriors in the battle for market dominance. It only makes sense to give them the best weapons to ensure victory, right?