Understanding the specific needs of the different workforce age-groups allows companies to adopt granular Unified Communications Strategies and improve productivity.
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A recent survey published by BT and Avaya has confirmed that Unified Communications Solutions are gaining critical mass within UK’s workforce, placing them among the top priorities of most SMEs who are striving to differentiate themselves from the competition. “It’s becoming clear that the workforce and workplace are evolving. Effective unified communications and collaboration solutions need to be able to support this multi-generational workforce and their needs” comments Andrew Small, vice president, collaboration and customer relationship management at BT Global Services. This is not surprisingly a follow-up of the technological and cultural forefront approach firstly endorsed by Cisco, which aims at simplifying business issues through easier interactions, based on an architectural UC approach and a reliable network infrastructure.
However, the survey also highlighted that the generational gap is critical when it comes to a happy adoption of UC solutions, proving that a granular control of the available choice of tools can make the difference on a seamless and gradual integration into the existing working environment. Yet again, Cisco Unified Communication approach is to build in sufficient flexibility to accommodate new developments as business needs evolve while ensuring the ROI of the existing IT infrastructure, establishing immediate value and promoting user adoption through a gradual process of education.
The survey of 500+ IT managers reported that almost two-thirds of employees under 35 were frustrated with the technology infrastructure at their workplace and that more of two thirds of them felt that improved Collaboration Solutions would enhance productivity. The importance for this age group -composed by the first internet and smartphones generations entering the work place- to see their office as an ‘exciting’ place to work is clearly evident, and easily addressed by Cisco “social approach” to UC and BYOD solutions. The same survey on the other hand shows also that employees over 35 seem to be generally satisfied by the IT systems in place and that 62% of the whole pool believe they should have a personal choice over which communication media they use. These results show the importance of a granular control over the implementation of IT resources that is delivered by Cisco Unified Communications thanks to an integrated system of voice, video, data and mobility products that allow businesses to use their network as an intelligent platform for effective, scalable and secure communication and information sharing.
Finally, the survey shows that following the recent economic recovery in the UK, 60% of SMEs expect to expand during 2014, and 78% of respondents highlighted improved communications as a key part of creating a more successful way of doing business. These numbers underline that SMEs and larger enterprises looking for a competitive approach to the markets instability should discuss the importance of IT resources within their business and how to take advantage of Unified Communication Solutions to deliver competitive advantage.
