Lack of knowledge leaves SMBs slow to adopt end-to-end UC solution

SMBs increasingly are interested in some parts of a unified communications solution, but few have actually implemented an end-to-end UC solution, new research says.

More than one-third of small businesses (firms with fewer than 100 employees), and nearly 75 percent of companies with 100-999 employees currently own at least one unified communications component technology.

"Many SMB business and IT priorities relate to communication and collaboration," says Justin Jaffe, research manager at IDC. "SMBs are interested in both underlying capabilities and specific UC technologies. The real challenge for vendors is to effectively connect the benefits of unified communications to improved business performance. Show how UC can make a real difference in productivity and efficiency, and SMBs will flock to it."

IDC found that more than 30 percent of small firms and 55 percent of medium-sized firms cite plans to add at least one UC component in the next 12 months, including VoIP, conferencing technologies that support audio, Web and video and unified messaging.

More than 30 percent of firms with 100-999 employees currently use VoIP, IDC said, but smaller companies have tended to be less open to the technology. IDC said that may be due to lack of awareness, unwillingness to invest in new telecommunications infrastructure and a perception of VoIP as being less secure and providing lower call quality and less resilience during power outages.

Conferencing technology, meanwhile, is used by 45 percent of medium-sized businesses, primarily to reduce travel-related costs.

For more:
- see this release

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