Usually, service providers charge more for mobility features as part of Unified Communications. And it is worth the additional cost. It’s very difficult to not double count some of the monetary benefits of implementing a hosted Unified Communications (UC) solution. However, it is important to keep this as objective and pure analysis as possible. For example; It is true that empoyees are more productive if they can reach the right right person the first time or a key decision maker when absolutely required. Obviously, if these users have mobile devices the odds are vastly improved that they will be reached in an optimized fashion. Yet, these numbers are no longer available since they were used in the “Increase Productivity” value determination.

Integrated mobility begins with Fixed Mobile Convergence and ends with integrated Presence via a mobile client. But mobility is ore than just thinking about a smartphone. Mobile workers use many devices support their ability to work anywhere, on any network utilizing any device. Mobile workers need access to shared files and multi-media conferences. Integrated mobility plays a role in the success of collaboration because while most descriptions of collaboration include geographically dispersd groups, what of the traveling individual “disconnected” from company resources. With Unified Communications every employee participates in a “connected” world fully interacting and accessing information from anywhere.

The importance of integrated mobility is well known with the widespread usage of laptops and Wi-Fi access. However, consider that a recent study by Webtorials identified that over the next 18 months the use of tablets in the workplace with either extensive or widespread use would grow from 29% to 38%. While that is good growth consider that smartphone growth with the same parameters is expected to grow from 63% to 78% over the same period of time. The same study noted that the lack of offsite UC capabilities result in a productivity gap between mobile and onsite workers with an estimated productivity loss of 2.5 hours per week per employee.

This annual savings for enabling multiple devices (laptop, tablet, smartphone) with UC features. Connecting employees with UC is a very worthwhile endeavor.