By Mae Kowalke
Any large organization struggles at some point to ensure that teams work together efficiently and that the flow of information is smooth without any roadblocks. Enterprises are no exception. Encouraging effective collaboration can be difficult, and expensive. But it need not be.
Video is one technology that enterprises are now giving more consideration as a driver of efficient, cost-effective collaboration. Technology providers are taking note of the market demand for video solutions that can deliver on the promise of better collaboration.
Take Alcatel-Lucent, for example. This technology solutions provider developed its Dynamic Enterprise communication framework specifically with enterprises in mind. The primary goal with every deployment is to improve business performance through connected knowledge. A secondary goal is to improve efficiency and reduce the cost associated with mobile communications.
This framework from Alcatel-Lucent is built on two mobile products: the OmniTouch 8400 communications suite, and the 8600 My Instant Communicator. Together these solutions create consistent, security deployment of mobile applications, integrated with unified communications and collaboration services, using legacy phone networks.
In a recently published whitepaper, Alcatel-Lucent explains in detail how such a deployment works, using several case studies. For the sake of brevity here, the nutshell benefits include more resilient and reliable mobility services, including video, for enterprises.
“Medium and large enterprises are finding new opportunities to reduce costs and improve team collaboration and customer service by deploying the latest enterprise video solutions,” Alcatel-Lucent noted in another white paper.
Three key challenges tend to stand in the way of effective enterprise collaboration using video solutions: low quality of service, the pace of technology transformation, and silos. These challenges are overcomable when unified communications solutions are designed specifically to support enterprise business objectives.
There’s a lot at stake, and unified video communications can have a dramatic effect on overall enterprise success. This type of deployment builds trust, reduces costs, allows reps to spend more time with customers, and increases the efficiency of virtual teams.
To achieve those benefits, however, a unified video communications solution must be easy to use, delivery high quality of experience (QoE), and ability to transition existing systems smoothly. A truly unified video communications solution includes end-to-end infrastructure and low total cost of ownership.
“Enterprise video solutions that are integrated into UC suites enable employees and third-party partners to benefit from video interactions because a unified solution is very easy to deploy and use, even across enterprise firewalls,” Alcatel-Lucent wrote. “Enterprise video solutions that provide control of the requested bandwidth enable the deployment of video communications even if the network infrastructure is not yet capable of supporting HD."
