Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 14 | Page 34

EDITOR’S QUESTION for employees to communicate through video chat apps like Skype, or access work emails from their personal smartphones and tablets as it is for them to do so using a company-supplied laptop. The key to ensuring people can collaborate effectively is ensuring they have the freedom to use these tools at work, rather than trying to restrict employees to a set range of workplace-sanctioned options. However, some of these consumer apps aren’t quite as well suited to business environments or may not be as reliable as is required in a professional situation. of the fact that they aren’t based in a traditional office. It allows businesses to cut back on physical office space, reducing costs – especially in big cities where rent and other expenses can be high. To maintain employee connections as the workforce becomes increasingly less tied to a physical place of work, organisations are relying more and more on collaboration technologies such as video conferencing and telepresence. As well as this, one of the biggest developments in how people collaborate is that mobile has become pervasive in both our personal and professional lives. It’s now just as common As a result, there has been an increased use of more sophisticated collaboration tools and applications. As such, many organisations are starting to deploy Unified Communications and Collaboration-as- a-Service (UCCaaS), which provides an integrated platform that helps a business’ extended team work more effectively. With UCCaaS, businesses can integrate all their communication tools under one roof, offering employees an easy way to access everything from instant messaging, telepresence, email and social tools. Ultimately, this makes collaboration easier between teams, wherever they’re working and whatever the time of day. In comparison to costly on-premise solutions, UCCaaS makes it easier to rollout UC to mobile and remote workers, enabling employees to access everything from instant messaging, telepresence, email and social tools in one place via the cloud. It also means that, essentially, employers can provide access to UC&C services to users not on the corporate network without needing to set up a virtual private network (VPN). www.intelligentcio.com