A powerful strategy plays a crucial role for a successful unified communications (UC) deployment for any organization. Ultimately, although UC has a lot to offer, it also means re-working your existing infrastructure.

If and when used properly, unified communications allow several parties—employees, customers, or partners—to collaborate over a single platform, irrespective of device or location. Here are a few steps to help you plan for the right UC implementation:

• Work backward from your user: Knowing your users’ needs is necessary before embedding the right tools into your communication strategy. The best way to do it is to find out the tools that your end users are already using and learn from them about the apps and resources they would prefer using when given the opportunity. There is a great chance that different users in your network need different tools to support their daily operations. Video conference might be the preferred choice of c-level executives, while instant messaging could be preferred by call center agents.

• Provide time for learning and discovery:  You need to ensure that you have enough time to understand your end users’ needs, how UC would benefit your community, and your execution plan to make the transition for your employees as easy as possible.

• Make sure your infrastructure is ready: Developing a UC strategy is not only about downloading new tools, but also ensuring that the new UC system would integrate with your existing desk phones and hardware. This eliminates the need to start from scratch to serve the contact center agents. In addition, it is important to remember and work carefully on the new security features and encryption solutions you will need to implement, to ensure security in your communications strategy.

• Opt for scalability and interoperability: Businesses have to continuously evolve to survive and compete in the modern marketplace. Your strategy should not only make the most out of the technology you have but also the communications services you would implement in the future.