Recent research from IDG Enterprises states that 74% of enterprise organisations are increasing their uptake of unified communications (UC) and actually accelerating the implementation of UC.  The survey included over 1,100  IT and business decision-makers from a range of industries.

The biggest drivers behind this surge are the increasing use of consumer devices at work as well as the growing use of social media in business and personal lives. Whatever the drivers, UC deployment is clearly a key requirement for multinationals at this time and implementing anything for all end-users across such large and complex organisations is never easy.

It is critical that any major deployment is supported by a robust business case and a clear strategy that covers the far reaching implications of UC on both the business and IT organisations.

Collaboration can be defined as two or more people or organisations working together to realise shared goals. In reality this is more than combining common goals as seen in co-operative ventures, but a determination to reach an identical objective.

The IT industry is currently undergoing one of the most significant periods of transformation in the last 20 years. This period of change is seeing trends such as the huge growth of powerful smartphones, the consumerisation of IT purchasing and the move towards cloud-based delivery. The combination of mobile smartphones and tablets, innovative applications delivered through the internet and the flexibility of cloud-based models is bringing an end to traditional desk-based PCs. In fact some of the statistics are amazing with 100+ million Apple iPhones sold to date and 10+ million Google android devices now being activated per month. These new mobile devices come equipped with all of the capabilities necessary to enable people to communicate and collaborate.

This is clearly creating a consumer-led influence on corporate IT and is opening up the use of social software in the enterprise. The incoming generation of workers has grown up using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, wikis – and expects to be able to use these same tools or their equivalents in the workplace. However most large or global organisations suffer from a perceived divide separating the business (who own the data) and central IT departments (who own and maintain the hardware and software infrastructure). Over time this centralised view within IT has created issues between IT and the business. The business believe that IT is slow, bureaucratic and unresponsive to ever-changing business needs. IT on the other hand feel the business is too quick to react to every little thing and have trouble articulating business benefits.

Now is a time when the technology is available and the opportunity is there to collaborate effectively, but the term ‘collaboration’ is still a bit of a buzzword. Businesses need to get people to think as one company and to get managers in different functions to work together.

For the first time in 25 years it is now possible to purchase a British icon – a red telephone box. Private buyers now have the opportunity to buy direct from BT and invest in a piece of British design history. Maybe you want to turn one into a shower or just have somewhere private to update your Facebook status or tweet?! 

The number of BT payphones in the UK increased rapidly after BT was privatised in 1984 but has now fallen from 92,000 in 2002 to just 51,000. In 1984 the payphone and fixed-line telephone were examples of a limited number of technologies that enabled us to communicate and collaborate. The mobile phone was in its infancy, email was only used by a select few and social networking on the World Wide Web was still 10 years away.

Today we have a multitude of technologies that enable us to communicate and collaborate in more ways than ever before. This is as true for multinational companies as it is for us as individuals. The challenge facing multinationals is a growing requirement to collaborate more effectively internally and externally in a strategic, secure, cost effective and end-user focused way using the technologies and services available today (and in the future!). This can be critical when finding new business and bringing existing products and services to market faster and more cost-effectively.

A company-wide strategy covering all aspects of collaboration, that may or may not include the purchasing of 30 year-old telephone boxes, can help multinationals to address this important social and technological challenge.