Aberdeen Group Report Reveals Unified Communications Pays for Itself

The latest research from Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), titled "Unified Communications: Gaining a Competitive Advantage While on the Move," confirms the measurable business value of Unified Communications (UC). By streamlining internal and external communications, maximizing telecom spend, increasing productivity through improved collaboration, and reducing customer churn through increased customer responsiveness, 79% of the top performers achieved a break-even return on their UC investment within the first 12 months.

The research study, which surveyed over 150 organizations, also found that the broad acceptance of mobility in the enterprise has made it the most reliable way to contact an individual, and the need to integrate mobility into the larger organization's communications infrastructure emerged as one of the primary drivers for increased UC adoption.

Unified Communications (UC) is the converged communications environment that integrates voice communications -- over wireless, wireline, and wireless LAN -- with email, fax, unified inbox, presence, Instant Messaging (IM), unified phone number and extension dialing, Web collaboration, and video conferencing.

Among the study respondents, the top-performing organizations increased knowledge sharing among the workforce by 35%, increased workplace flexibility by 35%, improved their organization's competitive performance by 25%, increased collaboration for decision making by 16%, and accelerated their speed of conflict resolution by 11%.

"Unified Communications holds enormous promise as a coherent approach to business communications, as a way to cut through 'communications clutter,' and more directly connect a customer to a company, employee to employee, and more tightly bind business partners and suppliers," said Andrew Borg, senior research analyst, Aberdeen Group. "The challenge of our connected era is that the greater the number of communications options, the more difficult it can be to connect with a specific individual when you want to. UC therefore becomes increasingly important to mend the fractured digital communications landscape."

To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5804

Visit Research.Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary Information Technology Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

Copyright 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com

Media Contact:
Andrew Borg
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5378
andrew.borg@aberdeen.com

SOURCE: Aberdeen Group

mailto:andrew.borg@aberdeen.com

Related terms: adoption, advisor, business, communications, email, environment, information technology, investment, market, marketing, media, nyse, productivity, research, sales, technology, telecom, video, web, wireless, wireline