According to a Frost and Sullivan report, 69% of enterprises use multiple UC vendors.[1] In an ideal world, businesses would build a unified communications environment from a single manufacturer to eliminate the hassle of multi-vendor management. Unfortunately, that’s not a realistic scenario.
That’s why it’s important to have a UC solution provider who can provide a full array of services to help you manage all the vendors that make up your collaboration landscape. One partner who can provide strategic consulting, equipment, installation and implementation, programming, and maintenance can help you avoid delays tracking down multiple vendors to work through problems.
Some of the benefits of working with a single UC provider include:
Manage a single relationship
With a full service vendor you have the advantage of a “one stop shop.” Your provider can offer consulting and design experience on the front end, direct implementations, and ultimately maintenance support after install. You get to know the team, approach, and overall goals of your provider while they gain extensive knowledge of your operation and staff.
Wider range of choices
Working with one provider offers you a wider selection of possible solutions to meet your UC needs. Selecting a vendor with certifications from multiple manufacturers provides you with superior purchasing opportunities since they will likely have a broad range of key business relationships.
More effective support
With one provider, you minimize downtime by avoiding tiresome finger pointing exercises among multiple vendors. An integrated UC room, for example, will likely have several components and if one of them fails and you don’t have support on it, the entire system is down. Having an overall support plan for all components from a single provider eliminates that issue. You have one number to call and the help desk will have access to your entire system configuration to begin the troubleshooting process immediately. Since they will be certified with all the manufacturers in your system, they can take you through the process and deploy the appropriate technician to solve your problem.
Avoid interoperability problems
With UC technology evolving so rapidly and new functionalities coming on line so often, the problem of interoperability becomes more acute. Without expert guidance, you can easily acquire a component that doesn’t integrate with your existing system, wasting valuable capital expense dollars. An experienced, full service vendor will be up to date on all the new technology offerings and will help you avoid that pitfall by suggesting the appropriate equipment for your needs.
The UC landscape grows more complex all the time and trying to navigate through it by yourself can be time consuming and expensive. That’s why working with a full service provider like VSGi who has a strong partnership with industry leader Polycom can be extremely beneficial. Selecting this type of full service vendor to help you manage your environment could turn out to be the most cost effective decision you make.
11 Questions You Need to Ask a Video Collaboration Solution Provider
With cutting-edge advances in voice, video and content sharing solutions, organizations can extend seamless collaboration across every team and department so everyone can work together face-to-face – no matter where they are located. Find out what questions you should be asking a potential video conferencing solution provider by downloading this infographic.
