Email, voicemail, fax and text messages have eliminated traditional business barriers posed by time and geography. Now, modern executives are consolidating all these tools into one package – Unified Communications (UC).
By integrating all these channels in one interface, UC enables us to manage email, voicemail and fax via a laptop or PDA, simplifying previously-complicated business communications and enhancing user control. With UC, users enjoy total control by being able to choose the most suitable timing and method of communicating – to the point of even blocking unwanted inbound messages.
High-level communications convergence = almost limitless possibilities
UC is already delivering major benefits to multinational corporations. Let’s take the case of a company setting up a subsidiary in mainland China. When traveling to and from the mainland, executives often have difficulty accessing emails, corporate phonebooks and other information from their Hong Kong office networks. This can cause frustration and costly delays – but by leveraging a Virtual Private Network (VPN), executives traveling in China can link seamlessly with the company’s IT resources and communications networks just as easily as if they were still in Hong Kong.
The bottom-line benefit to business travelers is that they no longer run the same risks of missing important messages while out of town. Just one device, such as a laptop or PDA, really is all that’s needed to access and reply to email, voicemail and faxes!
Executives who visit mainland China frequently can now simply switch call receive settings from office to mobile, or vice versa, at scheduled times and dates by using an Intelligent Call Routing service. Once this is done, they should never miss an incoming call.
As a double precaution to make sure calls are not missed in a busy office environment, users are able to synchronize fixed-line and mobile phones with a handy Simultaneous Ringing capability so that both phones ring when a call is received. This feature also enables users to switch calls from mobile to desktop phone without interruption. With UC, users can even filter out unwanted inbound calls by setting phones so they only answer to specified numbers from a pre-set “white list”. At the same time, a convenient “buddy list” function keeps users constantly in the know as to whether people they might need to call are available to answer. The end result is unprecedented transparency and strengthened business relationships.
By combining fixed-line and mobile phones, UC is now giving forward-thinking executives more control, as well as making them more flexible, reliable and effective than they ever dreamt possible. Why not join them?
Don’t get left behind in the commercial communications revolution!
As communications technology continues to evolve at pace and channels multiply, UC is sure to become increasingly important. PCCW has long been well aware of the need to keep Hong Kong’s business community at the leading edge so that our enterprises stay competitive in a constantly-globalizing market. That’s why we launched PCCW Convergence – our own advanced version of UC.
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