Does Unified Communications spell the end for office-based working?

Added by The Editor, 3 months ago.

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The increased uptake of unified communications (UC) tools will lead businesses to abandon traditional office-based working, according to IBM.

Speaking at the recent Voicecon conference in Orlando, Florida, general manager of IBM Lotus software Mike Rhodin predicted that social networking applications and online virtual environments will become accepted alternatives to real-world meetings.

Desktop computers and phones will be replaced by laptops and other mobile devices, the supplier predicted. This change will be driven by a shift in work models, as organisations embrace globalisation and green business initiatives that foster working from home.

"The real business problem everyone's dealing with here is how do you have more effective meetings," he said, adding that it's not necessarily about adding video and voice, but changing the processes to make meetings more efficient and effective.

UC providers, meanwhile, will be forced into offering resources on a royalty-free basis, as the industry moves to encourage open standards and greater levels of interoperability, he predicted. This, in turn, will make it quicker for businesses to acquire the information they need, resulting in improved work efficiency.

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Jennifer, 2 months ago

We've been hearing about the death of the office and meetings for a decade now, with each new technological iteration in the communications field (think video conferencing). The bottom line is that humans like face-to-face interaction. I know a number of home-workers who miss the banter of the office, yet hardly anyone who uses video conferencing. The simple matter is, people like meeting for lunch or coffee and no technology will replace that.

Greg Longman, 3 months ago

I think it's a bit of a leap to assume that one technology will erase working practices that have been established for years. Where there's people involved, the evolution to more automated and responsive ways of working always takes much longer than you think. Can you really see many govt employees taking part in virtual video meetings from cafes or conferences in the near future?

Victoria, 3 months ago

I heard an interesting anecdote the other day that highlighted the different approaches to working from those who have been in the workforce for years and those who have just entered it. It concerned a new graduate who insisted on tapping away on her laptop during meetings. One of her senior colleagues initially thought this was rude and that it demonstrated the graduate wasn't listening to what was going on. But it turned out that the graduate was sending out actions based on what was taking place in the meeting, reducing the post-meeting workload that so often occurs. I think this example highlights the younger generation's familiarity with technology in helping them to do their job better. Of course, you wouldn't want young recruits surfing the web or updating their Facebook profile during meetings, but clearly they are accustomed to multi-tasking with technology, and this is something like unified communications that should only make meetings more productive in the future.

Mandy Shaw, 3 months ago

A large slice of Logicalis has been doing this for 14 years. Here's a slightly edited version of the way it was described in 1996. 'Formed in 1994, the most efficient way for the company to work was to have all the people working in the field, talking to customers, so they were 100% nomadic teleworkers. People were equipped with a laptop, a printer, mobile phone and modem and used Lotus Notes hosted in a third party data centre. The start-up costs were less than expected and the ability to redeploy people and resources was seen as particularly important. The four challenges faced were management, support, training and culture. Having arrived at the virtual office the company could maximise the amount of face to face contact with clients with major and measurable business benefit.' The modems have been replaced with broadband and the Notes applications with various browser based ones; and communication has been much improved through the use of instant messaging, softphones and web conferencing; but the business benefits remain.