BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), consumerisation of IT, mobility, context and social media are now among the buzz words of the communications and IT landscape. They represent technology trends or developments that are evolving and often overcoming early-adopter challenges to become core components of an enterprise communications solution. It is predicted that many more innovations will unfold in these areas over the next few years.
Being away from the office no longer means being out of touch, which can be a blessing or a curse for the mobile worker. Increasingly, mobility means more than having persistent voice, e-mail, SMS text and even video connections; it’s having anywhere, anytime access to the information and applications you need to take care of business, whether it’s data at your desktop, spreadsheets on the corporate server, or customer relationship management (CRM) in the cloud. The growing pervasiveness of mobile connectivity, coupled with access to the breadth of business applications and data, is changing what consumers expect from businesses and what employers expect from their people.
Metadata
Every knowledge worker or road warrior knows the experience: you scramble to find a document before a conference call, or get distracted from the task in hand in order to retrieve the dial-in number and passcode after being dropped from a call. Contextual data, or metadata, is information relating to a call or meeting: who the participants are, how you’ve interacted with them before, and the documents and other resources relevant to the interaction. Contextual data will increasingly accompany voice, video, chat and text communications to frame up interactions and collaboration. Think about the possibilities of automatic connection or reconnection (in the event of a network failure) to information, and of communication channels as contextual data streams being delivered simultaneously to boost personal productivity.
What about session initiation protocol (SIP)-enabled applications? Mobile workforces and high-collaboration enterprises are markets ready for innovation, such as click-to-call and one-touch video, which can improve collaboration and reduce costs. Early adopters are poised to capitalise on these innovations more quickly than others.
Technology users are no longer waiting for IT to provide the productivity tools they need. If you want proof, consider two words: smartphones and tablets. Users want the ability to communicate using the devices and media they choose, from phones, to operating systems, to conferencing platforms. And they can back up their demands with stories and data on the productivity gains they achieve. IT departments will be compelled by business units and enterprise users to adopt more user-centric applications and devices, with unified communications solutions providing both the connecting fabric and necessary security.
Companies of all sizes have employees scattered across multiple locations and working on the go. They need collaboration solutions that make it fast and easy to locate and bring people together, share the news, make decisions, and keep business pushing forward.
Avaya can help businesses confidently take on mobility challenges with faster, smarter, better mobile collaboration. Its real-time, flexible solutions for mobile workforces are designed to let applications and mobile devices work together securely, reliably and at a lower cost. It aims to offer flexible purchase and deployment choices designed for any business size. In addition, Avaya can leverage current infrastructures to help meet CAPEX and OPEX goals. Avaya offers large enterprises many options for mobile collaboration, including new ways to leverage personal devices like iPads in the workplace. Avaya’s mobile collaboration solution, supported by its flagship Avaya Aura Solution suite, includes the Avaya Flare Experience and Avaya one-X mobility solutions.
Communication made easy
The Avaya Flare Experience breaks down barriers with a distinctive user interface for quick, easy access to voice, video, social media, presence, instant messaging, audio/video/web conferencing, a consolidated view of multiple directories, context history and more. It features a central spotlight that highlights active or in-progress communications and initiating a communication session is as easy as touching-and-swiping one or more contacts from the directory into the spotlight. The Avaya Desktop Video Device is a Wi-Fi enabled high-definition video device that has an 11.6-inch multi-touch screen with an integrated high-definition video camera. The multi-modal device supports the Avaya Flare Experience, and is an integrated solution that brings together multiple interactions into a single communications interface. It is designed to enable a user to consolidate tools such as a desk phone, speakerphone, and video endpoint in a single easy-to-use device for ad hoc or scheduled multimedia collaboration. Customers should have no need for multiple devices, which saves money on hardware, licenses, management, and maintenance.
With the recently announced Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad, Avaya has extended its reach to include the market-leading tablet, providing mobile workers with secure, next-generation, unified communications and collaboration capabilities over both Wi-Fi and 3G networks. Avaya has plans to extend the Flare experience even further to additional consumer devices. Avaya believes that businesses need their people to be empowered by enhanced communications that enable them to work and make decisions faster to drive better business results. Avaya provides collaboration solutions that provide these tools to help empower people. Mobility is all about ensuring this collaboration can occur anywhere and everywhere, allowing employees to collaborate across devices and media with the contextual information they need, regardless of location.
Bringing people together
Avaya is a leading global provider of next-generation business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, real-time video collaboration, contact centres, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world.
Avaya helps its customers bring people together with the right information at the right time in the right context, enabling business users to improve their efficiency and quickly solve critical business challenges. Because its solutions are based on open standards, customers can decide what works best for them. Its objective is to give people the best collaboration experience, regardless of the devices, locations, or media they choose.
For more information please visit www.avaya.com/uk