12/11/2012- Votacall VoIP – Boston, Massachusetts- Every company is looking to increase employee productivity, with bring your own device policies, new tools and other gadgets are being brought in to see what may help. Sonus Networks' recent report showed that companies could end up getting $5,000 per employee in annual productivity losses back by implementing a unified communication (UC) solution. The report, titled Mobile Unified Communications: The Emergence of 4D Convergence, looked at the drivers and benefits of unified communications coalescing with the number of mobile workers within companies.

According to numbers from this report:
- The lack of unified communications within business could create a productivity gap among workers, whether mobile or on-site, which could result in 2.5 hours less of work per week by employees
- 18 percent of projects are delayed due to poor team collaboration, and 16 percent are delayed because the decision maker cannot be reached in a timely fashion
- Two-thirds of all workers with enterprise knowledge are mobile 25 percent of the time, a number seemingly growing by the day with the amount of tablets and smartphones being used
- 63 percent of those surveyed said that the amount of smartphone use in the company could be considered either "extensive" or "widespread"

"Mobility has become an integral piece of the UC puzzle for enterprises," said Steve Taylor, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher for Webtorials. "Enterprises must push their Unified Communications capabilities beyond the office walls if they wish to get the maximum return on investment from their technology investments and the employees who use them."

The expansion of mobile and cloud based unified communications

Both mobile devices and cloud computing are now starting to become a bigger part of unified communications, according to Network World, with productivity benefiting. However, adopting this solution doesn't come without its own issues that companies should be looking at.

"When employees have increased mobile access, including access to sensitive information, IT has to address the security implications," the website said. "Additionally, if companies are allowing employees to bring their own device, IT needs to handle the challenges of supporting different platforms. IT needs to ensure the workforce receives mobile security training and should consider mobile security solutions such as mobile device management tools, data loss prevention software and email encryption options."

UC being used in the cloud is the other big trend, with a report cited by Network World showing that nearly 70 percent of companies are already starting to use unified communications in concert with cloud computing.