10 Must-Have Unified Communications Features Every Business Needs

The covid pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders shined a light on technology as the reality of remote work kicked in. Cloud adoption and video conferencing exploded as businesses struggled to cope.

As the pandemic winds down, business has forever been changed. Hybrid work models have made unified communications (UC) platforms a crucial tool. Message-based polling, video calling, and virtual backgrounds help make remote collaboration productive.

Here is a top 10 list of must-have unified communications features for business:

1. High-Fidelity Audio – Recent surveys have found that high-quality audio and video top most organizations’ must-have list
2. Video Conferencing – Video use soared globally as organizations reverted to work-from-home protocols to deal with the shutdowns. Today, around 82% of companies use video for all or part of most meetings.
3. Easy to Use Features – Ease of use tops the list of must-have features, especially for newcomers to remote work.
4. Meeting Transcriptions – Many organizations are moving toward real-time transcription features, eliminating the need for note-taking during meetings. Translation will be mainstream a year from now.
5. Screen Sharing – Screen sharing is an older feature that has found a new use in a post-pandemic world. Today, screen sharing is a must-have feature for remote teams needing to collaborate.
6. Messaging and Chat – The pandemic transformed messaging into a must-have feature. It used to be a separate function, but today is more dynamic and integrates with other UC workflows.
7. Mobile Apps – Organizations and teams need to be able to use their UC system to connect to meetings and corporate networks from anywhere, at any time, regardless of OS.
8. Virtual Backgrounds and Video Layouts – They might seem a little gimmicky, but virtual backgrounds add some fun to the technology.
9. Noise Suppression – We’ve all experienced meetings with someone’s kids screaming, or their dog barking in the background. Luckily, newer UC platforms have some form of background noise suppression built-in. Vendors take different approaches, but it is often embedded into the platform.
10. Language Translation – Closed captioning and translation features are emerging as platforms mature. This is particularly useful for companies with team members spread out globally.

Thanks to the pandemic, the evolution of UC technology has accelerated. For many companies, UC platforms have become fully formed work hubs pushing us forward into a new post-pandemic work reality!

About PrimeEdge Technology

PrimeEdge is a premier office technology solutions and services provider based in Winchester, VA. Services include Managed IT, Managed Print, Voice, Unified Communications and XaaS. Products include a wide variety of HP Printers, Scanners, MFPs, Computers and Workstations.

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