Hybrid Unified Communications Solution as Key Growth Driver

India offers a diverse business perspective, with several large enterprises ably supports an economy with innumerable Small and Medium Businesses (. The country is home to more than 1 lac SMBs and thousands of large organisations that need to communicate continuously for business growth and to track the project growth. In such a scenario, spiralling communication costs can adversely affect the users as many may not be able to afford the hefty expenditure or may find the calling solution to be inadequate. For such firms, a hybrid Unified Communications (UC) solution is ideal. A hybrid UC platform combines the best of web, audio and video conferencing on an easy to use interface, with the option of IP and standard telephony. Therefore, foreign clients working on an IP network can join the same meeting where the businessman in India is using the PSTN based call. This can result in tremendous savings as two parties can join the meeting on different platforms without bearing any costs for the additional infrastructure. It is a proven fact that Indian companies can lower their communication costs by deploying the UC solutions. For example, Tyco Fire and Security India was able to bring down the calling costs by as much as 20 per cent by opting for Arkadin’s Anytime platform, which simply offers audio conferencing facility. Users can imagine if simple PSTN audio conference calls can generate 20 per cent savings, how much a company can save through a hybrid system with video and web conferencing capabilities. Moreover, the user will never have to be concerned about the hardware expenses, since such a solution is available on ‘as a service’ model. For example, Arkadin OnePlace is a hybrid conferencing solution that can be accessed simply from a web browser, which helps l eliminate the cost involved with buying hardware for a world class conferencing experience. Apart from reducing the calling costs, Arkadin OnePlace supports instantaneous inter-organisation collaboration for better productivity and communication, which are key ingredients for success in the Indian market. Furthermore, this ‘as a service’ model makes the solution scalable, which helps the users in controlling the number of participants in the conference. This proves cost effectiveness in the long run and improves the Return on Investment (RoI) on the solution. Conventional benefits of UC solutions, such as lower carbon footprint and reduced travelling, are part and parcel of this hybrid conferencing solution as well. The class leading VoIP/PSTN audio, HD video and reliable web conferencing solutions offers great simplicity in conferencing while maintains high levels of Service Quality. Nowadays, technological developments have created conferencing environments that replicate a real meeting room in all aspects, from individual meetings to group chats at the same time. Users can work with more than 100 business associates face to face through the video conferencing components, while the web conferencing solution enables multiple file transfers simultaneously. Thus, any solution with so many advantages over conventional meeting rooms can result in huge savings for the users, especially in a cost-conscious market like India.