News

Webcast helps businesses overcome challenges of implementing unified communications

With 42 percent of businesses considering unified communications, latest in series outlines key requirements

London, 3 March 2008 - The SAS Group, an international provider of IP-based network and communication infrastructure services, will broadcast its latest live webcast, entitled 'How to implement unified communications on a global network’ at 11.00am on Tuesday 11th March 2008. The webcast aims to help CIOs and senior IT executives understand the main requirements for deploying IP telephony (IPT) and unified communications (UC) on a global basis and will offer advice to ensure the benefits are fully realised in the most cost-effective way possible. The webcast is available free-of-charge to registered users at www.sas.co.uk/webevents/webcasts.

Recent research from the SAS Group* has revealed that 42 percent of UK businesses are considering deploying unified communications over the next 12 months. Furthermore, with 80 percent of these same companies now using or investigating IPT, the addition of UC would seem to be just a matter of time. However, whilst the benefits of greater mobility, collaboration and a consistent customer experience are well documented, implementing and supporting global UC solutions in an economically viable way can be difficult.

“Deploying unified communications on a global scale is likely to involve a number of different carriers, virtual network operators and other third party providers; this added complexity can throw up a whole host of problems for businesses,” said Charles Davis, CEO of the SAS Group. “Our latest webcast will help organisations establish global standards for their UC connectivity as well as educate them on how to minimise potential points of network failure through carrier due diligence.”

During the webcast, Simon Cranford, chief information officer at the SAS Group, will talk delegates through vital considerations when implementing UC on a global scale. Topics covered will include the importance of establishing deployment team requirements from the outset, as well as the need for centralised and local support, and how to accurately identify the manufacturers 1and network carriers that are best placed to provision and support such deployments.

This webcast is part of a larger series of online briefings designed to help companies understand the technical aspects of implementing IPT and unified communications, and is available free-of-charge to registered users. It will then be made available on demand from 12th March 2008. Future webcasts in the series will cover some of the other challenges involved in undertaking IPT and UC projects, including ‘Adding video conferencing to your IP telephony network’.

*SAS Group survey, 110 respondents, Dec ‘07