2011 Poll Shows Unified Communications Progress

In the third-annual Unified Communications Tracking Poll released by CDW-G this week, 900 IT decision-makers sounded off on technology adoption in their organizations.

More organizations are adopting unified communications

The poll found that unified communications implementation rates doubled since 2010 to 16 percent. That rate covers six groups of 150 decision-makers each — medium to large businesses, federal government, state and local government, health care, higher education, and K-12 public school districts.

Seventeen percent of higher education organizations fully implemented unified communications over the last year. That's a 13 percent increase from the year before.

And 19 percent of K-12 school districts fully implemented the technology, up 6 percent from last year.
 

The top features and benefits of unified communications adoption

Both K-12 and higher education IT professionals cited two of the same top features of unified communications.

These two features show that mobility needs may drive unified communications adoption. And so does this response: the most commonly deployed communications solutions across the six groups are smartphones and mobile desktops, both at 80 percent. 

On the benefits side, higher education and K-12 decision-makers cite two of the same answers again, though they're in different order.

The top challenges to adopting unified communications

Along with the top features and benefits come some challenges. Across the six groups, respondents from organizations that are planning, implementing or deploying unified communications selected all the significant challenges they are facing in the table below.

Between 29 and 35 percent of respondents faced some of these challenges in supporting a smartphone, mobile desktop and virtual desktop environment.

But the biggest challenge is securing budget commitment. This is in part because it's hard to find reliable cost projections and difficult to convince management that they will see a good return on investment.

Organizations consider unified communications in the cloud

Overall, nearly two-thirds of the poll respondents have at least considered deploying unified communications in the cloud.

The majority of the respondents who deployed the technology in the cloud said it was faster, easier and more cost effective. And decision-makers who've gone with the cloud are less likely to see capital costs as a concern.
 

What do you think?

Since last year, unified communications implementation has doubled according to the respondents in these six groups. In higher education institutions, the rate has more than tripled. K-12 districts saw a smaller increase this year, but they do have two percentage points over higher ed.

While unified communications does have its benefits, it also has its challenges, including securing budget commitment for deploying the technology.

What benefits and challenges are you finding with unified communications?