Poor bandwidth availability and last-mile connectivity might have slowed the use of unified communications as a technology, but now it's emerging as a strategic tool with corporations for employee retention and going green.
Corporations are encouraging the use of UC, helping them to curtail business travel. This, they believe, results in lowering carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere.
UC can also make the adoption of virtual office concept easier than before. A virtual office enables people to work from anywhere. Organisations are beginning to realise the benefits of virtual workplaces and are investing in UC. In mature markets like the US, remote working is a fairly accepted practice.
Applied Materials, a global leader in nanomanufacturing technology, has launched GreenIS, a programme designed to reduce its carbon footprint by 10,000 tonnes by 2012. The company encourages work-from-home policy under the programme to reduce the cost and energy utilised during travel.
Nagaraj Bhat, director, Global Information Services, India, Applied Materials, says: "We are adopting telecommuting methods to achieve significant reductions in total office occupancy, transport costs and subsequent decrease in carbon emissions. Employees can work from any location as long as appropriate skills are available at the optimum mix of cost and other factors."
Bhat says that he has noticed considerable improvement in employee retention as employees who need to take a career break or have to travel long distances can continue to work from virtual offices.
The company claims to have saved $1.8 million globally on travel on account of 'Applied Anywhere' programme.
Gopal VT, head of UC, Datacraft Asia, says: "All our onsite engineers collaborate through virtual meeting place. At any given point on complex projects we would have 50-75 people working from virtual bases across Asia on a project. Virtual office environment makes it easier for companies or individuals to develop their business in different locations."
Varghese Thomas, head of corporate communications, India and SAARC, Cisco, says: "In cities like Mumbai or Bangalore, where commuter congestion is a serious problem, virtual working can reduce commuter stress and the load on our already overburdened infrastructure. It allows companies to address workplace requirements for differently-abled employees."
Sanjay Manchanda, director of Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft India, says: "A large distributed workforce, constant need to travel and employee retention are forcing companies to look at UC for 'anytime anywhere access' to enable people to work from home, have flexible working hours and at the same time remain connected to the office intranet."
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