The cost savings, increased functionality, improved productivity and mobility offered by VoIP is fast making it a business priority. But what are key factors to consider when evaluating and choosing a VoIP provider, and how can you be sure that the vendor you select will be flexible enough to meet the growing needs of your company?

Unified communications has the potential to create a new breed of knowledge workers, if a clear, organisation-wide implementation strategy and plan are laid out. For the enterprise, UC will deliver a more efficient, anytime, anywhere business environment. This in turn will lead to faster decision-making, better acceptance and use of collaborative tools, work-life balance improvement and an outstanding customer experience. So, is this communications utopia?

The presentation is aimed at a business audience and looks at what exactly we mean by Unified Communications, the business needs it fulfils, the hurdles you jump to deliver an enterprise UC solution and how you should overcome them.

VoIP is now accepted as the way forward for voice infrastructure so whenever new systems are required, enterprises will consider both in-house and hosted VoIP solutions. This session looks at case studies of outsourced VoIP solutions for medium and large businesses, the problems the solutions had to address, and how the offerings available succeeded in providing answers

Today, VoIP is much less a disruptive influence and much more a mainstream technology. This session looks at how the unified communications evolution will continue to keep VoIP in the headlines and what that means for your business.

As the world moves from dedicated voice systems to voice applications and unified communication, techniques for testing and verification of all components and services becomes not only essential but critical for successful implementations. This session will explore testing and monitoring strategies for ensuring that this new generation of technology meets customer, employee, and call centre agent expectations while providing the bottom-line benefits originally intended.

Today’s dynamic business climate sees organisations embracing communications technology as a tool for differentiation and improved business agility. Using references to best practice, practical illustrations and case studies, this session looks at how to create a collaborative business across diverse environments with unified communications

Enterprises are striving to maximise the potential of their infrastructure and collaborate across geographical boundaries and time zones. Achieving increased productivity and profitability are critical management objectives. Unified Communications solutions are increasingly being viewed as a means of realising this objective. Verizon Business will present how enterprises can leverage their capabilities and and the migration paths available to them.

Unified communications and collaboration can connect your customers, employees, partners and suppliers no matter where they are and at any time. This session looks at how to deliver great service to your customers, get more from your partners and suppliers and give your organisation the agility to achieve competitive advantage

These are challenging times, with organisations facing continuous change, including the shift to an agile virtual organisation, increasingly mobile workers, and the unremitting demands to increase productivity and lower costs. The requirement for a multi-channel IP network and unified communications to support all an organisation’s interaction needs has never been more evident. It is becoming increasingly important for IT management to begin to make possible the availability of common communication services, either by infrastructure upgrades or through Managed Services. If organisations have not already, then enterprises should look to put in place the foundation of a converged IP environment.

Andrew Penn will discuss likely scenarios familiar to IT teams across the UK and will look at how current infrastructure need not determine future Unified Communications technologies. Looking across the IT product and service spectrum, this master class will help the IT professional understand what and where their legacy systems are. By using this knowledge they can determine the path to Unified Communications understanding how, with a flexible system and service lead approach, organisations can ensure they are able to adapt to meet the changing needs of both their users and customers.

This session will provide an insight into the latest technologies that will influence the way you operate your business and how you can enable your employees to communicate more effectively.

Unified communications comprises a powerful set of converged network applications that can directly enhance all aspects of a company’s operation. This session discusses the characteristics of unified communications, its ability to enhance the quality of the interaction across the enterprise and how it can be used to optimise application performance according to the unique needs of each business

Having a unified communications strategy is fast becoming an enterprise must-have. This session shows you how to align your communications roadmap with your business strategy and how this can help you build the business case for unified communications.

“The largest single value of Unified Communications is its ability to reduce "human latency" in business processes,” Gartner Group, 2007. Unified Communications (UC) is set to be the key theme for enterprise communications in 2008. Solutions such as the Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) are tearing down the boundaries between an enterprise customer’s telephony and computer networks, and “unifying” all types of business communication. Ultimately, UC will deliver massive benefits for enterprise in terms of business efficiencies and productivity, and reduce the problem of “Human Latency.”

This presentation will outline a number of examples of effective UC in action. But UC is still at a very early stage of its development and it cannot be expected to deliver results overnight. The many different types of communications used in business - instant messaging, VoIP, mobile, video, e-mail, voicemail and SMS – still exist in isolation from one another and often depend on completely separate network infrastructures. So what’s the fastest way to bring all this together without another huge round of network investment? The elements and applications that make up today's UC construct do not require a complete IP or VoIP infrastructure to deliver their business process and bottom line benefits. Instead, this presentation explains great results can be delivered adding many UC capabilities on current PBX and PSTN networks with an effective gateway strategy, which can serve as the “glue” between different types of network.

In this session Richard McCammond will discuss the changing face of telephony as Carriers migrate from traditional PSTN services to the new world of VoIP and IP Telephony. Richard will explore how Carriers are addressing the technology challenges in their core networks, and finish by looking at the opportunity for organisations and consumers to benefit from the integration of voice with other “Collaborative” applications.

The Web has evolved from a content distribution vehicle into a platform for collaborative applications. A new generation of on-demand applications are leveraging the reach and scale of the Web to make us better informed, more productive and completely connected. How will the changing software landscape impact the way we work and who will benefit?

Every business starts along the path to unified communications - where speed, reliability and network capacity are of the utmost importance - with a unique set of needs and an existing infrastructure. This session describes how companies should go about planning and implementing unified communications in these circumstances

This session describes the business benefits that can be achieved by unifying infrastructure, bringing life and intelligence to buildings through simplifying systems, making sure security is at the forefront of business operations, reducing the carbon footprint and cutting the energy bill and reducing costs and increasing your productivity. The session will also describe proven solutions in these areas by referencing a number of case studies.

Unified communications infrastructures must systematically incorporate security features and use well-known security techniques. This session discusses the security that should be foremost in your mind when evaluating or implementing a UC product or solution in your company

Organisations are increasingly challenged with juggling environmental obligations and forthcoming regulations, with the pressures of running an efficient, cost effective and competitive business. This session will look at the key environmental issues and how a Unified Communications strategy can work in harmony with the green agenda, rather than in conflict.

With the business workforce becoming increasingly mobile, employees need to have access to enterprise applications and communication tools wherever their workspace is located. Hear about the latest innovations in mobile Unified communications technology and customers who have achieved real business results.

Branch office architectures are evolving, inheriting more applications, services, features and functions usually contained at corporate headquarters sites while LAN architectures are also undergoing a fundamental change. This session looks at the impact of so-called ubiquitous computing on the next generation remote office, discusses the benefits and potential pitfalls, and reviews the technologies involved.

Unified Communications is a culture change. The old command and control structure is being replaced by a more collaborative way of working. Is your organisation threatened by this, or embracing new ways of working? Your people are your best assets and Unified Communications changes the rules. Others are ready, are you?