Technology and communication channels are supposed to enhance our work flow, project effectiveness and provide convenience to users who are trying reach us. But increasingly, there appear to be just too many forms of communication; causing a bottleneck of information which slows down our ability to work. Much of this is due to our independent choices of communication and the need of these technologies to be tied together or 'unified'.

As your day goes by, you typically find you have a voicemail, an e-mail, and an IM - all from one person trying to reach you at the office ... when you had your mobile phone with you all along. Multiply that scenario by several more customers, a few vendors and three employees and your high-tech communication options can virtually strangle your ability to respond.

By leveraging the technology of unified communications, you can cut through the complexity of multiple devices and application platforms to simplify communications for you and your staff. You can instantly streamline your business processes by virtually eliminating the delays caused by the time it takes to track down the right people with the right information.

In a recent study by Sage Research, they found employees using unified communications save a full 32 minutes a day on average. Simply by being able to reach other coworkers on the first attempt. In addition, the study found that the average employee using unified messaging saves 43 minutes per day from being able to manage all emails, voicemails and faxes from a single inbox.

The bottom line? Implementing unified communications solutions enables you to accelerate the decision-making process while simultaneously cutting costs to deliver real business value.