Cisco® Unified Mobility helps meet the changing needs of an increasingly mobile, collaborative, and virtual workforce. The application securely extends rich communications capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager from primary workspaces to any location or device of their choosing. With Cisco Unified Mobility, business and IT managers can improve customer responsiveness and increase productivity by extending the reach of their IP communications network resources and Cisco Unified Communications Manager to any mobile workspace.
An Increasingly Mobile Workforce
The number of mobile employees and the time they spend away from their desks are increasing. A survey conducted by Yankee Group in May 2007 found that on average 41 percent of U.S. workers can be considered "mobile." (Mobile workers are defined as workers who spend 20 percent or more of their time away from their primary workspace.) This mobility complicates collaboration with customers, partners, and colleagues.
The proliferation of mobile devices and applications intended to reduce this problem in fact may be exacerbating it. As more people rely on mobile phones as their primary communication tool, they spend more time managing multiple phone numbers and voice mailboxes, which limits their ability to accomplish work efficiently. Many users experience daily frustration as they play phone tag and wait for responses to voicemail messages. These delayed communications slow down projects, customer response time, and access to information required by colleagues in the normal course of business.
Reducing Missed Opportunities with Single Number Reach
To address the real loss of business productivity due to missed calls to the primary office phone and managing multiple voice mailboxes, many IT departments are looking to implement single number reach and single business voicemail. With Cisco Unified Mobility and Cisco Unified Communications Manager, employees can receive calls from colleagues and customers on a device of their choice whether they are in the office but away from their desk, or outside the campus traveling, in a hotel, or at home.
Figure 1. Cisco Unified Mobility Overview
Cisco Unified Mobility allows users to consolidate all their incoming business calls into a single business phone number and receive them wherever they are working. If mobile users are unable to answer a call, Cisco Unified Mobility consolidates the unanswered calls in a single business voice mailbox on Cisco Unity® voicemail or other business voicemail system. With Cisco Unified Mobility, users no longer have to share multiple phone numbers with business contacts or check multiple voice mailboxes. And, to help ensure customer service continuity in the event an employee leaves the company, customers dialing the company number will reach an active employee, not the mobile number of the person who has left.
Additional Benefits
Eliminate Call Interruptions when Moving in or out of the Office
In their office, employees often prefer to use a speakerphone or other IP phone service on their Cisco Unified IP phone. While in the office, Cisco Unified Mobility provides transparent transition of ongoing calls from mobile phones to desk phones, and conversely, so users can maintain uninterrupted communications while taking advantage of least-cost routing of mobile calls across the company's IP communications infrastructure. A conversation or conference call can be started on the desk phone and if the person needs to leave the office without interrupting the conversation, the call can be handed off to the mobile phone by pressing a key. This action is transparent to the other party on the call. For calls extended to mobile phones by Cisco Unified Communications Manager, when users come back to their desk they can simply hang up the mobile phone and pick up the desk phone to continue the conversation.
Reduce Long-Distance Calling and International Roaming Costs
Mobile users can place business calls from their mobile phones while traveling overseas as though they were calling from their desk phones. With Cisco Unified Mobility, users can dial the Cisco Mobile Voice Access line from their mobile phone and place the call on the IP communications network over a tie line. The call is connected and remains in control of Cisco Unified Communications Manager, thereby reducing mobile communications costs associated with long-distance or international calls placed directly from their mobile phone.
Improve Productivity Through Rich Functionality
Cisco Unified Mobility extends the call control features of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (such as hold, resume, transfer, and conferencing) to the devices and locations chosen by users. Users can now access these functions while they are away from their desk.
Avoid Unwanted Calls
Cisco Unified Mobility allows users to access the secure User Profile Webpages to enter mobile and other alternative phone numbers where they would like to receive extended business calls and to create filters that restrict the types of calls that are extended. The application intelligently manages, filters, and routes each call between business extensions and alternative phone numbers based on user-defined rules on their profile. Unanswered calls to alternative numbers are consolidated into a single business voice mailbox, and voice communications resources are used to extend only relevant calls as determined by user-defined rules.
Simplify Management
Cisco Unified Mobility gives system administrators flexibility to define and manage user profiles. They can use the secure Administration Webpages to determine how much control users have over their profiles and make user profile changes when needed. Users enjoy the advantages of personal choice, while the system administrator retains control over resource use and has more time to provide support.
To summarize, business benefits of Cisco Unified Mobility include the following:
• User reachability and responsiveness: Increase user reachability and responsiveness with a single business number, a single business voice mailbox, and personalized access lists.
• Communications continuity: Maintain uninterrupted business communications by transparently transitioning extended business calls from a desk phone to a mobile phone, and conversely.
• User productivity: Improve mobile users' productivity by allowing them to take advantage of enterprise call control features on business calls extended to alternative phone numbers.
• Reduced cost of communications: Reduce mobile communications costs through Cisco Mobile Voice Access, transitioning extended business calls from mobile phones to desk phones while in the office and using voice communications resources to only extend important business calls to mobile phones. Also reduce costs by routing long-distance and international calls made from mobile phones back over the corporate IP communications network.
Next Steps for Decision Makers
So how can decision makers responsible for voice, video, mobility, and Web solutions take advantage of Cisco Unified Mobility? Following are four steps:
1. Assess current mobile business communications needs and strategy.
Use Cisco Mobility Quotient to determine the mobile business communications requirements of your organization. Broaden the definition of your mobile workforce to include those constituents who are mobile on campus or working remotely from home or at a remote location. Determine whether your organization has considered a strategy to take advantage of its IP communications infrastructure or Cisco Unified Communications Manager to address some of its mobile business communications requirements.
2. Assess the productivity benefits of enabling a mobile workforce.
Determine whether Cisco Unified Mobility can help your organization address some of the reach, responsiveness, and productivity challenges of an increasingly mobile workforce. Remember that Cisco Unified Mobility can reduce mobile communications costs.
3. Deploy the right mobility solution.
Cisco Unified Mobility is native to newer versions of Cisco Unified Communications Manager, eliminating the need for any additional components. In situations where earlier versions of Cisco Unified Communications Manager are currently in place, the addition of an application server to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager may suffice.
4. Take advantage of the flexibility offered by Cisco Unified Mobility.
Expand your mobile business communications strategy by evaluating the business benefits of other solution components such as Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator, Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, Cisco Unified IP Communicator, and Cisco Unified Wireless IP phones.
Conclusion
Users today are determining which business communications tools and applications that organizations adopt. Users - not only mobile users but also those who stay on campus or work from home - rely more and more on mobile technologies and applications to perform their tasks. This trend has advanced the use of voice technology in the workplace.
Cisco Unified Mobility provides decision makers the ability to extend and enhance mobile business communications by taking advantage of the current IP communications infrastructure already available within the organization. In addition to protecting current investments, Cisco Unified Mobility extends enterprise call control features to mobile users, allowing them to remain connected to the enterprise.
Meeting the need for anytime, anyplace, any-device support for the workforce, Cisco Unified Mobility offers a modular solution upon which the IT or networking department can build. With greater productivity from users, improved use of the campus network, and a stronger role for IT in the user productivity tools, Cisco Unified Mobility delivers a win-win option for all stakeholders within an organization.
