Benefits of Using Microsoft OCS to Businesses

Employing Microsoft OCS solution provides a collaborative experience of unified communications to meet the business communication requirements by ensuring seamless connectivity. Microsoft OCS solutions help businesses to easily connect customers, employees, suppliers, and business partners, thereby increasing business efficiency and make business critical decisions. Businesses can cut costs on phone call charges and enhance employee productivity by effectively integrating instant messaging (IM), presence awareness and web/data conferencing.

Benefits:
Microsoft OCS can significantly enhance business efficiency, resource utilization, and reduce operational costs.
Improved Business Efficiency
Microsoft OCS gives the user ability to see online availability of other users thereby reducing the cost of unnecessary phone calls. OCS provides ability to employees to share information quickly thereby reducing the time and cost of travelling to meetings. The real-time communication enabled by OCS using a communicator client for IM/audio or by LiveMeeting audio/video (PC to PC VoIP and multimedia) or through data collaboration using file transfer, application/screen sharing and white boarding ensures seamless communication interchange between employees. These features provide communication mediums to enhance responsiveness, decision-making, and customer service that further increases the business efficiency and productivity.

Quick Response and Decision
Distributed organisations can immensely benefit from the instant messaging feature that helps to get instant response to quick queries. The collaboration features of OCS allows smooth transition from IM conversations to a voice call allowing online data sharing for further clarification of information. This easy interchange of information helps in quick decision making.

Provide Better Service
One of the key aspects of unified communications is providing better service to clients, business partners, suppliers etc. Instant response to quick queries achieved through real-time communication is a rewarding experience for the customers, suppliers, business partners etc. Immediate service can give businesses a competitive advantage over other organisations that still rely on legacy systems like emails. Federation with partners, customers and vendors enables similar functionality to be available between consenting companies and users allowing for an extension of the excellent collaborative features beyond the confines of the internal organisation in a controlled and safe environment.

Easy Integration
Microsoft OCS provides for seamless integration with core business applications like Microsoft Exchange service, Microsoft Office productivity applications, Windows Sharepoint Services, and Microsoft's document sharing application. The online presence including telephony presence of the users can be known through OCS. Also, OCS enables other employees to contact these users through IM across these various applications. Effective cohesion between various business applications results in effective information interchange and faster decision making.

Security
Data security holds an important place in information interchange. OCS provides an enterprise grade robust communications platform with secure and trusted federation links for communication between businesses and other organisations. OCS also includes features to protect against virus attack and SPIM (SPAM on IM). Using public IM systems on corporate network exposes businesses to the risk of attack of SPIM. However, OCS has features to effectively counter this attack. Also, security of sensitive information is ensured while its leakage can be tracked. Calls between two internal or federated Communicator users are encrypted ensuring voice traffic cannot be captured and listened to by 3rd party persons. And as with many Microsoft solutions administrators have full control and to a granular level to determine what functionality is allowed and what is deemed a potential security risk.

Hosted OCS solution is a cost-effective option that helps to reduce operational costs by removing the need to invest in infrastructure and the new SPLA licensing model from Microsoft allows enterprise customers to pay on a monthly basis for only the number of end user licenses used during that period. OCS provides a better communication platform that enables employees to communicate with others at different locations or time zones more effectively thereby increasing employee productivity. OCS solution can free the IT infrastructure that can be deployed on business-critical projects.

AlwaysON is an award winning premier managed communications services provider, operating critical networks and IT systems for organisations across the UK. We help companies with distributed workforces increase their efficiency and productivity by allowing easy sharing of information through unified communications and managed network services, enabling effective collaboration over a fully managed, secure MPLS network.