In the business world, everything you do relies on communication: sales, customer service, management, research, and so much more. Over recent years, it has become clear that unified communication is the best way to manage multiple communication tools with Cisco being the popular choice.
CUCM (Cisco Unified Communications Manager) fulfills the needs of large organizations and keeps employees connected and efficient when it comes to daily communication and operations.
But with all the benefits Cisco Unified Communications offer to every employee in the organization, managing it without implementing UC best practices can lead to huge financial losses.
If managed effectively, however, adding a layer of automation to Cisco Unified Communications Suite can take your UC management efficiency to the next level.
5 Ways CUCM can enhance enterprise communication
Cisco Unified Communications Manager or ‘Call Manager’ is a unified suite of infrastructure for voice and video calling, messaging, and mobility.
The purpose of unifying these apps is to provide reliable, secure, scalable, and manageable call control and session management regardless of geographic location – a basic requirement in this day and age.
UC managers appreciate Cisco Call Manager’s capabilities but say everyday management is daunting. So daunting it’s often described as “slow as Monday morning traffic.” But before we reveal how we can reduce routine UC management from 7 days to 7 seconds let’s see what makes Cisco the top UC choice.
Ideal for remote work
Getting your hands on Cisco Unified Communications Manager means you’re always ready for emergencies that prevent your employees from coming into the office without jeopardizing security.
For example, enterprises that use Cisco Unified Communications Manager were much more prepared for a certain global pandemic. Employees using Cisco systems were able to use their communication apps and devices remotely. In some cases, IT personnel still needed to come in or use VPNs to change configurations and solve employee tickets as the UC servers were installed locally.
However, migrating UC management to the cloud could solve this issue, allowing employees to collaborate remotely. Cloud-based Cisco Unified Communications (UCaaS) helps large organizations be more flexible no matter what change comes their way.
Designed for scalability
Business needs are as unexpected as they are ever-changing. Cisco is the top choice for small and midsize businesses, with its largest enterprises serving unlimited users.
Unified communication is especially vital for large organizations because they need to add or remove users frequently. You still need your IT professional to take care of these changes unless you’ve already simplified the process for your HR manager to take care of directly.
Self-care portals
CUCM can provide UC administrators and employees with a self-service portal to help speed up UC requests and updates.
CUCM administrators can help IT managers handle provisioning more efficiently or help employees customize features and settings for their phones independently. Efficient UC managers will choose to provide employees self-service portals so they can customize their apps to their hearts’ content without bothering IT.
When employees can take care of simple technical tasks themselves, your expensive IT professionals have fewer low-level high-priority tickets to manage. Leaving them to make the most of the high IT budget and move the company forward through innovation and progress.
User provisioning
Cisco Unified Communications Manager allows for manual UC provisioning of users for new employees. Since operations are manual, every request becomes a new ticket waiting for the next available IT professional. IT takes care of the configurations, and new employees get the access they need as per the HR request.
However, highly technical people appreciate the value automation brings because it saves them an incredible amount of work and time.
With the right tools, Cisco Unified Communication Manager provisioning can be managed automatically, which unburdens your IT team and reduces dependency. That’s Tuki’s forte.
Extensive integrations
CUCM offers native integrations to numerous apps and devices, making communication and collaboration more efficient.
When you have unified administration of all your telephony devices and integration with third-party devices and applications, things tend to happen faster.
Other integrations include:
- Voicemail
- Instant messaging
- Contact centers
- Support of all Cisco IP phones
- Third-party SIP devices
- And more
Almost any software or device you use can be integrated into your unified UC management solution. Thought effective management is a whole other story.
Cisco Unified Communications Management challenges and how to bypass them
As much as we love Cisco Unified Call Manager, we admit the daily maintenance could be easier.
After reading the Cisco Unified Call Manager reviews on G2, we discovered that while users like Cisco’s capabilities they dislike the number of menus and the specific expertise needed to manage it.
It sounds like IT professionals would love to experience simplified UC lifecycle management without expensive expertise or repetitive and manual tasks.
One way to really boost efficiency is to migrate UC operations to the cloud. Yet many organizations are worried about the time it will take and the harm it may bring due to prolonged downtime.
Our team at Tuki devised a way to help organizations transition to the cloud with no downtime at all.
If you’re ready to take your Cisco Unified Communications Management to the next level, drop us a line.
