A recent white paper from Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) takes a fine, in-depth look at the issue of, as the title would suggest, “Improving Business Operations with Unified Video Communications.” The entire paper is well worth a read, it goes into useful detail on this complex topic.

Basically, Medium and large enterprises are finding new opportunities to reduce costs and improve team collaboration and customer service by deploying the latest enterprise video solutions. Unified video communications can help, as these products bring UC and video collaboration together.

The paper identifies four key benefits:

Build trust. Businesses need trust. Trust between teams in an enterprise and between business partners is the key to a smooth and effective working relationship. High-quality video communication is the next best option to a face-to-face meeting when it comes to building trust.

Reduce costs. Replacing face-to-face meetings with unified video communications can reduce travel costs drastically. In addition to reducing the need for travel to meet with colleagues and customers, a unified video communications solution can also help employees be more efficient by re-allocating the time they would spend in airplanes, cars or trains to other business tasks.

Spend more time with customers. Unified video communications solutions that are based on open web technology can safely and easily be made accessible to third-party partners via the Internet. With this approach, the travel time that is saved can be better spent with customers or business partners through weekly video interactions instead of monthly site visits. This is a very effective way to demonstrate both innovation and a strong commitment to a customer.

Increase the efficiency of virtual teams. Unified video communications support and enable virtual teamwork initiatives for organizations with personnel in multiple sites or teams of teleworkers.

Virtual teamwork is increasing as teleworking is on the rise and distributed, cross-functional work teams are becoming the norm.

With just audio and web conferencing tools at their disposal, virtual teams can be at a disadvantage. They may feel disconnected. They may find it difficult to get to know one another. And they miss the all important visual cues offered by body language. Video is, therefore, an important tool for creating highly effective virtual teams. It enables a virtual team environment to thrive because it replicates the quality of interaction available in face-to-face meetings.