Unified communications can help businesses work together more efficiently by integrating legacy systems and allowing employees to collaborate from anywhere using their smartphones. When communication and collaboration tools are connected, employees can easily see colleagues' availability to connect, hold real-time meetings, and share information. This level of connectivity and awareness has been shown to improve productivity, engagement, and reduce costs for many organizations.

1. join up your thinking with unified communications just like the human mind, your business works best when it connects

2. habits legacy business systems are like memories: they can slow you down. How do you make sure they work together? execs spend two hours a day on email (on average) 33% of execs check email in the middle of the night

3. balance all your offices might have phone systems, but are they integrated? Do your workers use different solutions: IM clients, video conferencing systems or email services? How do they keep track? after a 30 second interruption, it takes 5 minutes to refocus 56% of organizations say employees cannot contact co-workers first time

4. creativity today’s unified communications and collaboration apps can run on many smartphones, so staff can collaborate anywhere, anytime 89% of knowledge workers say communication and collaboration are important 91% of CIOs see collaboration software as very/somewhat important

5. awareness in a unified communications environment, Pete in New York can see when Bill in London is available and make contact. Presence information brings people together 95% of CIOs think presence and availability solutions are very or somewhat important 75% of CIOs report improved productivity through UC

6. good sense time is money: if you can set up a meeting or assign a task more quickly you cut overheads and even accelerate time-to-market. A double whammy! 70% of UC-using knowledge workers say they are more engaged at work on average, UC cuts travel costs 20%

7. thinking together working together

8. Sources used for this data: PBS: The First Measured Century, The Digital Lifestyle survey by Magnify.net, Cisco, IDC, Alcatel-Lucent, Computerworld, Orange, Chadwick, Martin Bailey