Speaking About UC With Interactive Intelligence

Interactive Intelligence provides contact center, unified communications, and business process automation software and services to companies around the world. As Interactive Intelligence is a UCStrategies MAP sponsor, we spoke with Ritu Maheshwari, the company's Solutions Marketing Manager, about her views on UC.

UCStrategies: What are you most excited about in the UC space?

Maheshwari: Unified Communications has been around for many years but it was never truly a "unified" experience for the user. We are finally seeing the convergence of UC, Cloud, and Mobility. These together provide a unified communication and collaboration suite that a user can access from anywhere with equal ease. That ability is the real game changer for business users.

UCStrategies: What's the biggest challenge the UC industry faces?

Maheshwari: UC is a very large and broad feature and functionality suite. The biggest challenge that the industry faces is being able to deliver the full range of features and functionality from a single unified platform (in the cloud, preferably). A lot is talked about capabilities and security, but the architecture - the foundation of a good UC solution gets neglected.

UCStrategies: If you could give current or potential UC customers one piece of advice, what would it be?

Maheshwari: Just one? UC is a crowded space and potential customers have a lot of options. Do your due diligence on two things: 1. The architecture of the solution, and 2. A stable and trusted vendor.

UCStrategies: What do you think the UC industry needs in order to reach the next level?

Maheshwari: Enhanced collaboration tools (outside of phone calling, traditional PBX), scalable and reliable cloud architecture based offerings.

UCStrategies: How do you view the impact of millennials on the UC industry?

Maheshwari: Millennials have ushered in a few very interesting aspects for the UC industry:

- Collaboration: UC is no longer just a PBX system that plays well with fax and email. It has become a real-time, anywhere, anytime contact platform.

- Trust for the cloud: they are helping bridge the gap of the old school thinking that had an initial mistrust for the cloud.

UCstrategies: How has UC impacted the way you personally work and get your job done?

Maheshwari: Our team at Interactive uses the new PureCloud communication and collaboration solution. Internal email has almost halved in the past few months, as we communicate via IM, share documents and track project progress there.

The growth of UC is evident to Maheshwari, with the variety of options available and the cloud, UC, and mobility coming together. His advice should be considered by anyone looking to invest in a UC solution for their organization.