Unified communications (UC) solutions are among the best tools for supporting today's increasingly mobile and remote workforces. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the share of companies offering telework arrangements tripled between 1996 and 2016, to 60 percent. This rise in telecommuting is relatively easy to explain as well as to support with UC and other collaboration solutions.

For starters, larger enterprises employ a growing share of workers in the U.S. – they had 51.6 percent of U.S. employment in 2012, up from 49.1 percent in 2004, as per the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of these organizations have remote and branch offices out of which employees work. At the same time, communications technologies have improved over the years with the evolution of VoIP, virtual private networks (VPNs), presence-based call routing, video conferencing and much more.

With cloud UC, you get many of these apps rolled into one convenient package with low startup costs and predictable subscription charges. Moreover, you gain a new productivity engine for your teams, no matter where they're located. Let's look at five advantages of cloud unified communications platforms for mobile and remote teams.

1. General scalability

When a cloud UC deployment replaces a traditional private branch exchange (PBX), it immediately delivers a major upgrade in scalability, which is usually good news for anyone working outside the main company office. It's much easier to add, delete and manage users than it is with a PBX, plus the underlying cloud infrastructure provides a pool of scalable resources not available with on-premises systems.

2. Soft phone clients

With cloud UC, you don't need a phone to make a call. VoIP soft phone client APIs within UC solutions allow you to take all calls from general purpose devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and Macs. You can plug in a headset or use built-in speakers, find contacts within an integrated directory and easily control where a call goes and who's on it without needing to punch a bunch of numbers on your phone.

3. Integrated fax services

Fax remains an important application, especially within the healthcare industry. As much as 75 percent of communication within healthcare is still conducted via fax, and innovations like fax-over-IP (aka FoIP) have opened up new opportunities, too. UC solutions like Cloud UC from Teo Technologies come with integrated fax services, so that personnel can securely transmit important documents even from far-away locations.

With soft phone clients, you can take calls directly from your laptop.

4. Unified messaging

When you're on the go or working from home or a public place, it might seem difficult to keep up with all the different kinds of messages you receive, such as calls, voicemails, emails and fax. The challenge is amplified if you're working with the smaller screen real estate of a laptop or smartphone, and/or across multiple devices. Unified messaging within business communications solutions greatly simplifies matters. You can manage all of your messages from a common interface so that you don't miss anything.

5. Hotdesking for IP phones

Hotdesking-enabled IP phones are usable by multiple individuals, one at a time. That's beneficial for teams working out of offices that might have limited on-site IT infrastructure, including for UC solutions. Under this setup, there's no need to give everyone an IP phone, leading to savings on IT equipment.

Cloud UC can deliver a broad spectrum of benefits for distributed teams. Connect with the experts at Teo Technologies today to learn more about how our UC offerings can transform your business.