With the Bank of England estimating that next month’s double bank holiday will alone depress UK GDP growth in the second quarter of 2012 by around half of one percentage point¹, businesses need to enhance their business communications and collaboration tools to improve their ability to innovate and support growth.
Siemens Enterprise Communications says that many firms are battling with the challenge of bringing together their different communications tools and devices, so that their staff can collaborate better and achieve optimum productivity, whether working at home, in the office or on the move.
With the Jubilee ushering a series of events – Euro 2012, the Olympics and Paralympics – that could see much of workforces based at home or which affect overall productivity, the company believes that UK businesses could take practical steps that ensure they remain ‘always on’ for customers or able to work dynamically despite potential disruption to work schedules.
Rob Keenan, Head of UK Portfolio Management, Deployment Readiness Management, Siemens Enterprise Communications said: “Many employees still struggle to manage e-mail, mobile, landline and social media effectively to provide an integrated service to customers. This may prove more difficult with the unique events like the Jubilee and the Olympics putting unusual pressures on staff, resources and infrastructure.
“Technology advances such as unified communications (UC) are bringing together all firms’ communications and information sharing tools as well as providing real visibility of where teams are and what they’re doing and preferred way to contact them . These innovations, backed by tailored staff training on how to best use them, can ensure UK plc is ready for a unique summer while clawing its way out of a longer economic downturn– the ‘anywhere employee’ is a realistic proposition for Britain’s firms.”