A business assessment that evaluates communications patterns of the employee base is critical to successfully planning for Unified Communications.

Alliance Technology Group defines Unified Communications as orchestrated communication and collaboration across locations, time, and medium to accelerate business results. It is achieved through the convergence of real-time, near-real-time, and non-real-time business communication applications including: calling, conferencing, messaging, contacts, calendaring, collaboration, and rich presence with voice, video, text, and visual elements. Users can access these capabilities using multiple access methods including voice, data, and speech access, through telephones, PCs, and mobile devices. These communications services are increasingly designed to be embedded into structured and unstructured business processes. This takes Unified Communications to the next level in terms of IP Voice and Video Telephony; audio, web and video conferencing; unified messaging of voicemail, email, and fax; instant messaging and more.

There is no single strategy by which enterprises will move forward with Unified Communications since each customer has a unique set of needs and existing infrastructure. Alliance Technology Group understands this and moves customers toward Unified Communications to support complex and flexible work environments. The consultative process begins with a business assessment to understand the communication patterns within the organization and to identify where business processes slow or bog down.

Typical areas of focus include:

- Improve support for mobile workers
- Bring telephony to the PC
- Bring computer applications to the telephone
- Establish Unified Messaging (Email & Voicemail Integration)
- Enterprise Instant Messaging Integration
- Introduce Unified Conferencing
- Video