The age of IT having unchallenged control over enterprise communications ended with the dawn of mobile phones.
Today, evidence of this dependence is overwhelming. A Samsung survey reveals that nearly 80% of respondents believe employees cannot work effectively without a mobile phone, and three-quarters say mobile devices are essential to workflows.
This means large swathes of business communications are now conducted on systems IT does not control, risking compliance demands, mounting security threats, and unpredictable mobile costs like bill shock.
For decades, IT departments have tolerated this separation as the price of mobility. But new solutions mean there no longer has to be a trade-off for those who recognize the opportunity to bring it back under control.
How Control Fell Through the Gaps
The fundamental issue isn’t simply that employees use mobile phones; it’s that all mobile subscriptions create an entirely separate communications infrastructure.
Unlike traditional telephony systems that fed into company communication systems, mobile devices connect to carrier-operated networks with separate numbers that bypass the UC platform entirely.
This separation means IT cannot monitor, access, or record these communications and cannot apply call-essential PBX features like unified numbering policies, unified voicemail, and call hold.
Equally critical, IT teams cannot control costs when staff travel, leading to unpredictable roaming expenses.
Even when trying to apply some control over these issues with corporate-issued smartphones, mobile subscriptions still route through the same carrier networks. They also face added resistance from employees who don’t want to carry two phones.
Installing UC apps on personal devices has not proved a solution either, as they suffer from poor call quality, battery drain, and unwieldy interfaces. This sees staff bypass them and revert to their phone’s native dialer, creating issues with caller ID as their personal number is displayed instead of the business number.
In the era of cloud communications and the PSTN switch-off, where businesses are moving from traditional PBX systems to UC platforms like Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex, a unique opportunity presents itself. One which can see businesses eliminate company phones—both mobile and desk—and tackle the complicated UC apps that hinder staff adoption to bring mobile communications back under IT control. It begins with Tango Extend.
UC-Integrated Telephony: A Turning Point for IT
The shift marks the point where IT can stop working around mobility and start harnessing it through UC-integrated mobile telephony.
