UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS AT BOEING Modern industries are no longer confined to a single placeor serve a common group.

Many firms have foothold in several countries andserve a wide range of audience so Communication between different stakeholdersin a big enterprise has been a key factor for effective production anddevelopment of the firm. Much emphasis has been laid on finding and employing acommunication module that serves all types of services which is both costeffective and secure at the same time. Some of the required features are chat,screen sharing, all types of voice call, conferencing etc. with the growth ofmodern technology there are many options to employ a unified communication thatis close to perfection which is reliable and serve all the necessary thingsrequired. Unified Communications will help organizations to transform theirbusiness communication.

Unified Communications has evolved at lot in past decade.Initially it is a set of communication technologies such as Instant Messaging andlater it has expanded to other communications such as text messaging, email,and IM. At present unified communications is providing a single platform tosupport all the communication needs such as chat, audio, video, sharing and soon (Fluker & Murray 2017). The goal of unified communications is provide anexcellent collaboration between employees, business and partners.  When Boeing usheredits communications system in to a new era it used an IP network based unifiedcommunication network.

This change made collaboration between its leaders and colleaguesvery smooth, effective and hassle free. One of the advantage of UC systemconverged over IP network is its scalability. Since Boeing works on projects that are classified all ofthe applications it employs must be risk free and secure. This new UC system isvulnerable to traditional security threats as well as some new type of threats.One of the main threats to UC system is social engineering. Common sense mustbe prevailed while choosing the passwords for communication applications.

Allthe systems must be locked when they are not in use. While hosting a conferenceover the phone or while screen sharing a pass code must be provided to all thenecessary attendees to avoid snooping. while sharing the data all the sensitivedata must be properly encrypted with Boeing approved encryption protocol.Several other types of fishing are another concern. To avoid these employeesmust confirm with the requestor before sending or confirming anything over thephone or any other application. The UC employed at Boeing is widely appreciated by itsemployees.

Its effect is swift and immediate. The productivity and ease ofcollaboration between various teams has increased. Over the time several firmsof various types of business deployed similar type of UC capabilities overconverged IP networks.

The benefits of UC over converged IP network areuniversal and similar benefits that are experienced at Boeing are replicated.All the other firms that employed the same have seen a dip in operational costsfor collaboration and communication and seen increase in easy of doingbusiness.One can understand in not deploying all the capabilitiesavailable through UC system. Boeing is a very large company and serves clientsacross the globe that needs service and response without any delay. If there isany loss in communication it would result in irreparable loss to the brand nameand in monetary terms. It always makes sense not to depend one method if thereis an alternative available. This will come in to use whenever there is adisaster with the UC system over IP network and it also decreases thedependency on one vendor which provides communication network. If I am the CIOat Boeing I would encourage all of the employees to use the existing UC systembut would not terminate the subscription to other third party vendors.

And theother capabilities I would like to add to the existing UC network is able tobring social networking capabilities. This totally adds another dimension tothe work place and relationship between the colleagues. This provides anadditional layer in communication within the team. Leadership will be able tocommunicate with the employers on a personal basis. Networking with variouspeople of different discipline will help in learning and widening of the knowledgebase which will in turn help in the growth of the company.

Careful planning andcreation of social media platform will help in fostering the organizationalculture. A new type of experience will benefit the company.