Enterprise unified communications

Large organizations run on communication. Teams across offices, regions, and time zones need to reach each other and their customers without switching between disconnected tools. An enterprise collaboration or unified communications (UC) platform brings those conversations into one place.

This guide covers what enterprise unified communications is, the benefits it can deliver, the features to look for, and how to plan a move from a legacy phone system.

What does unified communications mean for enterprises?

Enterprise unified communications is a cloud platform that brings an organization's primary communication channels into one system. Those channels typically include voice calling, video meetings, team messaging, and SMS/MMS. When it's delivered as a cloud service, it's often called UCaaS (unified communications as a service). For an enterprise, the goal is one platform that handles internal and external communications across the whole organization.

What about contact centers? They're part of the organization too. Contact centers need specialized capabilities like queues, agent routing, and supervisor tools, which is how contact center as a service (CCaaS) emerged as its own category.

The channels themselves overlap, though. Phone calls, video, messaging, and live chat are used by internal teams and customer-facing teams alike. Ideally, an enterprise with a contact center would run UCaaS and CCaaS in the same app.

In practice, some providers deliver this by partnering with or white-labeling a third-party contact center product. That can cover basic functionality, but it can also lead to a disjointed experience for employees and separate records of customer conversations.

Dialpad takes a different approach. Dialpad developed its UCaaS and CCaaS products natively on a shared foundation, so calling, messaging, meetings, and contact center work share one app and one set of customer data rather than being packaged from separate products.

How enterprises benefit from unified communications

Teams across locations work from one app

Enterprise UC platforms run in the cloud and use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), which carries calls over the internet. With enterprise VoIP, teams can call, message, and meet from a desktop app, browser, or mobile phone, whether they're at headquarters, a regional office, or visiting a customer site.

Video meetings let teams in different offices connect without travel. Collaboration tools like screen sharing, AI transcription, and file sharing, available natively or through integrations, give distributed teams a shared digital workspace. Because the same app runs on PC, Mac, iPhone, and Android, employees can use the devices they already have.

Cost savings on multiple fronts

Modern UC platforms reduce your reliance on on-site hardware.

With a traditional desk phone setup, each new hire or new office can mean buying phones, configuring them on your network, and maintaining the equipment. UC platforms run as softphone apps on computers and mobile devices, so there's less hardware to buy and install. Some on-premises PBX systems also charge extra for features like conference calls, while UC providers often include them in their pricing plans.

Maintenance shifts to the provider, too. Your UC provider keeps the platform running and rolls out updates, which can reduce your upkeep costs.

Consolidation adds up at enterprise scale. Xero consolidated the phone systems across its 17 offices onto Dialpad Connect, saving more than $500,000 a year in communications costs.

Scale up or down as needed

Adding users without hardware installs makes growth faster and simpler. With a UC platform, admins can add or remove users, assign numbers, and spin up new offices from a central dashboard.

In Dialpad, admins can manage users and numbers in a few clicks. For larger rollouts, automatic user provisioning with identity providers like Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, and JumpCloud keeps user accounts in sync with your directory. That makes it easier to onboard a hundred new employees or open a new office.

Analytics that track call volume, missed calls, and more

Measuring your communications helps you see where to improve. Enterprise UC platforms typically include analytics and reporting, so you can track things like missed and abandoned calls.

Dialpad Connect includes call analytics for total, inbound, and outbound calls, along with answered, missed, and abandoned calls. Admins can view these by office, department, or individual user, schedule reports by email, and export data for deeper analysis.

Simpler management than on-premises systems

With a cloud UC platform, there are no on-site servers or phone system wiring to maintain. Your provider owns and maintains the infrastructure and rolls out updates automatically.

If your teams prefer desk phones, you can still use supported VoIP desk phones, which are typically quick to set up. Or employees can use the softphone app on their computers and mobile devices.

Must-have features for enterprise unified communications

Once you've covered the basics, here are the features to look for when evaluating an enterprise UC platform.

Call forwarding, routing, and voicemail

Start with the fundamentals. Your UC platform should also work as your enterprise phone system, with the call handling you'd expect from an enterprise PBX and more.

Call forwarding lets callers dial one number and reach employees on their mobile phone or at another location. In Dialpad, users can add up to five forwarding numbers that ring along with their Dialpad number.

Call routing matters for any shared line, like a main number or department. Look for business-hours routing, auto attendants, and IVR menus that send callers to the right team. Many platforms can also route calls to an AI agent. In Dialpad, main lines and departments can route calls to an AI receptionist during open or closed hours, so callers get an answer after hours or when your team is busy.

When calls do go to voicemail, transcription saves time. In Dialpad, each voicemail shows a transcript alongside the caller ID and timestamp.

Built-in AI

Artificial intelligence is now part of everyday business communications. When AI is built into your UC platform, rather than added on through a separate tool, it can work directly with your calls and meetings.

Dialpad AI is included across Dialpad plans and supports:

• Real-time transcription: Calls and meetings are transcribed as they happen, so participants can catch up if they join late.

• AI Recaps: AI Recaps summarize calls and meetings with action items. They're editable and shareable, and they can help draft a follow-up email or schedule a next meeting.

• AI receptionist: Dialpad AI Agents can answer calls to your main line or departments, and you can add AI Agents to any Dialpad plan.

That connection is by design. Dialpad builds its calling, meetings, messaging, and contact center products on one shared foundation with one set of customer data. Dialpad AI transcribes and summarizes conversations as they happen, and those transcripts, recaps, and action items stay attached to each call or meeting in the same conversation history your teams already use. Instead of piecing together notes from different systems, people can review what customers and colleagues actually said and use it to make better-informed decisions.

For teams that run a contact center on Dialpad, capabilities like real-time sentiment analysis and AI Live Coach Cards are available with Dialpad Support for contact centers.

Security, access controls, and compliance

Larger organizations have more systems, users, and potential points of risk, so security controls are a core evaluation criterion.

Look for single sign-on, user provisioning, and role-based access that give IT control over who can access the platform. Dialpad supports SAML single sign-on with Okta, Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, and JumpCloud, and admins can require users to sign in only through their chosen identity provider.

For certifications and compliance details, Dialpad publishes its security, privacy, and compliance information in the Dialpad Trust Center.

Cloud-based admin

With cloud-based administration, your IT team can manage the UC platform from a browser, whether they're at headquarters, a regional office, or responding to an issue after hours. Changes to users, numbers, and call routing can be made from the admin portal without on-site access.

Contact center on the same platform

Many enterprises run at least one contact center. When your contact center runs on the same platform as the rest of your communications, customer-facing teams can connect with internal experts from the same app, and customer conversations stay in one place.

Dialpad Support for contact centers runs on the same foundation as Dialpad Connect, so enterprises can add contact center capabilities without introducing a separate system.

Desktop, browser, and mobile apps

A dedicated desktop app is useful, but employees won't always have access to it. A browser-based option means they can still sign in and communicate from any computer, and mobile apps cover employees who spend time away from a desk.

How to migrate from a legacy PBX to enterprise unified communications

Moving from an on-premises PBX to a cloud UC platform is often easier to manage in phases. A typical migration includes these steps:

1. Audit your current setup. Document your phone systems, numbers, call flows, and integrations across offices. This is often where enterprises find overlapping tools they can retire.

2. Plan your numbers. Decide which existing numbers to keep and plan to port them to the new platform, so customers keep calling the numbers they already know.

3. Connect identity and provisioning. Set up single sign-on and automatic user provisioning so accounts stay in sync with your directory.

4. Roll out in phases. Start with one office or team, confirm call routing and devices work as expected, then expand to additional locations.

5. Configure routing and failover. Rebuild call flows for main lines and departments, and set failover destinations so callers can still reach you in the rare case of an outage.

6. Train your teams. Give users a short introduction to the new apps, and point them to self-serve resources.

A phased approach can move quickly at scale. Beacon Mobility consolidated 26+ legacy phone systems across 27 offices onto Dialpad in under three months.

4 questions to ask before your enterprise moves to a unified communications platform

It can be daunting to commit to a new platform, particularly if you're not yet sure it's the right move. These four questions can help you decide.

What's your budget?

Know how much room you have in your budget, and how flexible it is, before you start evaluating vendors. Being clear up front helps you avoid solutions you can't afford. It also keeps you from skipping add-ons that would fit comfortably within your budget.

What's in your current communications tech stack?

Look closely at the communication tools you use today. Do several apps fill a similar role? For example, do you run a separate interactive voice response (IVR) system alongside your phone system? Are your channels spread across many applications, each with its own cost?

Enterprises can accumulate many overlapping apps, so it's worth asking these questions across each department, not just IT. Knowing what you have today also clarifies what you need from a new platform.

What's in the rest of your tech stack, and can the new platform integrate?

Beyond communications, consider the CRM, productivity, and help desk tools your teams rely on. Do they share data, or do they operate independently?

A UC platform with strong integrations can bring communications into the tools your teams already use. Dialpad integrates with enterprise software including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce.

The Salesforce integration lets users call from inside Salesforce and automatically logs calls to matching records, including AI-generated summaries and action items. The Microsoft Teams integration lets users make and receive calls and send SMS/MMS from their Dialpad number inside Teams. Both integrations are available on Dialpad Connect Pro and Enterprise plans.

What's your biggest pain point?

In many cases, you're choosing a UC platform to solve a specific problem. Maybe you want to break down silos between teams. Maybe employees are struggling with an aging PBX, or leadership wants more visibility into call performance.

Prioritize the platform with the features that address your biggest pain point. Anything it does beyond that is added value.

Bring enterprise communications onto one AI platform

Enterprise unified communications helps teams connect with each other and with customers across channels. It can also simplify collaboration across offices, including for multinational organizations.

Dialpad brings calling, messaging, meetings, and contact center work together on one AI platform for customer experience. With Dialpad AI built in, conversations are transcribed and summarized as they happen, turning interactions into operational insight your teams can act on.