The Role of Unified Communications in the Manufacturing Sector

The lowering of trade barriers in recent years has led to profound changes in business processes. Manufacturing companies have pioneered many of these changes, enthusiastically embracing leaner manufacturing techniques and off shoring operations to emerging markets in order to take advantage of low costs and local opportunities. The fierce competition unleashed, in turn, by companies indigenous to these emerging markets has led western manufacturers to further streamline their business processes, accelerate the speed of innovation and step up their efforts to outsource entire business functions to specialist third parties - who themselves further subcontract tasks to other specialists.