All businesses know that communication is fundamental, yet few businesses invest properly to provide employees with the right tools to interact with one another. There are many ways to define poor communication, but it will almost always be a mix of technology shortcomings combined with the choices employees make in the way they communicate.

The cost of poor communication is especially pronounced in businesses still tied to legacy technologies, such as PBXs and standalone applications like conferencing. While these tools can support some communications needs quite well, other areas will suffer. The result is lower levels of personal productivity, ineffective teamwork, duplication of effort, disconnected workflows, wasted expenditures on communications technologies and weakened morale due to frustration with getting work done.