Two sizable obstacles get in the way of Unified Communications & Collaboration deployments, despite the undeniable benefits UC&C can bring in the form of lower costs, streamlined processes, and greater productivity.

One is the capital investment necessary for a premises-centric solution, which puts it out of reach for many organizations even in good economic times. The other is the deployment time involved and the associated challenges for organizations with limited IT resources.

A webinar you don't want to miss is coming up July 31, and it will focus on an approach that overcomes those obstacles. Led by Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research (Zeus is best known from his years at Yankee Group), it will look at how a hosted or cloud-based UC&C strategy can deliver the benefits immediately and with minimal up-front costs.

Titled Hosted Unified Communications and Collaboration: Fulfilling the Promise, the webinar (registration here) is scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 31. It will look at how organizations can leverage a hosted UC solution to support their growing mobile and virtual workforces, with collaboration applications that expedite decision-making. Not to mention how a hosted UC solution facilitates dealing with BYOD (bring your own device), reducing the headaches associated with this all-but-inevitable trend.

It will also show how enterprises can reduce their total cost of ownership even as they extend communications and collaboration capabilities to as many employees as possible, and how the centralized management of UC&C can streamline business processes and stretch the capabilities of a lean IT staff.

In addition, the webinar will offer guidance in determining organizational needs, the criteria necessary for comprehensive solutions, and the important role an all-IP network foundation plays in application performance, reliability, and security.

Zeus Kerravala, Sprint's own Joseph Martin, Director of Solution Engineering for Sprint Complete Collaboration, our hosted UC solution, will present, along with Mike Velder of Cisco, Global Sales Manager for Hosted Collaboration Solutions.

The hour of your time you spend with this webinar will go a long way toward helping you determine a UC strategy and business case for deployment that fits your organizational needs.  If you are looking at a hosted approach, this session will help you better understand how quickly you can be enjoying the benefits of UC&C, without that tremendous initial investment.

Register now for the July 31 Hosted Unified Communications and Collaboration: Fulfilling the Promise webinar.