Many organizations are turning to new software-based conferencing and collaboration solutions for audio and Web conferencing to improve their business outcomes while reducing costs and encouraging environmental sustainability. This paper details the business benefits realized by some companies who have deployed these unified communications solutions (UC). It provides market data on the growth of UC and collaboration systems as well as end user feedback on which groups receive the most benefit from these solutions. Finally, it describes factors companies will want to consider when selecting and deploying a conferencing solution, including accounting for all conferencing costs and how to look at ROI, which may go beyond just hard dollars.