And so far this year, Danone has hosted 1,050 videoconference calls with 70 high-definition monitors. The company estimates that 15% of all videoconference calls reduce travel costs and employee carbon emissions. Yet the challenge faced with adopting such technologies isn't always financial. For instance, Close said getting people to change the way they work required his team to pay special attention to training.

"We had to constantly communicate and provide training again and again to get a critical mass of people using the new tools," Close said.

That is not uncommon, according to Irwin Lazar, vice president for communications at Nemertes Research. For many companies, the biggest hurdle following business buy-in is an organization's culture. He said companies looking to justify an investment in unified communications during the downturn might be challenged with a simple cost-savings argument. Creating a more productive work environment could help address the financial as well as the cultural challenges.

"VoIP, for instance, is a difficult argument to make based on cost savings alone, but if you work in disaster recovery and other unified communications tools such as video conferencing, more tangible benefits become apparent," Lazar said. "Companies can cut travel costs with video tools, enable collaboration and cut phone bills with instant messaging and keep an increasingly virtual staff connected."

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