VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly Issue 93 | December 31, 2008
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
New Year’s Resolutions for UC
OK, it’s New Year’s Eve and we all know what that means.It’s time to think about our resolutions for the New Year.I expect we all have one or two in common, like taking better care of ourselves, breaking long-standing and nasty habits and spending more time with our friends and loved ones.
But, what shall we resolve about our industry – Unified Communications?We’ve assembled a list of ideas for all three groups in our UC community – Enterprise IT and Telecom Managers, Vendors and System Integrators, and Consultants and Analysts. Take a look, adopt those that fit and send us any suggestions you have to add to the list.
IT and Telecom Managers:
* Do that UC pilot you’ve been thinking about, while the economy is slow and you have some breathing room.
* Ask each of your four main UC suppliers (IP PBX, E-mail/Desktop, Applications, Mobility) to suggest two or three areas for UC investments, with ROI specific to your enterprise or industry.
*Meet with each of the top five functional areas in your company to explore new applications that make sense in the tough economy and can put you in a leadership role in the recovery cycle.
*Consider organization changes to be better prepared for UC; refer to relevant VoiceCon sessions,
* NoJitter posts, and whitepapers at UCStrategies.com.
* Use collaborative workspaces with integrated UC to speed up projects.
* Run reports on installed systems to provide insight on changing usage patterns — growing, flat or declining — so that your next system purchase will accurately reflect current requirements.
Vendors and System Integrators: Enable customers to invest in UC without facing big risks or burdens – specifically, ensure that the technology being offered is open and interoperable, especially for new solutions such as for presence federation.
* Make solutions easy to understand and to budget for; publish basic configurations and statements of work with sample prices to help the customers with their planning.
* Make sure customers can easily try new technologies and solutions, whether via on-site trials or hosted trial accounts, so they can get enrollment from their internal users.
* Update sales compensation plans to match strategic directions.Since core technology will be sold in any case, it’s the direction that’s important.
* Make sure that your installed base can migrate to UC, even if they can’t make the major upgrade or system purchase this year.
* Add at least three more UC case studies or white papers per month to the web site.
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored byUnimax
Unimax replaces the use of native interfaces for multi-vendor PBX and voice mail systems with one, centralized, easy-to-use software interface. Unimax delivers:
1. Significantly reduced operational costs
2. Strengthened security
3. Increased visibility and control
4. Improved internal customer service
Unify the administration of MACs, password resets (assisted and self-service), automated provisioning, automated voice mail list management, transaction auditing, reporting, and more across systems from Avaya, AVST, Cisco, Nortel, Microsoft, and others.
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly continues below:
Consultants and Analysts
* Promise not to start one more article with the phrase “Everyone has their own definition of UC.”Focus on what UC does for customers, and the definition will be obvious.
* Keep the enterprise users and Telecom/IT staff in mind in every article or posting, since it is their investments and risk-taking that drive our industry.
* Think of 10 ways to do more for less — i.e. provide more value via less time, travel or cost to the client.
* Share the best possible advice with clients and vendors, even if the input is not what they expect (or wish to hear). Post as much of that advice as articles or white papers as is practical.
* Stay alert to the effects of UC solutions in other parts of the enterprise, such as security, operations, business continuity, compliance, WAN/LAN/wireless network configurations, server administration, virtualization, etc.
How’s that for a list of resolutions?Let us know and send your ideas to me at mparker@unicommconsulting.com.Thanks for a great 2008, and we look forward to new and exciting times in 2009.Happy New Year!
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored byPsytechnics
Traditional network management tools collect and report operational data, but are extremely poor predictors of users’ experience with IP voice or video communications. In the instance of poor voice quality, they are equally poor at isolating the root cause of the issue. Watch the replay of the VoiceCon webinar, “Ensuring Enterprise Quality Voice and Video,” to see how to deliver service assurance for IP voice and video, based on the users’ experience. http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=128330&s=1&k=D95E8FABE52C2C64718AC48935E9D1C3
The Year in Review: Part 2
In last week’s issue of UC eWeekly, Jim Burton highlighted the major UC vendor actions and evolutions that occurred during 2008. This week I’ll look at what happened from the customer perspective.
There was considerable progress in 2008, part of which is reflected by the almost 10-fold increase in the number of UC case studies posted by the vendors. Here’s where you can find many of them:
While many of these cases are about IP Telephony dressed up as Unified Communications solutions, you will still find a lot that’s useful. There are UC-U (User Productivity) cases in which the enterprise runs faster with less effort (and lower cost) simply by providing better communications tools to its people — well beyond upgrading to VoIP.
There also are UC-B (Business Process) cases where enterprises are changing how things are done, including product development (via conferencing and collaboration); production and logistics (via presence, IM, federation, mobility, conferencing); and customer services (via mobility, collaboration, transaction completion). In most of the UC-B cases, you will find software that is integrating the UC functions into the business processes, such as putting IM and “click-to-call” into the business application interface or such as automating the convening of a project team or problem solving group.
In addition to the rising number of successful deployments, there were three other notable trends. On the positive side, many customers were installing Unified Communications as overlays or add-ons to existing PBXs and e-mail systems. Also, many of these were done as pilot projects that, if successful, could be readily extended, a trend that’s likely to continue as the push for ROI becomes even more intense in 2009.
On another positive note, UC is increasingly a focus of Systems Integrators, which means customers are likely to have more pre-packaged solutions from which to choose. As the SIs gain experience, it also means that implementations are more likely to succeed.
It’s too early how a third trend will pan out. Several suppliers, including Avaya and Cisco, have begun to bundle their UC product modules into the base IP PBX user license price. On the one hand, this could be really positive if it means that every new system sale will be justified by high-ROI UC applications with “free IP Telephony” included. On the other hand, if this means that the whole migration to IP Telephony has to precede a UC application deployment, it’s going to take longer to see the UC solutions from these providers actually get deployed.
Bottom line: UC made considerable progress during the past 12 months and the stage is set for an even broader adoption of Unified Communications in the coming year.
What do you think — what successes or challenges did you see during 2008? Drop me a note at mparker@unicommconsulting.com or post to NoJitter.com later this week. And from all of us involved with UC eWeekly, the best to you and yours for the coming year. We’re going to take a few weeks off from publishing – you’ll hear from us in early January!
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored byCovergence
Covergence is a leading provider of solutions that enable the Global 1000 to transition from legacy voice to voice as a low-cost web service. Our communications middleware enables organizations to increase productivity, profitability and shareholder value by collapsing voice and data networks, consolidating PBXs, and transforming dial-tone and presence into web services. One of our customers, a Fortune 50, reduced telephony operating expense by 40% - 60% annually. Read the case study at www.covergence.com/roi
The Year in Review: Part 1
This has been a very exciting year for our industry – but there is still confusion about some of the fundamentals – like what does UC really mean? See, for example, Blair Pleasant’s recent post on NoJitter.com — http://www.nojitter.com/blog/archives/2008/12/still_trying_to.html
During 2008, many vendors continued to define UC in ways that fit their specific needs and product offerings. Some repositioned their company and/or products, claiming to offer “UC solutions” when, in fact, they were merely rebranding existing products and adding “UC” to the product description. As the realities of the global economy set in, these efforts were usually counterproductive – the uncertainty about what UC is delayed customer buying decisions.
So, let me offer a word of warning to enterprise customers: Be careful; if the products you’re evaluating don’t deliver real solutions – business improvements – that can be integrated (unified) with other communication or business components, you could wind up with a dead-end technology.
On the positive side, however, and there was much to be positive about during 2008, UC made significant evolutionary progress. For example:
Siemens, even while going through a change in ownership, continued to evolve its products and positioning and ended the year with an deep, well-rounded UC portfolio, including Siemens OpenScape Unified Communications Server, OpenScape UC application, and a new OpenScape Video portfolio.
Cisco integrated WebEx, which it acquired in 2007, into its product set, and it came out with new offerings and major releases, including advances for Cisco Unified Presence and Cisco Unified Personal Communicator.
Aastra catapulted its world-wide IP-PBX offerings via its Ericsson acquisition and it migrated its Clearspan PBX into a UC platform.
IBM and Microsoft continued to develop Sametime and OCS respectively, with updates announced in 2008 and additional releases expected early next year. Both companies garnered leadership positions in the Gartner 2008 UC Magic Quadrant, and Microsoft also placing as an innovator in the Gartner 2008 Enterprise Telephony MQ.
Interactive Intelligence hit UC’s sweet spot by demonstrating how the company has evolved its Customer Interaction Center (CIC) product into a business process automation platform.
Mitel took revolutionary steps by implementing a new and unique approach to hosted services, as well as delivering a highly energy-efficient UC solution based on the Mitel Unified IP Client running on a Sun Microsystems Sun Ray server.
In addition, Avaya and NEC have repositioned themselves to compete as “UC vendors” rather than PBX vendors. Both also are now focusing on the needs of end users (as opposed to the IT organization or what the IT people think the end users needs). NEC has established a portfolio management team to better address end user needs with a focus on several vertical markets plus support for the channel.
2007 began with most vendors promoting UC-User Productivity (UC-U), which integrates or unifies an individual user’s silos of communications. But despite the value UC-U can deliver, the channel often has had difficulty selling this and quantifying “hard” ROI.
With the economic downturn, many enterprises need to achieve a 12 month or less payback, and I believe that best way to accomplish that goal is via UC-Business Process (UC-B) – integrating communications into a business process. By focusing on UC-B, vendors can show their customers cost savings, but also help them gain a competitive advantage and improve employee productivity.
Next week, Marty Parker will continue UC eWeekly’s year-end review and examine progress from the customer and application perspectives. The UCStrategies team will provide a more detailed year in review on our website – www.ucstrategies.com.
What do you think? What do you think of the progress UC made during 2008? What are your predictions for 2009? Share your thoughts with me at jburton@UCStrategies.com or post them at NoJitter.com.
In these challenging economic times, many of us are wondering whether enterprises will continue to invest in UC technologies and solutions. The answer is, it depends.
As my colleagues Marty Parker and Don Van Doren noted during sessions at VoiceCon San Francisco, during these difficult periods, companies’ investment patterns tend to fall into one of the following three categories:
·Survival mode: A relatively small number of companies have one objective during economic downturns: Staying alive. So, they’ll only invest where it’s critical for survival. Some won’t make it. Discretionary spending, including on UC, will be eliminated. These companies will not be able to invest in any new technologies, and will do their best to stay afloat. Vendors: Don’t bother knocking on their doors trying to sell them UC solutions.
·Focus mode: This is where most companies are found. They have cut back sharply on investments, and will be extremely cautious about technology purchases. They have limited budgets and have to re-allocate and refocus their UC investments on smaller, more specific projects. They may continue with existing projects, but will stretch them out. These companies will concentrate on where they’ll get the most value for the buck, focusing on identifiable cost savings or revenue growth.
UC investments for this group may include enhancing mobile UC capabilities with single-number reach or find-me/follow-me capabilities for sales reps and executives, or enhanced collaboration solutions that will reduce travel costs and enable people to work at home (thus reducing some real estate costs). Other investments may include improving and enhancing customer intimacy by implementing UC capabilities such as “Expert Agent” to help provide optimal service to customers while reducing the length of time it takes to resolve a customer’s problem. These are focused applications of UC targeted at specific groups where there are identifiable benefits.
·Expansion mode: These lucky organizations have enough cash to take advantage of the downturn and become more competitive. In some cases, they can invest aggressively to extend their lead, to gain market share, or to open up new business opportunities.
These companies will focus on UC implementations that have measurable impact, notably decreasing costs and increasing sales. They can leverage the situation and optimize and transform their businesses while reducing communication and other costs by implementing UC solutions that focus on streamlining their business processes.
Expect to see these companies implement business-specific applications. One example is an automated inventory solution that notifies and alerts the appropriate people of an inventory shortage based on their presence status and possibly even their location, and automatically sets up a conference call/web conference in a matter of minutes. This reduces the time spent trying to rectify the problem, while ensuring that the company has the proper inventory to meet sales demand.
While it undoubtedly will be challenging, UC can thrive in today’s troubled economy in certain circumstances. Most companies will reevaluate their upcoming expenditures, and in some cases, UC purchases will be put on hold. However, companies in the Expansion Mode can take advantage of the situation and use UC technologies to help them surpass their competitors who are digging in their heals by not spending or investing in technology solutions. But, they will have to make the business case for these technology investments, which is even more challenging when budgets are being tightened.
The worldwide economic conditions will cause most companies to carefully examine their technology expenditures, but they won’t curtail them. In many cases, selective use of UC will deliver very quick payback. But getting approval for these investments will be more difficult than ever.
So, what do you think? Is your company moving ahead with UC or taking a wait-and-see approach? Drop me a line at bpleasant@commfusion.com or respond to this post at www.nojitter.com.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Psytechnics:
Traditional network management tools collect and report a lot of operational data, but they are poor predictors of users’ actual experience with IP voice or video applications. With video conferencing taking center stage, impairments including picture blocking, freezing, and jerkiness must be identified before the end user becomes frustrated. In a webinar on December 3, Dr. Mike Hollier, CTO of Psytechnics, will discuss how proactive performance management ensures that video/audio experience remains business grade and prevents operational and support costs from getting out of control. Registration opens soon. More details at www.psytechnics.com
As expected, Unified Communications took center stage during last week’s VoiceCon San Francisco conference. With few exceptions, sessions that had Unified Communications in the title were the highest attended within their respective time blocks, and the UC theme was dominant in the keynotes from vendors.
Interestingly, however, when enterprise executives were presenting during VoiceCon, the enthusiasm was more muted. All expressed interest in UC and a general belief in its inevitability. Some provided important case studies about piloting and/or rolling out UC. But if there was one item on which there was consensus among the enterprise practitioners it was that proof of ROI and implementation issues remain significant obstacles to deployment.
Some of those hurdles were addressed, although not entirely answered, during VoiceCon. On the interoperability front, Microsoft and IBM made major progress on the promise they made earlier this year to enable presence federation between OCS and Sametime–see “Microsoft, IBM Announce Inter-Domain Presence Federation.”
While everyone in the business genuflects to the importance of interoperability, as we all know, it’s honored more in the breach. Earlier today, my colleague, Eric Krapf wrote a great column that takes that reality into account and contends that while interoperability is an important goal, as a practical matter, interworking may be more important, at least for now.
Eric argues that interworking, “isn’t as fancy as a presence-enabled, business process-integrated, unified communications system, but I’d argue it has more practical value in the near term. It helps you take costs out your network and serve the immediate needs of your workforce. It lets you slow-roll your TDM-to-IP migration in a tight investment climate, while still opening up collaborative technologies that also save on costs, such as conferencing in all its media.”
The fact that the industry is tilting, albeit slightly, away from a focus on what full-blown interoperable UC can deliver and towards a more narrow focus what is achievable today reflects a new level of maturity within the UC community. But it also reflects the reality of what is likely to be a tough market in the months ahead.
During VoiceCon there were many presentations that emphasized how UC could help companies save money and improve productivity during these troubled times, but I didn’t get the sense that the audience was taking those messages to heart. Instead, what I did hear from attendees, loudly and often, is considerable interest in finding low-cost solutions to real day-to-day problems.
In short, enterprises are interested in solving problems. If UC is the best tool, so be it; if it’s not, the enterprise will quickly move on by.
What do you think? Send me a note at fknight@techweb.com or respond here in the Unified Communications eweekly Forum.
Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, NoJitter.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by AVST:
Are you dealing with the implementation and integration of desk phones, mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, e-mail, instant messaging, fax and telephonic, and Web conferencing? The expectation of an immediate response can be overwhelming for users, IT personnel and enterprise infrastructures.
If so, help is here. Download a white paper titled “Building an Enterprise Communications Strategy” to receive the 20 questions you must ask when evaluating solutions and developing your communications strategy. Click here to download.
The election is over…. Let me say that again: The election is OVER.
I recently saw a blog headline–”All the World’s a Stage and I Wish Some People Would Get Off of It“–which exactly captures my sentiments about the discourse between candidates and, most of all, toward whoever is behind those #%^$*&@ political commercials. Still, I hope your favored candidates won, and that once in office, they prove deserving of continuing support.
Personally I can’t wait to see how “change” gets turned into concrete policy decisions. Candidates from every stripe jumped onto the change bandwagon, just like communications companies have morphed into Unified Communications companies. And just as “change” is very much in the eye of the political beholder, so too with UC.
Consider, for example, a recent post on NoJitter.com. In “The Dilution of UC,” Allan Sulkin argues, “UC is quickly becoming a generic term for all communications offerings and solutions…. UC now apparently includes: the core telephony system; voice, integrated, and unified messaging systems; digital and IP desktop telephone instruments; cellular extensions and wireless handsets; and in some cases ACD contact center solutions. Even audio conferencing systems are labeled UC. Where will the madness end?”
I’ve worked with Allan for decades and am accustomed to his rants–most of which have been proven justified by subsequent events. But while I enjoyed Allan’s post, I found a comment that came in response, apparently from someone on the buyer’s side of the table, to be particularly compelling: “You said it Allan. Everything is UC these days and it’s really hurting the process in creating a real strategy. The vendors are making it harder for us to actually buy a solution because it takes so long to interpret 25 different products all named the same.”
Now maybe in the “good old days” vendors could ignore such sentiments, but given the current market climate, if customers are saying that vendors are “making it harder for us to actually buy a solution….” isn’t it time for the industry to rethink its modus operandi?
Readers of this newsletter may recall that a few months ago, I voiced a similar complaint: “If, after all this time, two of the most common UC-related questions are: What is it and why does it matter, either UC is a hoax, or the folks who believe they’ve got answers to those questions need to rethink how they’re communicating…. I reject the UC-is-a-hoax argument, but I believe the industry needs to find better ways to discuss what UC’s really all about–and soon.”
I wrote those words before the financial collapse, and the events of the past two months have only intensified the need for more clarity about the payback from UC investment. At next week’s VoiceCon San Francisco, we’ll learn more about how UC is actually been deployed directly from the enterprise folks who’ve done the heavy lifting. I know their peers will be paying attention and hope that the UC vendors will be doing the same.
What do you think? How has the economic climate affected your plans for UC, and what do you need to see before moving ahead? Send me a note at fknight@techweb.com, or respond here in the Unified Communications eweekly Forum.
Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, NoJitter.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Mitel:
Mitel delivers flexibility and simplicity in smart unified communications solutions and applications for organizations of all sizes. Combined with a full range of managed services that include voice and data network design and traffic provisioning, custom application development, and attractive financing options, Mitel is reinventing how successful organizations gain competitive advantage by easily collaborating and communicating over distance and time with customers, colleagues and partners.
OK, I’m biased and involved, but you should know that Unified Communications will be front and center at VoiceCon San Francisco 2008, Nov 10-13. The coverage and content are broader and deeper than ever. There’s still time to sign up at www.voicecon.com/sanfrancisco/, so even if you have to use your frequent flyer miles, I recommend that you come to San Francisco.
The timing for this focus on UC couldn’t be better. As covered in recent issues of UC eWeekly, UC tools are tailor-made for helping you do more with less, to collaborate more quickly and reduce expenses. It sounds ironic to recommend traveling to VoiceCon to learn how to reduce your overall travel budget, but it works!
Here are highlights from the menu of the UC-focused sessions at VoiceCon:
Monday, Nov 10:
The entire day is devoted tutorials, and in the morning, there are two terrific sessions to choose from: A comparison of IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Office Communications Server, presented by Brent Kelly from Wainhouse Research, or a session on Building Business Cases for IP Telephony and UC by Irwin Lazar and Robyn Gareiss from Nemertes Research.
In the afternoon, there also two UC tutorials: I’ll lead a 10-vendor review of “UC: Who’s Offering What?” or a session led by Mark Berg and Dave Stein from PlanNet Consulting entitled “Organizing for UC, IP Telephony and Converged Networks.
Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov 11-12:
There will be 10 breakout sessions that cover all aspects of Unified Communications and Collaboration. These include a UC Market Update presented by Blair Pleasant, followed by a panel of senior UC executives giving their take on the status of UC and what’s coming next. There also are sessions on the options for UC deployments, UC user interfaces, and on how to leverage VoIP investments for UC.
VoiceCon also will present UC customer case studies in a session called Comm-Enabled Applications, and Miercom will report results of recent UC-related technology tests from its test lab.
Other UC titles include Pricing and Budgeting for UC, and a panel of customer executives will discuss how they’re organizing their IT shops for converged networks. There are some overlaps and some of these sessions will be going on simultaneously, but electronic copies of the presentations and MP3 recordings of the sessions are available for later reference and review.
Related Technologies and Sessions:
VoiceCon also is placing considerable emphasis on mobility and wireless networks, which are a perfect complement, because many UC applications are both dependent on and often the justification for wireless and mobility investments. The topics range from Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC), to case studies of how enterprises are migrating to mobility, to choosing from the expanding options for mobile devices (and related ecosystems) to managing wireless networks and cellular spending.
I also expect UC to feature prominently in the keynotes from Avaya, Microsoft and IBM, and there will be two important VoiceCon Summits on “UC and Software-based Architectures” (where you may hear more about interoperation of Microsoft and IBM presence engines) and “The UC-Enabled Mobile Enterprise.”
And during the VoiceCon Exhibition, which runs Monday to Wednesday, there will be more than 80 exhibitors, many of whom will be featuring UC products and technologies in their booths. It’s a unique opportunity to learn what’s available and what’s coming down the pike. If you would like a UC-focused tour of the VoiceCon Exhibition, just drop me an e-mail with the subject “UC Tour” at mparker@UniCommConsulting.com.
I’m a VoiceCon fan, and want to give an advance shout-out of appreciation to all those who contribute–the customers, the sponsors and exhibitors, my colleagues at UCStrategies.com and so many more! I hope to see you there.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by PROGNOSIS:
In the face of flat or shrinking budgets for 2009, IT managers will be tasked with cutting overheads and maintaining service levels for applications including IP telephony. The good news is that specialized IPT management solutions will actually help you control costs and save money immediately.
View “The Financial Realities of Delivering High Quality IP Telephony” webcast from Nemertes’ Robin Gareiss and find out how to deliver outstanding IP telephony service in the face of budget constraints.
October 18, 2008, marked the second anniversary of a cooperative project between VoiceCon and UCStrategies.com to bring you this newsletter. Over these past two years, we’ve covered a wide range of topics, but there’s still more to do to analyze what UC can bring to an enterprise and the obstacles that must be overcome.
We know what UC can do. While there are many important capabilities and benefits, they boil down to the following:
UC can significantly improve productivity in work groups that are mobile or need to collaborate.
UC can provide radical improvements when communications is integrated into some business processes while providing important competitive advantages.
But if the benefits of UC are clear, there’s still a lot work needed on how the industry communicates with the marketplace. All of the vendors I talk to agree that UC isn’t getting the attention with “C” level or with line of business (LoB) executives. They also are concerned about whether their channel partners can make the transition from selling “boxes” to selling solutions that improve business processes.
These aren’t new problems, and they’re only going to intensify given the current economic climate. And that’s really frustrating, because if enterprise execs knew what we know, UC would grow dramatically–in part due to the bad economy.
So, the first step is for the industry to get its act together. We need to reduce the amount of confusion about what UC is and what it isn’t. There are always going to be announcements about new products or enhancements, but the vendors, analysts and consultants need to avoid falling into a familiar problem–selling boxes instead of solutions.
The UC industry not only can survive in these troubled economic times, but it can actually expand and grow. However, we need to make some changes in how we talk about UC–its benefits, the realistic payback opportunities and what it can contribute to improving the enterprise’s business processes, competitive position and the overall bottom line.
But to achieve that growth, we need to work together. In addition to this newsletter, VoiceCon and UCStrategies.com have a range of information resources available on our websites: www.ucstrategies.com and http://www.voicecon.com. I urge you to take advantage of all that we have to offer.
What do you think? What are you hearing about how the economic climate is impacting on opportunities for UC? Send your thoughts to me at jburton@UCStrategies.com or post them here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Aastra:
Aastra is a global leader in IP communications products including IP-PBX systems, standards based telephones, unified communications and contact center applications. With 29 years experience delivering integrated voice and data communications services to some of the most demanding companies in the world, Aastra Intecom has developed deep industry expertise in solving the telecommunications challenges faced by large enterprises. Our unique perspective allows us to deliver highly reliable, scalable systems, deployed on time and professionally supported. aastraclearspan.com
Last month, I wrote about the opportunities and the seemingly overwhelming challenges involved with getting contact centers and unified communications together. Ironically, the lessons enterprises have learned in their contact centers apply directly to UC deployments in other parts of the enterprise.
Contact centers focus on an important business goal–handling customer interactions efficiently and effectively–and they harness people, processes and technology to work together to achieve it. That is precisely how the best UC implementations work throughout the rest of the organization. Contact centers are a good example of the UCStrategies.com definition of UC–”communications integrated to optimize business processes.”
While some suppliers have been paying at least passing attention to either integrating UC and contact centers or using contact center functionality in other parts of the enterprise, these efforts are starting to ramp up. For example, consider what Aspect Software and Genesys have been up to.
Aspect is focusing on ways to link contact center agents with experts–through IM, multiple-media conferencing and other capabilities. Since Microsoft made an equity investment in Aspect last March, Aspect has been busy integrating its ACD functionality with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server. Aspect commissioned a study that shows that over 10% of customer calls require the intervention of a specialist or expert outside the contact center, and has concluded that bringing together ACDs and UC will help address that issue.
Of course, products from other suppliers of integrated or standalone IM and other collaborative functionality could be used in contact centers, but Aspect aims to change the pervasive reluctance within contact centers to use these techniques. Look for announcements later this month.
Genesys is taking a different approach. In an upcoming webinar, Genesys will discuss how the ideas, tools and techniques that work in contact centers have applicability to the rest of the enterprise. For example, agent-like status can be extended to staff outside the contact center. This enables overflow coverage, expert-level tier support and at the same time takes advantage of queuing, skills-based routing, reporting and availability (think presence).
We are starting to see some innovative examples of contact center capabilities applied to other parts of the enterprise. I know of one financial services firm that is using the company’s workforce management software to schedule credit analysts (who aren’t involved in customer calls) based on workload patterns.
Certainly other suppliers could–and probably will–emphasize similar capabilities. But Aspect and Genesys are focusing on this problem now.
Of course, as this is being written the stock markets are in free-fall, and so marrying UC to contact centers may not be the biggest issue on management’s mind today. But maybe it should be. In troubled times, the rich have opportunities to get richer. UC can help leverage those opportunities, but only if you understand where they are and how your company can take advantage of them.
Dramatically improving customer interaction capabilities to solidify and extend customer loyalty are always part of a winning strategy–even now.
What do you think? Write to me at dvandoren@unicommconsulting.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
Don Van Doren
Principal, UniComm Consulting
President, Vanguard Communications
Co-founder, UCStrategies.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Aastra:
Aastra is a global leader in IP communications products including IP-PBX systems, standards based telephones, unified communications and contact center applications. With 29 years experience delivering integrated voice and data communications services to some of the most demanding companies in the world, Aastra Intecom has developed deep industry expertise in solving the telecommunications challenges faced by large enterprises. Our unique perspective allows us to deliver highly reliable, scalable systems, deployed on time and professionally supported.
The first UC eWeekly I wrote two years ago was entitled “The Election and UC–What Do They Have in Common,” and I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this topic since the election is less than a month away (the earlier article can be found here). Hopefully my political leanings and bias won’t taint this analysis, so let’s just have fun with this timely comparison.
There are several key themes of this year’s presidential election that resonate in the UC market. We’ve been hearing a lot about “change,” “reform” and “mavericks.” The idea of change is important in the UC world also–UC changes the way we communicate with colleagues, partners, customers and suppliers. The role of PBX/IP-PBX is changing, as are the roles traditional telephony vendors play in a UC world.
Microsoft and others have shaken things up, noting that a switch is no longer necessary for enterprise telephony and that a software-based solution can provide the call control and voice capabilities most enterprises and SMBs need. Is Microsoft the “maverick”?
The other issue we’re hearing a lot about in the election is “experience,” and the traditional switch vendors clearly have the experience in the voice world that Microsoft and other newcomers lack. Experience is important, in both politics and communications, but, as one of the presidential candidates often reminds us, judgment is more important. In politics this may be the case, but might it also be true for enterprise communications?
Microsoft, for example, acknowledges that OCS is not an IP-PBX but goes on to claim that it is a new way of communicating and collaborating. Its competitors claim that Microsoft doesn’t have the telephony experience needed to provide the features and functionality or reliability that customers need. Meanwhile, Cisco has deep network experience, but wants to have a prominent place on the desktop and in collaboration solutions.
Politicians surround themselves with advisors (and running mates) with experience in the areas that they lack. Along these same lines, vendors either acquire companies (Cisco with WebEx) and/or work with partners such as system producers (e.g., Microsoft with Nortel) and with systems integrators and VARs that have the experience needed to round out the “ticket.” UC customers and voters will have to decide who provides the change they need, while providing the experience and/or judgment they want.
Both presidential candidates are trying to reach out to younger voters with the mantra of change. They realize that these voters carry a lot of weight, and it’s crucial to get the youth vote.
Enterprises are also catering to “the youth vote” by implementing collaboration and social networking technologies that younger workers use in their personal lives and expect to have access to in their professional lives and at their jobs. Many companies are using UC technologies to attract and retain younger workers–web and video conferencing, collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technologies. The latter isn’t UC per se, but some Web 2.0 technologies are being integrated with the real-time communication capabilities, such as click-to-connect. By providing the tools that younger workers come to expect, companies have a better chance of attracting and retaining them.
And as I wrote in my original newsletter–your choices need to reflect your goals. In politics, your goals may be to reduce taxes or improve the environment. In the UC world, your goals may be to enhance workgroup productivity, improve customer service or shorten development cycles. Vote for your politician or UC provider based on who will help you best reach your goals now and in the future.
Lastly, get out there and do something–if you haven’t already, start developing your UC strategy now, and get educated about the options that are available to you and your company. And don’t forget to vote!
So, what do you think? Drop me a line at bpleasant@commfusion.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
