What exactly should you expect to see in the way of payback from a
converged network? Cath Everett outlines how you can turn potential
in to real business benefits
People have been talking about the potential benefits of voice and
data network convergence for at least 10 years, but the reality has
been slow to materialise. This, says Duncan Brown, a consulting
director at IDC, is because in the past, the technology was simply
not cost-effective to implement and service quality was not up to
scratch.
But he believes, the situation has changed in the past couple of
years, following "huge strides in resilience and quality of service
issues, so it is now a viable alternative and the market is ripe
for growth".
"We've been at the early adoption stage for the past two to three
years, but we're now seeing a pick-up in demand, especially in the
UK," says Brown.
Zeus Kerravala, vice president of enterprise infrastructure at the
Yankee Group, also reckons that while the sector is still in its
infancy, converged networks are likely to hit the mass market
adoption stage over the course of the next five years.
"About 20% of organisations have a converged network running
somewhere in production, maybe in an internal department or at a
branch office, but in five years' time we expect that to be about
60%. People are gaining confidence in the technology and are
starting to develop roadmaps, so it's going to happen," he says.
This means that while the IP telephony market is currently worth
about $2bn worldwide, or $3bn if multimedia applications such as
audio and video are added to the mix, Kerravala expects it to
double in value by 2009.
But any moves by early adopters are mainly event-driven, he says,
with companies looking to replace older phone systems when they
move to new buildings or set up new offices.
In fact, most are simply deploying IP phones at a single site to
create a backbone that they can build on for the future, although
another key driver is to cut management overheads associated with
looking after two networks.
Efficiency enhanced
Mark Blowers, a senior research analyst at Butler Group, explains:
"It simplifies things. You don't have to run and manage two
networks or two sets of vendors, and you get an integrated view of
the service, which can generate great savings."
Because IPT makes it easier to incorporate voice services into
applications - as has happened in a raft of recent call centre
deployments - staff productivity and efficiency can be
significantly enhanced. Moreover, being able to understand who the
caller is to enable immediate call routing to the correct customer
service representative not only saves time, but can also boost
customer satisfaction levels.
But big cost savings can likewise be brought to bear when
organisations decide to hook up multiple offices generating heavy
branch-to-branch call traffic. Sectors likely to benefit from lower
telephony charges include professional services, retail, local
government and manufacturing, where the workforce is generally
either mobile or distributed across numerous locations.
Here, Kerravala indicates that although it is still the exception
rather than the rule, some companies are extending their converged
networks to remote and mobile employees so they can take advantage
of applications such as unified messaging.
These suites provide a single user interface to integrated
communications and collaboration packages such as email, instant
messaging, voicemail and video conferencing, and enable staff to
access them seamlessly from their desktops or any other device they
choose, wherever they happen to be.
This not only makes such packages easier to use by "removing human
latency from the collaboration process", but also ensures that
tasks are not delayed, because your staff can be contacted in real
time no matter where they are.
High uptake
Interestingly, however, says Adam Walker, senior marketing manager
for BT's convergence portfolio, the appeal of unified messaging is
unusually high for companies like yours because it can "give
smaller companies a big company feel and give the impression that
they're bigger than they are". But this phenomenon also reflects
the uncommonly high uptake of converged networks and IPT among SMEs
and at an early stage market too.
"While pure IP networks have been adopted by 3%-4% of companies,
with a slight bias towards large organisations, many SMEs are
making decisions to ensure that they're going in the right
direction," Walker says.
Other organisations, on the other hand, are starting to prepare for
the future, but are opting for a more cautious approach by
purchasing what he calls 'hybrid switches'. These devices are
IP-enabled, but if customers add a special module they can still
use their existing analogue phones rather than have to invest in
new IP-based ones.
"Many firms are opting to buy future-proofed platforms so they can
make incremental steps towards the end goal. They're moving their
infrastructure over gradually by dealing with different chunks at a
time because they're cottoning on to the fact that this is the way
the market is going and they don't want to be left behind," says
Walker. n
Heinz
"We initially put in a converged network as a cost-saving exercise,
but we've now realised those. So we're currently looking to sweat
the assets and deliver on other types of functionality that this
type of network is capable of," says Allan Jackson, European voice
manager at Heinz.
Heinz is one of the most recognised brands in the world and at
first glance has nothing in common with companies such as yours.
However, Heinz is a great example of implementing convergence and
its success has been mainly a result of insight and strategy rather
than from having huge resources at hand. The organisation first
went down the convergence route in December 2000 when its European
headquarters moved to a new building in London and it took
advantage of the opportunity to implement a voice over internet
protocol (IP) network to cut the costs associated with voice
traffic.
The technology has since been rolled out to 22 of its largest
European sites as and when existing PABX systems came to the end of
their lives. "This was obviously the platform of the future and the
cost of international calls was a big issue for us because they
were very high, but our new network reduced those costs as soon as
the European sites came on-stream," says Jackson.
Heinz moved the initiative into its next phase about a year ago,
however, by introducing videophones from Tandberg, initially to
enable its Baby Food teams in Milan and the UK to communicate more
effectively with each other, although the technology has now been
adopted more widely across the business.
"The aim was to reduce travel, plain and simpleÉ introducing
videoconferencing gives them alternatives in a climate of needing
to save costs," Jackson said.
Over the coming months, Heinz likewise intends to raise the profile
of the technology among partners, suppliers and customers, to
encourage them to adopt or use it if they already have it in
place.
But the organisation is also in the planning phase of introducing
Cisco's MeetingPlace voice and web conferencing software to those
home workers with a broadband connection. The package enables users
to share applications once they have been conferenced together and
is intended to boost productivity and efficiency.
To this end, Heinz is likewise looking at delivering media-rich
online training and providing staff with video-on-demand
capabilities for both training and internal communications
purposes.
Four Seasons
"Because we were moving our accounting function to a new building
in Darlington, we thought it was an ideal opportunity to put in a
new platform that we could use for the future. With so many sites
across the country, we felt there were real benefits in
implementing convergence technology," said John Brogan, group IT
manager at Four Seasons Health Care.
The company is based in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and is the largest care
home operator in the UK. It looks after over 15,000 people in more
than 300 care homes and eight specialised hospitals.
After acquiring Darlington-based Tamaris Healthcare in September
2002, the organisation decided to consolidate 60 staff from three
separate offices, who primarily undertook finance and central IT
support functions, into larger accommodation.
"Although a converged voice and data network was slightly more
expensive to implement, it would otherwise have meant dealing with
two different suppliers and maintenance, so if you add the cost of
management time, it was about the same," says Brogan. "We also felt
the benefits for the future would more than justify the upfront
cost." These increased costs were generated mainly by buying IP
handsets, which cost about £200 each, he adds.
Four Seasons has now linked up the converged network in its
Darlington office to its Wilmslow headquarters and a hospital in
Roehampton, south west London. It plans to introduce unified
messaging applications here over the following year.
Next year will also see the introduction of at least one IP phone
at each of its care homes after the organisation rolled out
broadband last year, although full voice over internet protocol
(VoIP) implementation across all sites will not take place until
older equipment needs to be replaced.
"We've already made savings on inter-site phone calls, and while it
didn't add up to massive amounts of money last year, because of the
number of locations we have, there is the potential there to save
enormously on calls between the homes and HQ," says Brogan.
He also sees future potential for applications such as
videoconferencing, and adds: "Convergence offers the potential for
many things that we probably haven't even thought of yet, but the
key is that we now have the backbone to build upon."