At the recent
VoiceConshow in San
Francisco,unified
communications(UC)
was the hot topic, with conference sessions covering everything
from technical UC advice to higher-level discussions about the
future of UC, which is a term that is not easily
defined.
After taking in many of the presentations and speaking with a
number of attendees at VoiceCon, here's my stab at defining
unified communications:
Essentially, an enterprise UC environment is one in
which network users can easily determine one another's availability
and communicate with one another using any number of tools (be it
IM or
VoIP
for example), whichever is most convenient at the
time.
The key to achieving value from UC in the enterprise, agreed
many VoiceCon attendees, is the ability to embed UC directly into
business processes. For example, with UC capabilities built in,
an account manager can not only identify, but also get in touch
with a colleagues or customers directly through
Salesforce.com. He or she
can see if the person they need to talk to is online, figure out
the best way to get in touch with that person, and with a click of
a mouse, do just that.
The bottom line: UC is all about improving communication
effectiveness.
UC vendors try to woo SMBs
Also announced at VoiceCon, was a new
OEM
agreement from Siemens and IBM, IBM can license Siemens' UC
application,
OpenScape. IBM plans to use OpenScape to improve upon its own
Lotus UC offering, called
Unified
Telephony.
 | | | | | "Security is at the base of
everything."
James Lawton
VP of strategic system
integrationSiemens |
| | | | | |
| |
|
After the announcement, I sat down with Andy Chew, Siemens senior
VP for unified communications, and James Lawton, Siemens VP of
strategic system integration. We talked a little about the IBM OEM,
but what interested me more were their thoughts on the state of the
UC market and Siemens' approach to SMBs.
Chew, who is based in the U.K., told me that he thinks the UC
market is still "immature," but that migrating to UC should
nonetheless be a priority for SMBs. In addition to improving
communication capabilities and lowering costs, SMBs can adopt UC
with little risk if they opt for the hosted services or
SaaS route, he said.
Siemens currently offers hosted versions of its UC offerings,
which SMBs can purchase on a monthly basis. If a customer decides
Siemens' OpenScape is not for them, for example, it can simply drop
it without having to worry about breaking any long-term
contract.
When I asked about security, Lawton assured me that at Siemens'
"security is at the base of everything." While I can't verify that
independently (at least not from the floor of VoiceCon), it's
encouraging at least that a major UC vendor like Siemens seems to
recognize the importance of security, especially for SMBs that
might not have the resources to withstand a devastating cyber
attack.
Security, Lawton said, "is a mantra for us." Amen to that.
Realizing the ROI of UC
I spotted them one afternoon as I was perusing my VoiceCon
conference agenda. There they were, those three little letters that
can make or break any IT project:
ROI.
Calculating the ROI of any proposed application or service is
often essential to convincing management to fund the IT project in
question. UC is no exception.
At a VoiceCon session dedicated to determining the ROI of UC,
reps from systems integrator INX, IP telephony vendor ShoreTel, and
the ubiquitous Microsoft offered their advice:
- Look for hard savings first. How much less per month will it
cost to maintain a UC system, versus your current, traditional
communications tools?
- Look into productivity gains, and be specific. If you determine
deploying UC will improve productivity by 5%, how will workers
spend that extra time?
- Recognize that ROI is different for different types of workers.
For knowledge workers, ROI is best measured by looking at end
results: increased sales and revenue, for instance. For contact
center workers on the other hand, ROI depends on reducing
transaction times. For example, how many more transactions per hour
do you expect call center reps to take, thanks to UC?
- Consider the future. Microsoft predicts the costs of VoIP will
be reduced by half within three years. Be sure to take into account
market factors like this when trying to determine the ROI of
UC.
Jeffrey Kelly is an associate editor for
SearchSMB.com.