Miguel Ferrer, global infrastructure director at Volvo
Construction, is rolling out PC-to-PC voice telephony for 9,000
users in several countries over the next five weeks. By 2009, he
plans to issue mobile devices offering voice and e-mail to 3,000
employees.
Speaking before his Gartner presentation next week, he said that
IT managers beginning
unified communication projects like this should start by
profiling how mobile employees are in their daily jobs.
"Profiling helps identify the savings that can be made from
removing redundant fixed equipment, like a desk phone, and can be
used as part of a business case," he said.
Surveying employee mobility can help strengthen the IT
department's return-on-investment case to the business. For
example, replacing a fixed desk and mobile phone with one single
communications device for a user who mostly travels can save
businesses money.
Ferrer said that training users well in advance was key to
gaining end-user buy-in. Volvo Construction set up dedicated
training rooms and appointed non-IT personnel, who were more
familiar with working routines, to lead local site training.
"First impressions on new technology last. If you promise
convenience through one device but deliver poor voice quality,
users will throw it back. This will jeopardise the long-term
benefits to the business."
Mark Ferrar, director of infrastructure at
NHS Connecting for Health, which advises NHS trusts on IT best
practices, said the NHS had purchased more laptops than desktops in
the past six months. One challenge in designing a mobile IT system
was making sure users had access to the right type of wireless
connection wherever users happen to be.
"Are you able to provide the user with the right type of
connectivity the further they move from their desk location? The
further you move from a fixed building the harder that challenge
gets."
IT departments need to check whether their mobile phone operator
has the range of coverage for their requirements given the likely
number of locations an employee might travel to, he said.
Gartner analyst Steve Blood said that IT managers are
increasingly being required to control mobile phone costs and
roaming as mobile data applications become more prevalent.
"IT managers in large companies should begin negotiating with
mobile operators to provide blanket coverage across five or six
countries for a single reduced rate. The proposition for the
carrier is that they get an entire chunk of mobile data business
and the IT manager can better handle costs."
Gartner research predicts that unfied communication projects
will become more commonplace as businesses seek to do more with
their existing IT network to make savings. IT managers will
increasingly become responsible for managing voice as software
application, like e-mail, and will need to learn best practice
approaches managing such projects.
What is unified communications?
Unified communications technology combines fixed and mobile
voice, and data applications like e-mail on to a single device,
such as a mobile phone or IP deskphone.
For a business, unified communications could improve employees'
responsiveness to customer support calls, allowing them to reach
one employee through a single device - a potential competitive
advantage.
For IT managers, unified communications will mean learning new
project management techniques, which combine managing voice systems
and mobile applications, as well as hardware.