VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly Issue 15, February 21, 2007
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies

This week’s issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by VoiceCon Spring 2007:

The VoiceCon Spring 2007 conference begins in just a few days—March 5–8 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando. Register NOW for the premier event for enterprise IP Telephony, converged networks and unified communications. Meet the industry’s market and thought leaders during in-depth tutorials, candid roundtable discussions and insightful panels. And the VoiceCon Exhibition presents ALL of the suppliers—equipment and services—in one location.
Register a team of 3 or more and save $200 per person

I recently gave a presentation on Unified Communications and was asked a tough question: Why will UC succeed, when unified messaging (UM) didn’t? This got me thinking—will UC succeed?

My initial reaction to this question was, of course UC will succeed! But then I realized that there are several barriers standing in the way.

Let’s look at both sides of the argument. One of the reasons why UC will be successful is that it provides tangible benefits for the enterprise, not just the individual user; by contrast, UM focuses more on the individual and personal productivity benefits, which are hard to get the CIO excited about. Whether it’s reducing travel costs based on conferencing and collaboration capabilities, increasing workgroup productivity and shortening development cycles due to improved communications, or making it possible for doctors and nurses to provide improved patient care, most UC implementations have shown significant ROI.

More important, there’s no one way to do UC. UC isn’t a single product; it’s made up of various products and capabilities that make up the “UC continuum.” Companies can implement some or all of the different components and still achieve benefits, without having to totally revamp their networks and applications. Since there are so many different aspects to UC, companies can pick and choose what makes sense for them, whether it’s a conferencing and collaboration solution, presence-enabled communications, or mobile extensions to the enterprise network for remote workers. There’s no “one size fits all,” and companies can start with the UC capabilities they need today, and add more as needed, making UC within reach of more companies.

Now let’s turn to the primary reason why UC may fail: If it doesn’t solve an enterprise’s business challenge. Customers need to figure out—before purchasing and implementing the solution—what business challenge they’re trying to solve, and how UC can help. UC can transform how enterprises do business, but only if an enterprise has a good handle on what their business processes are and how they want them changed. If that’s not present, no amount of technology will do the job. UC has to be targeted; it has to serve a specific purpose.

IVR, for example, changed how companies do business by letting customers get the information they need or conduct their transactions 24×7. This expanded the concept of customer service (for better and worse), and transformed the customer experience.

UC can have a similar impact, but only after the enterprise has done its homework—figuring out how UC can help optimize business processes. As many enterprises learned the hard way, buying and implementing technology for its own sake is not a good idea. UC will best succeed where there is real business value, and a clear goal of what the enterprise is trying to achieve.

So what should enterprises be doing? Don’t be afraid of UC—take it slowly and at your own pace. But start sooner rather than later. A great place to start is VoiceCon Spring, where there’ll be a Unified Communications session track, with vendors, customers and analysts providing valuable insights. When you walk around the exhibit hall at VoiceCon Spring, I guarantee that a large number of companies will be touting their UC wares.

Blair Pleasant
COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies.com

Posted in Deployment, Management, Market Trends, Implementation, Blair Pleasant, Unified Communications |

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