A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies

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During the last election period I wrote a column about what the election and Unified Communications have in common. Being it’s Super Tuesday week and we’re in the midst of “primary fever,” I thought I would revisit this topic.

If you use your imagination, you can see the various ways that our primaries are analogous to Unified Communications. The phrase we’ve been hearing repeatedly from the Democratic candidates is “change.” Each candidate believes that he or she is the one who can best change the status quo and lead us to a brighter tomorrow.

UC is all about change, too. Changing how we communicate, collaborate and do our jobs. UC changes the ways in which we look at our communication needs and decide how to best solve our communication challenges—with new vendors, new products, new approaches.

So who really is the best agent for change—is it someone who’s been in politics for many years and knows the workings of Washington, or is it someone with less experience but with new ideas and a fresh vision? And in UC parlance, is it a vendor with many years of experience in telephony, or a newcomer to voice communications who presents new and different ways of getting things done?

Change is fine and good, but we have to be careful how we go about implementing change. In the case of UC, for some companies it may be wiser to gradually change—don’t rip and replace what you have, but incrementally add UC capabilities where appropriate. In other situations, a business transformation using UC may be more appropriate. Just as there is no one candidate that is right for every citizen or voter, there is no right approach or vendor for enterprises deploying UC.

Some candidates try to distance themselves from the status quo, saying that they are not “Washington insiders” and they will shake things up. They claim to bring a new perspective and a new way of doing things.

That’s the position companies like Microsoft and IBM are taking regarding UC and telephony. They claim that communications can be done in new, more efficient ways, and we don’t have to rely on the switch or telephony vendors (read: “Washington insiders”). In some situations this makes sense, but not for all. Depending on a company’s environment, it is often more cost effective to leverage existing infrastructure and applications, and to gradually and incrementally add capabilities than to throw out hardware in favor of a software approach.

During primary season, there’s plenty of infighting as the candidates jostle for their party’s nomination. In the end, however, they’re going to come together and support each other in the general election. This is a type of “co-opetition.”

Similarly, Microsoft and Cisco, for example, are battling each other and trying to convince customers (voters) why they offer the better choice. But eventually, they will have to find ways to work together and to integrate their products for customer implementations that require interoperability.

Just as there is no candidate that is right for all voters, there is no UC solution that is right for every enterprise. Hopefully, citizens will do research and only cast their ballot for a particular candidate after careful evaluation of who can best move the country in the right direction.

Enterprises need to do research too. They need to evaluate the different UC vendors and their approaches, and determine which is most likely to help move the company toward its goals. In UC, think about goals in terms of both the short- and long-term problems you’re trying to solve—whether it’s delays caused by human latency or poor customer service. Different problems require different UC solutions—a mobile portal will solve some problems, while new conferencing and collaboration tools will solve others.

In the end, there is only one consistent message to everyone, in politics and UC alike: Be sure to Vote. Only by studying the issues and expressing your preference, for government or UC, can you exert influence over the outcome.

What is your choice for UC? Let me know at bpleasant@commfusion.com or post them here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly forum

Blair Pleasant
COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies.com

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

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