A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by AVST:
Are you dealing with the implementation and integration of desk phones, mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, e-mail, instant messaging, fax and telephonic, and Web conferencing? The expectation of an immediate response can be overwhelming for users, IT personnel and enterprise infrastructures.
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The election is over…. Let me say that again: The election is OVER.
I recently saw a blog headline–”All the World’s a Stage and I Wish Some People Would Get Off of It“–which exactly captures my sentiments about the discourse between candidates and, most of all, toward whoever is behind those #%^$*&@ political commercials. Still, I hope your favored candidates won, and that once in office, they prove deserving of continuing support.
Personally I can’t wait to see how “change” gets turned into concrete policy decisions. Candidates from every stripe jumped onto the change bandwagon, just like communications companies have morphed into Unified Communications companies. And just as “change” is very much in the eye of the political beholder, so too with UC.
Consider, for example, a recent post on NoJitter.com. In “The Dilution of UC,” Allan Sulkin argues, “UC is quickly becoming a generic term for all communications offerings and solutions…. UC now apparently includes: the core telephony system; voice, integrated, and unified messaging systems; digital and IP desktop telephone instruments; cellular extensions and wireless handsets; and in some cases ACD contact center solutions. Even audio conferencing systems are labeled UC. Where will the madness end?”
I’ve worked with Allan for decades and am accustomed to his rants–most of which have been proven justified by subsequent events. But while I enjoyed Allan’s post, I found a comment that came in response, apparently from someone on the buyer’s side of the table, to be particularly compelling: “You said it Allan. Everything is UC these days and it’s really hurting the process in creating a real strategy. The vendors are making it harder for us to actually buy a solution because it takes so long to interpret 25 different products all named the same.”
Now maybe in the “good old days” vendors could ignore such sentiments, but given the current market climate, if customers are saying that vendors are “making it harder for us to actually buy a solution….” isn’t it time for the industry to rethink its modus operandi?
Readers of this newsletter may recall that a few months ago, I voiced a similar complaint: “If, after all this time, two of the most common UC-related questions are: What is it and why does it matter, either UC is a hoax, or the folks who believe they’ve got answers to those questions need to rethink how they’re communicating…. I reject the UC-is-a-hoax argument, but I believe the industry needs to find better ways to discuss what UC’s really all about–and soon.”
I wrote those words before the financial collapse, and the events of the past two months have only intensified the need for more clarity about the payback from UC investment. At next week’s VoiceCon San Francisco, we’ll learn more about how UC is actually been deployed directly from the enterprise folks who’ve done the heavy lifting. I know their peers will be paying attention and hope that the UC vendors will be doing the same.
What do you think? How has the economic climate affected your plans for UC, and what do you need to see before moving ahead? Send me a note at fknight@techweb.com, or respond here in the Unified Communications eweekly Forum.
Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, NoJitter.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Mitel:
Mitel delivers flexibility and simplicity in smart unified communications solutions and applications for organizations of all sizes. Combined with a full range of managed services that include voice and data network design and traffic provisioning, custom application development, and attractive financing options, Mitel is reinventing how successful organizations gain competitive advantage by easily collaborating and communicating over distance and time with customers, colleagues and partners.
OK, I’m biased and involved, but you should know that Unified Communications will be front and center at VoiceCon San Francisco 2008, Nov 10-13. The coverage and content are broader and deeper than ever. There’s still time to sign up at www.voicecon.com/sanfrancisco/, so even if you have to use your frequent flyer miles, I recommend that you come to San Francisco.
The timing for this focus on UC couldn’t be better. As covered in recent issues of UC eWeekly, UC tools are tailor-made for helping you do more with less, to collaborate more quickly and reduce expenses. It sounds ironic to recommend traveling to VoiceCon to learn how to reduce your overall travel budget, but it works!
Here are highlights from the menu of the UC-focused sessions at VoiceCon:
Monday, Nov 10:
The entire day is devoted tutorials, and in the morning, there are two terrific sessions to choose from: A comparison of IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Office Communications Server, presented by Brent Kelly from Wainhouse Research, or a session on Building Business Cases for IP Telephony and UC by Irwin Lazar and Robyn Gareiss from Nemertes Research.
In the afternoon, there also two UC tutorials: I’ll lead a 10-vendor review of “UC: Who’s Offering What?” or a session led by Mark Berg and Dave Stein from PlanNet Consulting entitled “Organizing for UC, IP Telephony and Converged Networks.
Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov 11-12:
There will be 10 breakout sessions that cover all aspects of Unified Communications and Collaboration. These include a UC Market Update presented by Blair Pleasant, followed by a panel of senior UC executives giving their take on the status of UC and what’s coming next. There also are sessions on the options for UC deployments, UC user interfaces, and on how to leverage VoIP investments for UC.
VoiceCon also will present UC customer case studies in a session called Comm-Enabled Applications, and Miercom will report results of recent UC-related technology tests from its test lab.
Other UC titles include Pricing and Budgeting for UC, and a panel of customer executives will discuss how they’re organizing their IT shops for converged networks. There are some overlaps and some of these sessions will be going on simultaneously, but electronic copies of the presentations and MP3 recordings of the sessions are available for later reference and review.
Related Technologies and Sessions:
VoiceCon also is placing considerable emphasis on mobility and wireless networks, which are a perfect complement, because many UC applications are both dependent on and often the justification for wireless and mobility investments. The topics range from Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC), to case studies of how enterprises are migrating to mobility, to choosing from the expanding options for mobile devices (and related ecosystems) to managing wireless networks and cellular spending.
I also expect UC to feature prominently in the keynotes from Avaya, Microsoft and IBM, and there will be two important VoiceCon Summits on “UC and Software-based Architectures” (where you may hear more about interoperation of Microsoft and IBM presence engines) and “The UC-Enabled Mobile Enterprise.”
And during the VoiceCon Exhibition, which runs Monday to Wednesday, there will be more than 80 exhibitors, many of whom will be featuring UC products and technologies in their booths. It’s a unique opportunity to learn what’s available and what’s coming down the pike. If you would like a UC-focused tour of the VoiceCon Exhibition, just drop me an e-mail with the subject “UC Tour” at mparker@UniCommConsulting.com.
I’m a VoiceCon fan, and want to give an advance shout-out of appreciation to all those who contribute–the customers, the sponsors and exhibitors, my colleagues at UCStrategies.com and so many more! I hope to see you there.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by PROGNOSIS:
In the face of flat or shrinking budgets for 2009, IT managers will be tasked with cutting overheads and maintaining service levels for applications including IP telephony. The good news is that specialized IPT management solutions will actually help you control costs and save money immediately.
View “The Financial Realities of Delivering High Quality IP Telephony” webcast from Nemertes’ Robin Gareiss and find out how to deliver outstanding IP telephony service in the face of budget constraints.
October 18, 2008, marked the second anniversary of a cooperative project between VoiceCon and UCStrategies.com to bring you this newsletter. Over these past two years, we’ve covered a wide range of topics, but there’s still more to do to analyze what UC can bring to an enterprise and the obstacles that must be overcome.
We know what UC can do. While there are many important capabilities and benefits, they boil down to the following:
UC can significantly improve productivity in work groups that are mobile or need to collaborate.
UC can provide radical improvements when communications is integrated into some business processes while providing important competitive advantages.
But if the benefits of UC are clear, there’s still a lot work needed on how the industry communicates with the marketplace. All of the vendors I talk to agree that UC isn’t getting the attention with “C” level or with line of business (LoB) executives. They also are concerned about whether their channel partners can make the transition from selling “boxes” to selling solutions that improve business processes.
These aren’t new problems, and they’re only going to intensify given the current economic climate. And that’s really frustrating, because if enterprise execs knew what we know, UC would grow dramatically–in part due to the bad economy.
So, the first step is for the industry to get its act together. We need to reduce the amount of confusion about what UC is and what it isn’t. There are always going to be announcements about new products or enhancements, but the vendors, analysts and consultants need to avoid falling into a familiar problem–selling boxes instead of solutions.
The UC industry not only can survive in these troubled economic times, but it can actually expand and grow. However, we need to make some changes in how we talk about UC–its benefits, the realistic payback opportunities and what it can contribute to improving the enterprise’s business processes, competitive position and the overall bottom line.
But to achieve that growth, we need to work together. In addition to this newsletter, VoiceCon and UCStrategies.com have a range of information resources available on our websites: www.ucstrategies.com and http://www.voicecon.com. I urge you to take advantage of all that we have to offer.
What do you think? What are you hearing about how the economic climate is impacting on opportunities for UC? Send your thoughts to me at jburton@UCStrategies.com or post them here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Aastra:
Aastra is a global leader in IP communications products including IP-PBX systems, standards based telephones, unified communications and contact center applications. With 29 years experience delivering integrated voice and data communications services to some of the most demanding companies in the world, Aastra Intecom has developed deep industry expertise in solving the telecommunications challenges faced by large enterprises. Our unique perspective allows us to deliver highly reliable, scalable systems, deployed on time and professionally supported. aastraclearspan.com
Last month, I wrote about the opportunities and the seemingly overwhelming challenges involved with getting contact centers and unified communications together. Ironically, the lessons enterprises have learned in their contact centers apply directly to UC deployments in other parts of the enterprise.
Contact centers focus on an important business goal–handling customer interactions efficiently and effectively–and they harness people, processes and technology to work together to achieve it. That is precisely how the best UC implementations work throughout the rest of the organization. Contact centers are a good example of the UCStrategies.com definition of UC–”communications integrated to optimize business processes.”
While some suppliers have been paying at least passing attention to either integrating UC and contact centers or using contact center functionality in other parts of the enterprise, these efforts are starting to ramp up. For example, consider what Aspect Software and Genesys have been up to.
Aspect is focusing on ways to link contact center agents with experts–through IM, multiple-media conferencing and other capabilities. Since Microsoft made an equity investment in Aspect last March, Aspect has been busy integrating its ACD functionality with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server. Aspect commissioned a study that shows that over 10% of customer calls require the intervention of a specialist or expert outside the contact center, and has concluded that bringing together ACDs and UC will help address that issue.
Of course, products from other suppliers of integrated or standalone IM and other collaborative functionality could be used in contact centers, but Aspect aims to change the pervasive reluctance within contact centers to use these techniques. Look for announcements later this month.
Genesys is taking a different approach. In an upcoming webinar, Genesys will discuss how the ideas, tools and techniques that work in contact centers have applicability to the rest of the enterprise. For example, agent-like status can be extended to staff outside the contact center. This enables overflow coverage, expert-level tier support and at the same time takes advantage of queuing, skills-based routing, reporting and availability (think presence).
We are starting to see some innovative examples of contact center capabilities applied to other parts of the enterprise. I know of one financial services firm that is using the company’s workforce management software to schedule credit analysts (who aren’t involved in customer calls) based on workload patterns.
Certainly other suppliers could–and probably will–emphasize similar capabilities. But Aspect and Genesys are focusing on this problem now.
Of course, as this is being written the stock markets are in free-fall, and so marrying UC to contact centers may not be the biggest issue on management’s mind today. But maybe it should be. In troubled times, the rich have opportunities to get richer. UC can help leverage those opportunities, but only if you understand where they are and how your company can take advantage of them.
Dramatically improving customer interaction capabilities to solidify and extend customer loyalty are always part of a winning strategy–even now.
What do you think? Write to me at dvandoren@unicommconsulting.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
Don Van Doren
Principal, UniComm Consulting
President, Vanguard Communications
Co-founder, UCStrategies.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Aastra:
Aastra is a global leader in IP communications products including IP-PBX systems, standards based telephones, unified communications and contact center applications. With 29 years experience delivering integrated voice and data communications services to some of the most demanding companies in the world, Aastra Intecom has developed deep industry expertise in solving the telecommunications challenges faced by large enterprises. Our unique perspective allows us to deliver highly reliable, scalable systems, deployed on time and professionally supported.
The first UC eWeekly I wrote two years ago was entitled “The Election and UC–What Do They Have in Common,” and I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this topic since the election is less than a month away (the earlier article can be found here). Hopefully my political leanings and bias won’t taint this analysis, so let’s just have fun with this timely comparison.
There are several key themes of this year’s presidential election that resonate in the UC market. We’ve been hearing a lot about “change,” “reform” and “mavericks.” The idea of change is important in the UC world also–UC changes the way we communicate with colleagues, partners, customers and suppliers. The role of PBX/IP-PBX is changing, as are the roles traditional telephony vendors play in a UC world.
Microsoft and others have shaken things up, noting that a switch is no longer necessary for enterprise telephony and that a software-based solution can provide the call control and voice capabilities most enterprises and SMBs need. Is Microsoft the “maverick”?
The other issue we’re hearing a lot about in the election is “experience,” and the traditional switch vendors clearly have the experience in the voice world that Microsoft and other newcomers lack. Experience is important, in both politics and communications, but, as one of the presidential candidates often reminds us, judgment is more important. In politics this may be the case, but might it also be true for enterprise communications?
Microsoft, for example, acknowledges that OCS is not an IP-PBX but goes on to claim that it is a new way of communicating and collaborating. Its competitors claim that Microsoft doesn’t have the telephony experience needed to provide the features and functionality or reliability that customers need. Meanwhile, Cisco has deep network experience, but wants to have a prominent place on the desktop and in collaboration solutions.
Politicians surround themselves with advisors (and running mates) with experience in the areas that they lack. Along these same lines, vendors either acquire companies (Cisco with WebEx) and/or work with partners such as system producers (e.g., Microsoft with Nortel) and with systems integrators and VARs that have the experience needed to round out the “ticket.” UC customers and voters will have to decide who provides the change they need, while providing the experience and/or judgment they want.
Both presidential candidates are trying to reach out to younger voters with the mantra of change. They realize that these voters carry a lot of weight, and it’s crucial to get the youth vote.
Enterprises are also catering to “the youth vote” by implementing collaboration and social networking technologies that younger workers use in their personal lives and expect to have access to in their professional lives and at their jobs. Many companies are using UC technologies to attract and retain younger workers–web and video conferencing, collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technologies. The latter isn’t UC per se, but some Web 2.0 technologies are being integrated with the real-time communication capabilities, such as click-to-connect. By providing the tools that younger workers come to expect, companies have a better chance of attracting and retaining them.
And as I wrote in my original newsletter–your choices need to reflect your goals. In politics, your goals may be to reduce taxes or improve the environment. In the UC world, your goals may be to enhance workgroup productivity, improve customer service or shorten development cycles. Vote for your politician or UC provider based on who will help you best reach your goals now and in the future.
Lastly, get out there and do something–if you haven’t already, start developing your UC strategy now, and get educated about the options that are available to you and your company. And don’t forget to vote!
So, what do you think? Drop me a line at bpleasant@commfusion.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by AVST:
You’ve heard a lot about Unified Communications, but the biggest question of all remains unanswered: Can Unified Communications really help your business? Our next VoiceCon Webinar, titled “Business Drivers for Unified Communications Adoption” will answer that question, in detail and with specifics. You’ll leave the session with an understanding of what is driving businesses to adopt Unified Communications, and how these same drivers may be at work in your enterprise. Click here to register.
The news from the financial sector is the dominant topic this week, and just as we’re all wondering what this might mean for our personal finances, there’s also the question of what this might mean for Unified Communications (UC).
The good news is that the industry has seen–and survived–crises before, so we have some idea of what might happen. Let’s assume that this crisis will take up to 25% off the Dow Industrial index as in mid-1974, late 1987 and late 2001. And, let’s also assume this adds several points to the unemployment rate and puts profitability and capital spending pressure on U.S. companies, if not in other sectors of the globe. Not a pretty picture.
So, how will the emerging UC industry do in this setting? Not so bad, if history is our guide. Here are some typical scenarios in times like these–maybe you will find some ideas for your own enterprise action in these past examples.
Cost control comes to the forefront. Companies will become very attentive to costs, and will focus on cutting wasteful activity, an area where UC has already shown its value. Travel cut-backs will be imposed, but some of the slack can be picked up by conferencing and collaboration tools. Getting work done with fewer people is exactly what some companies have used to justify more use of presence and IM. Cutting the mobile telephony bill may invoke UC solutions to minimize the minutes. Eliminating international toll costs can be reduced with Internet peer-to-peer calling with both consumer and business-class UC clients. And, UC can be deployed strategically in the workgroups that need it the most, making it more economical.
Capital projects get postponed. If there’s a credit crunch, major purchases will get postponed. If the rollout of big IP-Telephony projects slows down, some enterprises will fall back to smaller investments that will “do the job.” In this case, we could see UC purchases, especially of niche products such as Digium Asterisk or Microsoft Office Communications Server that weren’t quite good enough when there was plenty of money.
Enterprises seek to innovate out of the problem. Some companies will use this time to stimulate transformative innovation. Self-service technologies, such as voicemail, IVR and websites have all benefited during times of economic pressure. Also, some companies will find that they have to slash headcount and the remaining managers and employees will need to restructure their work. UC, with various forms of communication automation and collaborative work tools, will be one of the sources available for innovative solutions to these pressures.
Government will spend in targeted areas. Don’t assume there won’t be economic stimulation packages. The next administration, whoever wins the elections, is very likely to pump funds into job-producing industries, such as alternative energy production. Where this spending supports new businesses or locations, it will be possible to take a “greenfield” approach to communications infrastructure extension, and that typically favors emerging–UC–rather than mature–IP-PBX–products.
Product lines get pruned back. Since technology vendors will feel the economic pressure like everyone else, we should expect to see some curtailment in spending for R&D and marketing; program consolidation is very likely. As we saw when the tech bubble burst, some new technologies will be shelved, which would certainly be bad for some UC efforts. In other cases, suppliers will truncate their legacy products and “bet” on the future. So, this will be a mixed bag for UC.
The rich get richer. In most times of economic stress, market leaders extend their leads. They have cash to spend, their investors expect some softening of profits anyway, and the assets they need for growth are for sale at bargain prices. So, for those firms that are in UC leadership roles and have the assets (think: Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Salesforce.com, SAP), we are likely to see them just keep coming, targeting major share gains by the time the recovery comes (as it always seems to do).
So, while this economic crisis cycle will scale back the communications industry in general, UC may well persist and even thrive during the restructuring and recovery processes. We will see, in just a few years, whether this economic trouble is a catalyst for UC or whether it postpones its emergence. Based on past examples, I wouldn’t count UC out.
What do you think? Please share your comments with us by writing to me at mparker@unicommconsulting.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
Dr Hollier is a pioneer in perceptual engineering, and his expertise has created Psytechnics, a world leader in voice and video user experience management. Psytechnics’ unique capability delivers real time voice application management, measuring, reporting and diagnosing voice specific problems such as echo, noise, volume levels and speech distortion.
I am fortunate to live in St. Helena, CA, a little town in the heart of Napa Valley. We have great food, great wine and great weather. Every weekend there is a wine auction (or two) to support local charities. Many of the big bidders at these events are people with summer/weekend homes in the Napa Valley with their main residence in San Francisco or Silicon Valley.
This past weekend my wife and I attended one of these events. A good friend with a technology background introduced me to several guys, all “C” level executives at San Francisco-based major companies, telling them: “Jim is in UC”. One quickly responded “I’ll bet you’re at Cal” (University of California, Berkeley); another said, “Based on the fact we are in the Napa Valley and you are a local, I will go with Davis” (University of California, Davis). UC Davis is the top University in the U.S. for Viticulture (grapes).
My friend at once explained, “No, UC stands for Unified Communications.” The response from these folks was consistent: They all looked puzzled.
I quickly explained that UC was “communications integrated to optimize business processes,” and I even pulled out my cell phone and explained some of UC’s mobility components and how UC helps people communicate and collaborate in new ways. Like a sales person having instant access to his or her company’s inventory database or looking at the availability or presence of someone before they call them and start a round of telephone tag.
The conversation continued with a lot of good questions, the most prominent being–”What do you think of this wine?” But eventually, they all asked me to tell them more about UC, and after I did, a few felt that it was time their companies started looking into UC. One thought his company already was, but I had to explain that just because the firm had recently purchased a new Cisco IP-PBX did not guarantee that they had actually bought UC.
I came away from those conversations thinking how typical they were for the state of UC. Most C-level execs haven’t a clue about what UC is, and some believe that they’re well along the path to UC even when they aren’t.
A few weeks ago I wrote an issue of UC eWeekly focusing on the fact that IP-PBXs are NOT equal to UC (see “UC: It’s Not About Buying a New IP-PBX“). But a lot of vendors are still marketing IP-PBXs as if they were.
And, of course, there’s the usual hype that comes with a hot new product category. LiteScape Technologies recently issued a press release in which it claimed to be “the market leader in unified communications applications.” Given the presence of Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, Mitel, Nortel, IBM, Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Dimension Data and many others who produce “unified communications applications” there is no way that the statement is true.
I’ve been through this cycle before, and don’t expect the hype to disappear any time soon. But it’s important to keep in mind that the UC market is in the early phases of its evolution, and that until we educate C-level and line-of-business executives, and get the analysts and consultants to use the same terms in the same way, this market will not mature as quickly as it should.
What do you think? What are you doing to educate your peers, colleagues, C-level and LOB execs in your company? Send your thoughts to me at jburton@UCStrategies.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by NEC Unified Solutions:
NEC Unified Solutions helps companies unify their business communications through innovative software, applications, development tools, and services. NEC offers a complete portfolio for unified communications, wireless, voice, data and managed services, as well as systems integration and application development. For more information please visit: www.necunified.com
The UCStrategies.com team recently received an “Ask the Expert” question that resurrects an issue that has long been a hot button for me. A reader wrote: What are the primary challenges Contact Centers are facing in implementing UC strategies and solutions?
As someone deeply involved with both contact centers and UC, I believe that the key to UC’s success is to emulate what contact centers have done for decades–find a business opportunity or challenge, and then organize technology, processes and people to address it.
There are lots of reasons why UC ought to have a bright future in contact centers. As customer-centric thinking and “first-call resolution” becomes more critical, IM and other UC tools help deliver fast access to the right information or expert, whether the resource is found inside or outside the center.
To date, however, UC has had a slow take-up rate within contact centers. Many call center managers don’t want to relinquish control over external calls, nor are they eager to add routing complexity or to mess with their performance metrics. In fairness, it’s also true that in many instances, the other departments don’t want their staff be “on call” for handling random customer queries. There are also technical challenges involving interoperability–getting UC from Vendor X to work with contact center systems from Vendor Y.
But the biggest challenge is the need to rethink how customer interactions should be handled given the new functionality that UC makes available. Contact center managers have long sought to extend contacts to specialists, but it’s always been a challenge to figure out when and how to reach them.
UC goes a long way toward meeting that challenge, even though the nagging question remains about whether all this UC-enabled connectivity is a good or bad thing. Someday, we will have more robust and automatic presence functionality and more sophisticated policy engines to help govern to whom and under what circumstances someone is “available.” We already are developing better skills cataloging, to enable presence engines to identify good alternatives to a primary contact.
Here are just a few of the ways UC already has enabled dramatic changes in customer contact, examples that go beyond simply using IM to get quick help from a supervisor:
Customers can reach a mobile salesperson–UC supports single-identity access, and provides richer alternatives than just routing the caller into voice mail; customers can be connected to a real person who can help. Shimano measured significant revenue increases when dealers were better able to reach their salesperson.
Connecting with the right resource–UC can be extended across corporate boundaries so customers, suppliers and partners can have direct access to the advisor, designer or production planner they interact with on a regular basis. UC offers secure presence and secure information portals that enable customers to access information and to interact with your enterprise staff in ways that augment traditional contact-center-based methods. Customers and partners can see availability and initiate the best contact.
Collaboration–This is UC’s sweet spot. UC tools make it possible to rapidly organize and support multi-media conference calls or other interactions that directly impact customer satisfaction and loyalty. Global Crossing’s embedding of communications directly into their provisioning workflow has had dramatically reduced time to complete orders.
Just about every company wrestles with the problem of creating more “customer intimacy” and it’s no secret that achieving that goal requires that the entire organization be involved with customers. UC capabilities and functionality can support that goal in a way that is organized, secure, appropriate and, increasingly, successful. The tools are evolving; now it’s time to apply imagination to how they’re best deployed.
What do you think? Write to me at dvandoren@unicommconsulting.com, or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
Don Van Doren
Principal, UniComm Consulting
President, Vanguard Communications
Co-founder, UCStrategies.com
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by NEC Unified Solutions:
NEC Unified Solutions helps companies unify their business communications through innovative software, applications, development tools, and services. NEC offers a complete portfolio for unified communications, wireless, voice, data and managed services, as well as systems integration and application development. For more information please visit www.necunified.com
“Habits are things we do without thinking.” My father would repeat those words endlessly to my sisters and me when we were kids. Good study habits at school would lead to productive behaviors in the workplace; regular exercise as a child increased the odds of staying active and fit as an adult; staying away from booze and cigarettes would….well, I never bought into that one.
I’ve been thinking about habits lately, because for Unified Communications, video and other emerging technologies and services to really take off, our communications habits–and how we think about communications–will have to change.
The silver lining in today’s economic slowdown is that it creates incentives to adapt our attitudes, practices and habits. Travel-related costs and hassles make conferencing–web, audio and video–more appealing. And when travel is required, it’s increasingly important to be able to replicate the capabilities available on office desktops. Not surprisingly, mobility is already one of the key triggers for UC adoption.
The economy isn’t the only factor driving change in our communications habits–the forces unleashed by Moore’s Law remain unrelenting. Computing power continues to increase, and at lower incremental cost. That power and cheap storage overcome a multitude of limitations that have hampered progress in speech-to-text and text-to-speech applications. In the not so distant future, we’ll be accessing databases and applications with direct speech input rather than via keyboard strokes.
A whole new generation of communications technologies, products and services is on the way. Last week, NoJitter.com reported a flurry of activity involving video and telepresence, speech technologies, social network tools, and on Nortel’s decision to spend $10 million to buy DiamondWare, whose technology, “uses wideband, stereo capability and custom spatial positioning that can deliver real-time interactions in 3D virtual worlds and meetings, online gaming systems, and multimedia applications.”
Now I’ve never woken up thinking that more “custom spatial positioning” would improve my day, but who knows, maybe it will become a foundation for my next generation of communications habits.
So the good news is that new capabilities are coming and we are in an economic climate that encourages using new or different rather than habitual modes of communications. But for habits to change, products need to get better.
All too often, even technologies and services that have been around awhile still don’t work as advertised. Members of the VoiceCon team recently participated in a basic web/audio conference, and it was a disaster. The audio was crap and while those at the remote location could see the slides, they couldn’t see the video that was embedded in the presentation. Instead of the meeting being a time-saver, it was a time-suck. Similarly, even simple conference calls are often bedeviled if participants are using softphones or, in some cases, a head-set.
This tension isn’t new, but in these tough economic times, UC and the new wave of communications it represents, need to deliver sooner rather than later. So far, the UC vendors have yet to offer tightly integrated and interoperable products. The disjointed offerings make it tough to confidently predict ROI and so writing a UC business case remains more art than science.
Tom Nolle, writing last week on NoJitter, offered some sound advice: “The big truth…is that worker productivity is the key priority for all the senior management I’ve surveyed. Productivity improvements should be the focus of budget presentations, with as much specific about the ‘how’ and ‘when’ as possible.”
Tom’s reminder to concentrate on bottom-line results is timeless; it’s a habit that never goes out of fashion. But our habits for contacting one another, accessing human and information resources and expressing ourselves to our colleagues, business partners, suppliers and customers will change, and it’s up to those of us in the profession to lead the way.
So, what do you think? Drop me a line at fknight@techweb.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, NoJitter
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by IBM:
The Challenge of Unifying Communications and Collaboration
Your challenge: provide simple, effective ways for your organization to communicate and collaborate. IBM understands. You have telephony systems from multiple vendors; you can’t afford to rip and replace; you need to extend your existing investments and shield your users from these complexities. IBM solutions work with the industry leaders; IBM partners are your partners. IBM Unified Communications and Collaboration.
I’ve been thinking a lot about social software lately. The UCStrategies.com team is in the process of adding a social software community to our website, and last month I joined the ranks of twitterers (or is it tweeters or twits?) using Twitter, the micro-blogging service. In addition, there’ve been some interesting discussions about unified communications on some of the Google Groups I’m in. This all leads me to wonder, how does social software relate to UC?
There are various types of social software or social networking services available–some, like Dodgeball and MySpace are purely social and aimed at consumers. Others, notably LinkedIn, are aimed at professionals, while some are business grade and aimed at enterprises–e.g., IBM’s Bluehouse and Lotus Connections.
Some began in consumer social networking but are now also being used for business or enterprise purposes. Twitter falls in this category; it began as a way for friends to keep up with the activities and interests of people in their social network, but now it’s used as a business tool as well, even though there are those who argue that enterprises should ban the use of Twitter by employees for fear that these tools are productivity drains, security risks, bandwidth hogs, and there may be inappropriate usage etc. Cisco is one example of a company that uses Twitter to provide updates to customers, and many companies follow Twitter to see what people have to say about them.
I first became aware of Twitter at the UCStrategies.com UC Summit in June when I discovered there was someone tweeting about the conference and what the speakers had to say. Since then I’ve been hooked, and discovered that Twitter is a great way to learn about what colleagues, vendors, and others have to say about unified communications. The downside is that along with hearing their views and activities related to UC, I also often hear about what they’re having for dinner, what movie they just watched, and that their kid just won their soccer match. Users can receive updates from the individuals or companies they follow via the Twitter website, IM, SMS, RSS, email, etc. I assume that it’s just a matter of time until users will be able to click-to-connect with someone who posted a twitter update, inviting other people to join in a live multi-party interaction via voice and/or SMS or IM. I would also expect Tweets to show up in users’ unified messaging inboxes, enabling them to send a reply via various communication modes.
Integration with business processes is already taking place in some cases. LenderFlex is using Twitter to deliver risk-based mortgage pricing to mortgage loan professionals and real estate agents, who can get information when and where they need it by twittering a few codes. Many communication enabled business process (CEBP) applications rely on immediate notification of events to the appropriate people, and Twitter could be a fast and easy way to do this. For example, the Los Angeles Fire Department used Twitter during the October 2007 California wildfires.
In addition to “public” social software services, several vendors have introduced or are developing enterprise-grade social software products and services, providing security and meeting enterprise-class requirements, with the potential of integrating with UC capabilities. For example, IBM is integrating Sametime with Connections and Quickr, so that a user’s profile card from Connections can be made available across the platform, letting users tap into someone’s shared files and be able to connect with them through Sametime.
While IBM/Lotus is perhaps the furthest along in this area, I’ve seen great demos from Alcatel-Lucent and others as well. I expect to see new and innovative social software offerings from several of the switch vendors in the next two years.
The connections between social software and unified communications are becoming progressively clear:
Tying in presence capabilities, click to call, click to conference, mobility, and other capabilities to make it easier to connect with people in your organization who have the expertise and knowledge you need to tap into at the time seems to be the basic and first step.
Notifications and Alerts on filtered or community topics is another way CEBP functions can be tied into simple applications such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
We’re at the beginning stages of social networking in the enterprise–there will be many ways in which to UC-enable these applications and services, making them exponentially more useful for individuals and organizations. And hopefully without the details of your dinner or kid’s soccer game.
So, what do you think? What connections do you see between social software and UC? Drop me a line at bpleasant@commfusion.com or post your comments here in the VoiceCon Unified Communications forum.
