Why should we care about UC?
Why should we care about UC?
Unified comms is a broad term, which has come to mean many things depending on who you ask. In practical terms it encompass a number of different components including presence awareness, directory management, single number, unified messaging etc. What you find when you talk to large businesses however, UC is a turn-off as they see is as a broad-brush solution that can be difficult to buy into. In essence it is about this set of components and making them work together better. Increasingly, the term UC is generally understood to incorporate these things.
Businesses are increasingly faced with is a fragmented communications environment, which has arisen through things being brought in piecemeal – Voice, Email, IM, Audio conferencing, Web conferencing etc. When you try to cross from one mechanism to another, things don’t work particularly well, which makes the way we work very inefficient, not just in operational terms but in terms of individual efficiency.
Overlaying unified comms makes things work together so much better – classic example is in a call centre, call with a query, “I’ll speak to relevant people and come back to you” – after which agent literally has to go around and piece information together, potentially with several iterations. Overlaying UC means:
-
You can take the call
-
Identify relevant people to help
-
Contact them directly
-
Potentially handing call over straight away
Whole thing saves a lot of time, resource etc. and increases customer satisfaction in that scenario.
Another valid scenario is how businesses evolving with home, remote, road-based workers – how to get them together for regular meetings, communicate, co-ordinate actions etc. You want a company meeting – non-UC – send out invites, check calendars, etc, get everyone together etc. In UC environment, use videoconference, hook into directories, dial them in very simply. From a business perspective this makes a lot of sense particularly given existing pressures such as travel budgets driving down, employee lifestyle choices and so on.
For the record, unified comms underpins collaboration, but it doesn’t just deal with collaboration, it also supports better business processes.
Fundamentally, the problem UC solves is to bring together communications tools. However this problem is not seen as sufficiently blocking to make businesses see it as a priority. However it’s not destined to forever be a nice to have – a key element is that it needs an underlying infrastructure, which in UC’s case is IP telephony. Organisations that replace their PBX’s at end of their natural life are most likely to switch to IPT, following which the benefits of UC are easier to reap. So, while only a minority of organizations may see UC as an end in itself, a much larger number are likely to move into a UC model by way of IPT.
Meanwhile, other angles include videoconferencing players like Polycom who are partnering with UC vendors (Avaya, Cisco). Compelling situation is dealing with travel budget issues through use of videoconferencing – at which point companies like Polycom will recommend that it is viewed as part of a broader solution set, we’re seeing that start to happen. So, rather than just buying tactical videoconferencing, can think about comms more strategically.
We also have the mobility angle – in particular, fixed/mobile convergence. For example, take a company where people are working on shop floor/office, they have a mobile and a desk phone, with cost implications. You can bring those together on a single number which can work both on- and off-site. FMC becomes an initiative which may be down to a number of drivers, including cost. But the components involved in UC – such as directory, unified messaging – are key to the success of FMC.
In other words, UC is fundamentally the set of technology components which enable communications to be undertaken in a far more co-ordinated manner that previously. Its use will largely be driven by responses to compelling events. Other examples could be Exchange upgrade, changing comms provider, changing working policies internally.
What about UC from a business perspective? Businesses don’t look at UC and see it as relevant. A number of vendors are getting more specific about where UC fits, e.g. Avaya is looking at business scenarios, Cisco is doing the same – e.g. looking at hospital scenarios, getting doctors together. Examples such as these make UC much more relevant to specific businesses. This makes UC far easier to demonstrate value – by looking at what’s the problem businesses are trying to solve.
All well and good, but once in place, if you carry on working in same way as before, UC can start to appear like it was a waste of time/money. UC is a new thing which also demands that things are done differently – if you don’t do that, it won’t work, so there’s got to be a real push to make best use of it (e.g. travel budget reduction competitions). Business processes might not be videoconferencing-friendly for example, discouraging use of technology.
More successful companies have gone broad, embraced more of the components and involved a greater number of stakeholders in the discussions. Doesn’t have to be company-wide but has to be broad reaching to make sense. Need to build in change management from the outset, pilot to broader roll-out etc. Treat as a programme rather than a project with appropriate level of authority. Once in place you’re stuck with it, so need to be right first time.