IT Exchange Zone

UC Business-Enabled Processes are the Future

Blended-premise services is the next big thing on the horizon for unified communications (UC), according to research firm Gartner.  This is a complete UC suite that can be on-premise, network-based or both. It represents a "seamless blending" of enterprise and cloud-based implementations, says research analyst Bern Elliot.

While the "telephony centric" approach (which extends the IP PBX and unified messaging) and "email collaboration" approach (which extends email and Web collaboration with IM, presence and a unified client) are well established in today's enterprises, the blended-premise approach is yet to be fully embraced.   

Elliot argues that unified communications and collaboration are now becoming one market. Technologies that previously were considered to be distinctly in the realms of communications (such as voice infrastructure and call centers) or collaboration (such as team work spaces or social software) are now coming together in unified offerings.

Such moves point to the coming adoption of communication and collaboration enabled business processes.

• The current reality: Whenever human intervention or a decision is required, the process must stop and move to a different infrastructure/process chain — whether the voice or messaging event touches the CRM, ERP or back office system.


• Future potential: Human intervention may still be required, but with communications integrated into the process — presence, messaging, real-time voice — the delays become minimal. The business application will directly contact the appropriate person using a communications application.

Indeed, Elliot sees three "killer applications" for unified communications:

• Context-specific presence lists. Dynamically created lists based on specific current needs; determines who is available to assist; may be integrated with location services.


• Flexible escalation and conferencing. Interaction starts one way, escalates to another, invites others; chat, to audio, to Web, etc.; know who is available.


• Intelligent notification services. Personalized group or inter-enterprise; role-based escalation and cascading; channel-independent; find me/notify me. Notifies individuals of events, alerts or calls via preferred method.

Elliot also offers some thoughts on UC adoption. Organizations that are "aggressive" adopters of UC will deploy the latest of all main UC components within the next year, he says. They will replace desktop phones with mobile and soft-phones between 2011 and 2014. And, between 2014-2020, they will eliminate PBXs. They will embrace ubiquitous collaboration and focus on implementing UC-enabled business processes.

People Drive Collaboration, Not Technology

If you want to fully maximize your investments in collaboration technology, you'll need to focus on your people and not just the technology. That's the assessment of Chris Dowse, president of Neochange, a research firm specializing in IT adoption.

Interest in the concept of "Enterprise 2.0" is now on the rise, but full adoption of the tools and technologies expected to make organizations more agile and collaborative has not yet occurred. As a result, many organizations have yet to achieve promised business value. Or, as Dowse puts it, we are still at the bottom of the adoption S-Curve — a pattern experienced in the early days of such solutions as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

What will it take to jump the S-Curve?  [PDF] Well, first, greater understanding of what Enterprise 2.0 actually represents. While "millennials" may be more familiar with social networking tools than some of their older colleagues, it's clear that success in collaboration technology adoption lies in answering one simple question: What's in it for me? 

Dowse sees three barriers that need to be addressed to get the enterprise on board:

1. Organizational culture. This is an organization's set of beliefs, structures and practices. "Even though humans like to engage and share, the average corporate workplace is hardly conducive to care-free, selfless information sharing," argues Dowse. "The key is to focus collaboration efforts on the areas of practice that the company values most — whether that be product innovation, cost cutting in core processes or exceptional customer service." 


2. Competition between individual and organizational needs. While organizations may be focused on such matters as visibility or workflow control, their people may value education, mobility or personal productivity. These values can come into conflict. To create alignment, the organization's objectives and values must be credibly articulated and defined. "If employees do not believe that the organizational value being targeted is achievable, the quality of technology usage will suffer greatly," contends Dowse.


3. The paradox of information sharing.  The challenge here is that employees are far more likely to share common information as opposed to insights that are truly valuable.  "To prevent this paradox, companies should start by setting the expectation that the organization is looking for unique information, rather than just the common banter that drives social cohesiveness," states Dowse. "Incentives should be focused on the nature of information shared, not the volume."

By considering such issues in their rollouts of collaborative and Unified Communication technologies, enterprises dramatically increase their ability to accelerate adoption and value realization.

Virtualization's Role in Information Service Delivery

Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the access to information it provides, corporate users and customers alike expect the same easy access to corporate information.  Whether a user accesses internal corporate application data or a customer seeks their own information, IT must deliver seamless, always-on access, up-to-date information to global users.

IT organizations can significantly enhance information services delivery through data center and desktop virtualization.  When virtualized IT infrastructures are combined with unified communications systems, users are empowered to access real-time, up-to-date corporate or customer information.  Such infrastructures also serve to increase information availability and security as they reduce capital and operating expenses.

Data center virtualization is the unified “back-end” for a Unified Communications platform.   A virtualized data center with virtualized desktops offers ubiquitous, always on access to critical customer and corporate information.  The seamless integration of applications and data services within a virtualized IT infrastructure enhances user information access and the overall user experience.

• Always On: Virtualized application and desktop services assure that applications are always available to users or customers. Virtual machines provide automatic failover for resiliency. 


• Up-to-Date: Virtualized data services assure that information is always up-to-date and in sync regardless of access methods (e.g., web or CRM) or application instance.  Customers and users can tap into pertinent information from any access point.


• Ubiquitous response:  Whether a customer is signing in from New Delhi or a user is in New York, virtualization enables them to be routed to the most efficient resource to meet their information needs.  Users are routed to the most efficient resource pool within the virtualized infrastructure assuring optimum performance and response times regardless of locale or current application/information workloads.


• Reduced Cost: The cost of providing information application services is dramatically reduced, thanks to a reduction in CapEx and OpEx costs associated with the procurement appointment and ongoing management of a virtualized IT infrastructure.

When combined with Unified Communications, data center and desktop virtualization empowers IT to deliver the information needed quickly, reliably and in real time, wherever it’s required.

The Coming Era of the Social Business

What is a social business?

According to research firm IDC, it's an enterprise that is actively leveraging the power of communication, collaboration and social media technologies. Today's collaborative technology "has changed customer, employee, supplier, and partner expectations and is shaping a fresh way of interacting," the firm states. "As interaction is redefining online relationships, innovative methods of communication and collaboration have emerged and trust takes on new importance."

To help organizations better understand the dynamics of collaboration in the social business, the firm has created a new strategic framework.  The framework is designed to "foster better communication, collaboration, and overall understanding of current market dynamics to decrease language barriers between vendors, customers, and the broader industry."

The key elements of the framework are:

• Market Factors. These issues generate a need for business change. Among them: competition, brand awareness, customer behavior, economic conditions, and workforce dynamics.


• Social Objectives. These objectives are closely linked to overall business strategies and goals -- and are tied to the key stakeholders in your organization. Among them: customer engagement; employee empowerment; partner enablement; and supplier engagement.


• Social Outputs. These are the vehicles used to collaborate and interact with stakeholders. They fall into two areas: content and community. Content is the communication that occurs in collaborative media, while community most often manifests itself as a social network or group that is connected by some interest or issue.  


• Social Technology. This category includes social platforms, social applications and social features. Social platforms serve as a foundation for building solutions that integrate content and community.  Social applications carry out a collaborative business function or generate social media. Social features are modifications on evolving applications.

This framework is designed to help companies adapt to an environment that is far different from what we've experienced. "In the 1990s, companies and technology vendors focused on using technology to define and manage rigid business process," according to IDC. "The systems, which grew out of manufacturing and industrial businesses, were designed to standardize, control, and ensure compliance."

But demands have shifted and companies must explore new approaches. "While process is still relevant and important, it must be more flexible to accommodate the dynamic business environment created by the hyper-connected and highly mobile Internet. The social business recognizes that people and businesses collaborate in different ways. It enables a choice in communication methods among today's workforce, where it is not the technology at the center of the conversation but how people work and interact."

How Video Conferencing Answers THE Question

"How can we cut more costs while increasing revenue?"   This is THE famous question most businesses are frustrated with.  Especially in this economic time when many businesses have already cut as deep as they can. 

Some businesses are confident they have answered this question with collaboration tools.  Video conferencing has compelled many businesses to act due to the desired results of cost reduction through reduced travel, and increased revenue resulting from speeding up the buying process and increasing the green initiative by lowering their carbon footprint.
 
Video conferencing benefits at a high-level snapshot:

Less travel means fewer expenses and more time... time is money. 
Think of the however many hours traveling by car or plane could be used more efficiently in your organization.  Wouldn’t all of us want additional hours put back into our weeks? We still want to be realistic and state that video conferencing will not replace ALL in person meetings yet it will allow meetings to be scheduled more often and provide a rich user experience that moves deals forward that used to stall due to logistics delays.  Saving the related costs in airfare, car maintenance and mileage also adds up to a considerable amount for many companies.
 
Collaboration is taken to another level.  
Partners, clients, and employees work more efficiently and effectively with one another when video is an inclusive part of meetings held at a distance.    Less than 10% of communication is what is actually being said so there is that 90% left that consists of tone, body language, facial expressions, etc.   Video conferencing leads to more effective and efficient projects, sales cycles and partnerships.  In addition, it leads to stronger relationships among clients, peers and partners.
 
More efficient employee recruitment and a higher retention rate.  
Employees are your most important assets as well as your most costly expense.  There is a high cost in recruiting the perfect employee for your business.  Then we factor in a higher cost of investing in developing their talents, yet the cost of replacing them is exponential.  With video conferencing you could give all offices the best training with the same in-person intimate experience without location becoming an issue, reducing those costs.

In  addition, by providing them with top of the line tools, you empower them to achieve their  goals more effectively. You also enrich their work-life balance by providing them with the flexibility to work from anywhere at any time.   Improving your employee’s professional and personal lives will absolutely provide you with that competitive winning edge through higher productivity and loyalty.
 
Add on to the “Green” initiative.
Less travel means you are doing your part to help achieve a cleaner, more beautiful environment!
 
These are some of the many benefits that video conferencing can bring your business today.  Before acting it is critical to remember that with video conferencing, one size does not fit all.  Before designing a solution it is important for your solution experts to gather deep insights about how you conduct business and achieve the desired business results.  After gathering this information your solution specialist can then provide you with the best approach to attaining your desired results.

Navigating the 3 Phases of Collaboration

Enterprises investing in collaboration can maximize their success by smartly navigating the three key phases of this evolutionary process, according to a recent report from Cisco. As they move through these various phases, benefits will grow.  

“Every company and every organization within a company will go through each evolutionary phase, though the pace will depend on business priorities and collaboration readiness,” states the report. “The key is developing the right components at the right time to maintain momentum and increase the ROI from your collaboration efforts.”




The three phases are:

Investigative. In this phase, organizations are focused on learning and preparation. They are exploring the use and impact of various Web 2.0 tools. In many cases, these actions will take place in a viral or bottom-up fashion that is initiated by a few individuals or a small group.  As a result, tools used in this phase may not be integrated with the organization’s information technology systems. This is an opportunity to test the effectiveness and value of these tools.

This phase provides a foundation for wider deployment, enabling the sharing of best practices and success stories that can drive enthusiasm and support.  However, adoption of new tools and techniques also tends to plateau as early adopters reach their initial goals. “To create substantial improvements in collaboration, the organization, and especially its leaders, need to enact the necessary change management efforts, with their people, processes, and technologies,” the report states.

Performance. In this phase, organizations begin to reap the wider benefits associated with their investments in collaboration. They move from one-off implementations to “carefully organized, supported and broader adoption aimed at improving the way that a business works.” They focus on improving business and process performance.  Moving from the technological aspects of collaboration to the people and process aspects of collaboration, the scope of impact widens. 

“In the performance phase, organizations start the strategic implementation of a matrix of collaboration tools by systematically applying these tools to critical business processes to boost operational capabilities across the organization,” states the report. “The focus should be on development of a collaborative work environment that encourages and rewards collaborative participation.”

Transformational. In this phase, collaboration enables you to reinvent the business. It enables you to accomplish things that previously would have been impossible.  This is where organizations remove functional, political and process barriers that stand in the way of meeting ambitious new objectives.

“In this phase, the organization is ready to employ concepts such as global, 24-hour workflows and virtual teams,” it states. “By being able to easily include employees, partners, and customers in collaborative systems, organizations can successfully implement the ideal of the boundaryless enterprise.”

Interested in learning more? The guidelines for designing your own development roadmap are here.

Telcos in Turmoil: IT Innovators Lead the Way

In his new book The New Polymath, Vinnie Mirchandani contends that today’s telcos have failed to keep up with the onrushing trends that are transforming the networked world.

Observing the low esteem that telcos are held in public surveys, Mirchandani argues that they have foolishly positioned themselves as providers of “dumb pipes” and defenders of an absurd status quo in terms of rate plans and infrastructure charges.

He quotes Martin Geddes, former strategy director at BT’s Innovate & Design division. As Geddes sees it, “Telcos face turmoil. On the consumer side we see declining landlines, vigorous price competition for mobile voice and data, and difficulty squeezing money from old and new media industries. On the enterprise side, growth opportunities such as cloud computing and unified communications are more tightly associated with IT enterprise players than with telcos.”

Geddes goes on to draw a parallel between the current trends in networking and telecom and the trends that transformed shipping several decades ago:

As containers were being adopted, some ports doubled down on the old business model and built better breakbulk facilities—and lost. Manhattan’s quays are gone; Newark has replaced it. Others waited to become “fast followers,” and lost too. London went from being one of the world’s busiest ports to zero activity. Dubai did the reverse by investing exclusively in the new model, with a low-cost base and high volume. The winners were those who staked out the key nodes of the new value chain.

The other interesting trend was [that] containers shifted the balance of profit away from the shipping lines and towards the ports. But even more profitable than the ports are the agents who arrange the end-to end logistics and supply chains for their customers.

As Geddes argues, telecom firms can remain relevant and effective by thinking like these innovative logisticians instead of hidebound shippers. “[It’s] the operator who can assemble a multitude of fixed and mobile networks, content delivery systems, and partnerships with the application providers that wins,” he says. “The era of minute-based telephony is going away; however, there is a huge opportunity to replace it with something different. Global communications platforms need to make communication between enterprises and their customers more efficient and more effective.”

The telcos’ challenge of remaining relevant is particularly significant on the enterprise side.  Networking advances – such as shifts to VOIP and the adoption of cloud-based offerings – are rapidly driving costs out of telecom at the expense of the telcos. The question is: Will these besieged entities still have a significant role to play in the development of tomorrow’s borderless networks?

Given the turbulence that telcos are presently experiencing, enterprises should choose their partners carefully. Clearly, there are dramatic changes occurring right now as organizations seek robust, reliable, secure and borderless networks. It’s critical to have a trusted advisor that can help you fully capitalize on these opportunities – moving beyond yesterday’s approaches to networking and communication.

Video is Driving Traffic Growth: Are You Ready?

Enterprises of all kinds are now exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with borderless networks. But it’s worth asking what will drive demand for new capacity and capabilities in the coming years as organizations seek to maximize the return on their networking investments.

Market research from Cisco suggests one primary driver of demand will be video.

In the recent release of its annual Visual Networking Index (VNI), Cisco found that Internet traffic will multiply fourfold by 2014. The forecast, which is based on models encompassing both business and consumer activities, is particularly bullish about the role of video in this growth.

According to the study, worldwide video users will grow to one billion by the end of 2010. In fact, Internet video is expected to surpass peer-to-peer traffic by the end of the year.  

Business video conferencing is forecast to grow at a 57% compounded annual growth rate over the next four years – roughly three times faster than projected growth for overall business IP traffic. The fastest growing subcategory is Web-based video conferencing. Its projected annual growth rate is 183% over the next four years.

As such findings indicate, video will play a key role in the borderless network strategies that enterprises develop to meet their own business objectives and address opportunities in their particular markets.

This said, enterprises can be expected to face several challenges as they prepare their networks for video adoption. Video, for instance, is more bursty and bandwidth intensive than voice, and it is more sensitive to delay, jitter, and packet loss. However, as the benefits of video are increasingly realized, the adoption rate of video applications will accelerate. That will encourage more and more enterprises to put video front and center in their networking strategies.

With this in mind, enterprises should begin planning for video sooner rather than later. One way to prepare for the extensive network demands associated with video is by sitting down with a trusted partner and laying out a plan for video and other media-rich applications. By putting in place a strategic roadmap encompassing video, enterprises can prepare for the new world of visual communication and collaboration that is clearly beginning to emerge.

Combine UC with Virtualization to Improve Customer Interactions

Customers demand easy access to information—through self-service Web portals as well as from customer service representatives. Customer focused organizations can improve customer interactions dramatically by integrating communications systems to customer information.  

Data center virtualization, in combination with unified communications systems, improves customer interactions, provides customer service agents with real-time access to up-to-date customer data, offers intuitive self-service options, and protects availability and security of valuable customer information.

Data center virtualization is the unified “back-end” for a Unified Communications platform. Virtualized data centers offer ubiquitous, always on access to critical customer information. The seamless integration of applications and data services within a virtualized IT infrastructure enhances any customer service or call center operation.

Take a look at 4 Advantages:

• Always On: Virtualized application services assure that customer service applications are always available to self-service customers or customer service agents. There is no need for expensive redundant data centers or failover operations, since the virtualized infrastructure is inherently redundant.


• Up-to-Date: Virtualized data services assure that customer information is always up-to-date and in sync regardless of access methods (e.g., web or CRM) or application instance.  Customers and service agents enjoy real-time customer information from any access point.


• Ubiquitous response:  Whether a customer is signing in from New Delhi or New York, virtualization enables them to be routed to the most efficient resource to meet their information needs.  Call-center agents are also routed to the most efficient processor within the virtualized infrastructure assuring optimum performance and response times regardless of locale or current application/information workloads.


• Reduced Cost: The cost of providing customer information application services is dramatically reduced, thanks to a reduction in CapEx and OpEx  costs  associated with the procurement, appointment and ongoing management of a virtualized IT infrastructure.

When combined with a Unified Communications platform, data center virtualization empowers customer call centers or self-service customer applications to deliver the information needed quickly, reliably and in real time, wherever it’s required.