Harvest UC Benefits in 2014
Harvest UC Benefits in 2014 by Don Van Doren
As we move into a new year, it’s clear that the accelerating changes in communications capabilities are affecting corporate purchases and usage, especially for voice communications. The growth in mobile, in peer-to-peer communication, in communications capabilities embedded into business applications software, in new devices, in BYOD, in WebRTC – all these and more are changing personal and corporate communication patterns. Even more importantly, these new capabilities open up significant new opportunities for enterprises to support collaboration, improve their fundamental business processes, reduce delay & errors, and offer new ways to get work done more effectively.
Yet some companies are still marching down legacy pathways – replacing an existing PBX system with the next generation of telecommunications gear built on architectures fundamentally similar to what they are replacing. This approach ignores the dramatic shift in communications underpinnings that’s going on, and locks companies into an outmoded architecture for years to come. True, PBX suppliers are scrambling to extend their systems’ capabilities to encompass these new communications modes. However, with only a few exceptions, these extensions to legacy solutions rarely offer the seamless integration and ease-of-use that systems can achieve if designed from the perspective of “how does communications help get work done?” Voice-centric architectures have a diminishing place within the spectrum of solutions now available. Rather, voice is just one of a number of real-time and non-real-time methods that can be selected based on the underlying communications requirement.
Marty Parker and I started UniComm Consulting seven years ago to help enterprises navigate this sea-change shift in the way communications increasingly will be operating in the future. Our experience with UC implementations is that there are two fundamentally different use cases. UC-U, focused on user productivity; and UC-B, focused on improving business processes. From our client experience and from vendor case studies, it’s clear that UC-B offers benefits that are an order of magnitude better.
We find that the best way to discover UC-B opportunities is to design UC&C implementations around use cases. Marty, in particular, has written many articles and spoken at many conferences and private events about this fundamental change and how best to take advantage of it.
The approach is straightforward:
- Talk to business managers and staff
- Understand how current communications is used in getting work done
- Identify usage profiles, probably five to seven enterprise-wide
- Match UC capabilities to usage profile requirements
- Select technology solution(s) to meet profiles
- Implement by matching capabilities to usage profiles
However, we continue to encounter companies that have followed the legacy path. In some cases they have spent millions of dollars to swap out telephones on desks, have deployed a new VoIP-based infrastructure, but have harvested few direct benefits to show for these expenditures and reaped a lot of grumbles from users who want features on their old phone back!
What is the answer in this situation? For companies embarking on upgrading their phone systems: Stop! Broaden your focus and use the steps outlined above to figure out where voice fits into your staff’s communications needs, and where other capabilities of modern UC&C solutions better serve the usage profile requirements.
For companies that have recently implemented a shiny, new PBX system, take the time now to go back and harvest the benefits. You have the opportunity to build on what you have done. Many companies have introduced UC tools as part of their PBX roll-out – everyone gets instant messaging, presence, perhaps click-to-communicate functionality and other capabilities that support UC-U. Take advantage of this roll-out to introduce your company’s staff to these tools and their operation.
But don’t stop there.
Rather, go back and follow the steps outlined above to discover ways that unified communications (including, but beyond, just voice) can radically impact business processes. That may mean adding some additional functionality beyond what is available through the new PBX solution. Identify the usage profiles for communications functionality, and give users in each profile examples of the specific ways that these new tools can streamline processes, shorten time to get work done, and reduce the effort and labor content. Identify the early-adopters, and publicize their success stories.
Our experience is that it’s easy to harvest these benefits when people see how these new capabilities allow them to get their work done more effectively and efficiently. By linking the tools specifically to the communications patterns in their usage profile, the “ah HA!” moments spread rapidly throughout the company.
Give it a try, and make 2014 a year to get real returns from your communications investments.