Getting to the Core of Unified Communications (Part 1)
Getting to the Core of Unified Communications (Part 1) by Jason Andersson
In the Post-PC Era, advocated by many Unified Communication vendors, it seems that most services will be provided from some distant cloud, using features on devices employees bring to work managed by a service provider who splits bills between what is work and what is private. In this world, being a Value Added Resellesar (VAR) or Systems Integrator (SI); it can feel as stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Yes, I am exaggerating it a bit, but pushing what is happening to an extreme is a good way to identify what needs to be done, what competence is needed and who will be your competitors and partners for the future. However, there are opportunities; they lie in the land in between each point of integration, where standard clients meet business processes, where front-office meets back-office and where innovation meets legacy.
Standard clients meet business processes
The business models change, which we understand. But that the relationships change as well is not as clear to many. Where many have made a living on selling UC systems to customers and after installation moving ahead to the next, now as a VAR or SI, the closer you get to the customers ways of working, understanding their business goals, you will become more competitive.
It is when you have that understanding that you will find opportunities to build solutions that connect their unified communications environment to how they do work, or Business Process Automation. It is possible to classify different offerings with how much process focus and business focus each feature has.
If you imagine a circle with layers, the outer layer being the Voice infrastructure, with limited business focus and no process focus. Inside that layer you find Video, currently the focus of most vendors. Video has some business focus and a little process focus as it is used in ways that are intended to speed up projects, simplify meetings and collaborate. Inside that circle you find Unified communications, which has the potential to increase employee collaboration, sharing of ideas as well as introducing new ways of communicating between employees and partners. These new communication forms include API's and other integration points that enable the linking of communication features with processes. The fourth layer is Collaboration; this is where I would put features such as networking, persistent chats, social networking features, blogs and skill based identification of colleagues, all which have great potential to improve processes such as sales, support and product development. The further in you go into the inner layers the more critical it becomes from a business process perspective. Contact Center or Customer Care is highly process oriented services that require understanding of ways of working, as well as of available tools and applications.
Even if a solution is in the cloud, the needs of integrating these features, such as customer care, into business processes and other tools are and will continue to grow in importance. At the very core of this layered circle you will find Business applications and ERP systems. Not many VAR and SI's will be involved in integrating these applications, but as you can see there are plenty of opportunities for you as a vendor, but it requires new skills and also closer relationships.
Summary
The future of unified communications is bright, but much is dependent on how well your organization can acquire new skill-sets that can "talk the talk and walk the walk" of these layers. You should decide where in this map you want to be and focus on that layer. Find out who to partner with and what your competition looks like. In this environment, you will find new partners to cooperate with as well as new enemies that try to win the same part of the business as you are.
Also on UCStrategies.com in this series: