Has The Weather Disrupted Your Enterprise? No Problem – Time To Leverage UCC

Introduction

If you are like most of us, you have been affected by weather this season.  Weather reports indicated that the amount of snow to date is double the average snowfall in a typical season in the New York metro area as one example.  School snow days allotted have been eaten up.  Salt for the roads is in short supply.  And oh, by the way, your enterprise has been affected to some or large degree. 

Key meetings have been cancelled and rescheduled, team meetings on-site have been difficult to reschedule. Delays in decisions have been business affecting.  An estimated $50B has affected the US economy, according to one resource.  And here is the really interesting point – many experts say these weather dynamics are the ‘new norm’ and get used to it.

What’s An Enterprise Organization To Do? 

The inclement, severe weather we have been a witness to and a part of is a form of Disaster Recovery.  For me, UCC is the answer for communication amongst all in any organization.  In fact, it’s a compelling answer.  UCC can leverage and take on the character of an enterprise working together in a ‘virtual’ building environment.   At a high level it includes voice communication (phone), email, fax, chat, video, and collaboration into that single unified channel.  That channel can be a physical hardphone, PC, tablet, or smart phone.  It means one can connect to anyone, at anytime, anywhere.  Multiple ways of getting to a colleague increases your chances of connecting to that individual, especially in a high need, immediate access situation.

So how can UCC work in the event of extreme weather or disaster and create a “no geographic boundary” environment?  Here are the critical talking points for leveraging UCC in your enterprise:

1.    A Dual Redundant Resilient Core Infrastructure - A dual core with duplicate licensing from the manufacturer ensures your ability to stay ‘up’ in the event of a disaster.  There should be as much geographic distance as possible between the two cores.  For national organizations, I recommend using 1,000 miles as a baseline rule for separation.  For regional organizations, both geography and data center readiness is the best way to evaluate where the cores will reside.

2.    One Number Reach, Follow Me – a remote worker can have one number, follow me, reach me mobility via follow me, twinning and other kinds of elements. UCC offers this ability to reach an individual to any device. The user controls where the call will go – phone desktop, smartphone, tablet with UC client, PC with UC client

3.    Remote Worker Capability – One can enable a remote worker via a soft phone or via an IP hard phone and that same individual can have an extension just like in the office. Hardphones or softphone apps on a PC or tablet can provide you the necessary tools to work ‘as normal’ during extreme weather.  Specific to a Contact Center, remote worker capability can ensure Contact Center readiness, and Customer  Service reps can log on remotely and this help ensure the same SLAs for abandoned calls and average speed of answer metrics customer have come to expect.  Extreme weather can limit workers’ ability to getting to work in a timely manner and thus affects basic Contact Center SLAs for service delivery. 

In fact, Stanford University and Beijing University teamed up and provided some compelling evidence that benefits both employers and at-home workers.  A Chinese travel agency proved that remote at-home workers were noticeably more productive, spending (a) nine percent more time on calls in a total day; handling (b) four percent more calls per minute, and (c) workers were sick less often and (d) reported being happier and (e) quit less frequently.

There truly is a great benefit to working remotely if the right tools and policies and procedures are put in place.

4.    IM/Chat, Presence – One can have IM, chat, and presence literally bringing people together across multiple geographies. IM/chat provides that ‘quick hit’ answer one is looking for without the need for a real-time conversation.  As consumers we text considerably during the course of a day on smart phones and have witnessed how quick a conversation can be with X Gen’ers as an example.  No 3 minute calls here, conversations quick, and answers sought accomplished.  Presence provides the ability to identify any co-workers as available ‘friends’ based on pre-defined lists.  It can let you see, instantly, who is available and who is not for getting answers to issues, problems quickly.

5.    Web and Group Audio Conferencing – One can schedule meet-me conferencing and send an invite to participants via a single UCC interface in the event of extreme weather.  When you think about it, how many of us right now, at least once a week, are on some kind of meet-me conference call and in many cases web-based, where you can connect via a white board or document sharing session within it. That is very standard practice in today’s market.

6.    Unified Messaging - Receive and respond to email, faxes, and voice calls in a single user interface and respond to an inbound query in the same manner, with no training required here.

7.    Collaboration and Document Sharing – One can collaborate and share documents.  With technology-led collaboration, highly diversified teams can work together inside and outside the company across large geographies, creating value and improving innovation, customer relationships, and leverage technology in an anytime, anywhere environment.

8.    Videoconferencing – Video now enables a face-to-face conversation, better than voice-only or text-only.  Issues get solved more quickly when together in a ‘virtual room’ and having richer conversation and thus problem resolution faster. Videoconferencing by its nature requires a stronger pay attention factor than an audio conference where more multi tasking takes place.  Videoconferencing can be one-to-one, many-to-many, or one-to-many.  Note that the more there are on a video conference, the more diluted the problem solving meeting experience. In my experience, a video conference for up to 8 people works well and beyond such dilutes the impact of the video experience.

Meetings are now recordable and have the ability to be played back for later viewing.  Training via videoconferencing is “hot” for organizations requiring certifications and regular training. Everyone is now mobile – and videoconferencing is a way to connect individuals across large geographies without disruption.  HD video is here – High Definition/HD, as we have come to embrace in the consumer media market, is now available in the commercial videoconferencing space. Videoconferencing quality is now what you have come to expect from satellite and cable providers at 720p/30 frames per second and 720p/60.

9.    UCC Is Borderless – UCC now provides the advantage of working in a borderless world, to get work done in a timely manner in an anywhere world.  There are no borders, no geographies in the world of UCC.

10.  UCC Can Be Premise or uCaaS Cloud Based – Today’s UCC tools can be provided either in a premise-based capitalized model or cloud-based rental model.  If you are considering the cloud as a UCC option, ensure that you ask the key questions necessary to leverage UCC in for your organization.  Ensure all of the feature and functionality of the UCC tools you are seeking are available (not all UCC cloud providers deliver on the entire UCC suite as yet).  And ensure geographic separation (1,000 miles or more is best) for a redundant cloud UCC solution.

11.  UCC Reduces Real Estate Costs – UCC can reduce an enterprise’s real estate costs by $60,000+ annually per person – a 50 agent Contact Center for example, when moved off site, can reduce real-estate costs by or $3.0M+ annually, a significant cost benefit.

Conclusion

The extreme weather many of us have experienced this winter is that – extreme.  It is the new norm according to many meteorologists, and not to be taken as a ‘one off’.  This extreme weather forces the real-world question “can my organization run as normal in the event of extreme weather or a disaster?”  With a UCC suite of tools, the answer becomes a resounding ‘yes’.

UCC is, in my opinion, a must for a Disaster Recovery and inclement weather strategy for your organization.  UCC for inclement weather is a natural progression of separate UCC tools used in today’s consumer environment, including friends lists (Facebook), IM/chat (texting), videoconferencing (FaceTime, et al), and other separate tools used in the commercial space, such as Webinars and Web-based conference calling.  UCC brings these tools together in a rich, seamless environment.

Don’t lose days of productivity and millions affecting your business. Begin now to strategically plan, trial, and leverage UCC tools for your organization, and by this same time in 2015/16, you and your organization will be fully prepared to operate ‘as usual’ when the next major storm system hits.