We last talked about 'Unified Communications' two months ago in which we gave
you an insight into the concept. We looked at different building blocks of a
unified communications system, the protocols involved, and even went through
some sample deployments. This time, we'll talk about what sort of strategy you
should adopt if you want to migrate to unified communications. For this, we
interacted with key CIOs and IT decision makers across the country.
Interestingly, while about half of them didn't have any plans to deploy unified
communications, the remaining were at various stages of deployment. Some were
awaiting management approval, others had convinced the management and were about
to start the roll out, and there were a few who had just finished deploying the
same. The ones who had no plans to deploy had several reasons for not doing so.
Predominantly, either they didn't feel the need to migrate just yet, or they
found it difficult to justify the cost. A few also felt that the technology was
still too new and another set of respondents were waiting for others to deploy
and test the waters first. Even if you're from the second lot of people who
don't plan to deploy unified communications, you'll find this story useful as
we've tried to answer most of the apprehensions you have about migrating to the
technology.
Where to start?
Our survey indicated that currently, convincing the management to move to
unified communication is a herculean task. 93% of them said that the job was
difficult. The primary reason for this revolved around justifying the cost and
ROI as well as explaining the business benefits. For instance, one key aspect of
Unified Communications is move from TDM based voice communication to VoIP.
Convincing the management to move to VoIP is still not a very easy job. In fact,
one of our respondents said that as the existing cost of communication in the
country is not very high, so moving to VoIP doesn't really offer as high a
benefit as what it might offer in other countries. Possibly this is just a
mindset problem, where we want to use old things till they work, as pointed out
by one of our respondents. But then, if the management still feels that way,
then it must be convinced. Another point that you may need to convince the
management about are the legal implications. VoIP still has some legal hurdles
in the country, so you would need to find the right answers to overcome them for
your organization.
There are several things you can do to make it easier to convince the
management. First is to get your own views about unified communications clear.
Understand what it really is and what it means to you. Unified Communications,
as the name suggests, is about integrating multiple communications channels in
your organization, so that it becomes easier for people to communicate with each
other. So first you need to identify the channels you already have in place and
the challenges you're facing with them. According to a majority of our
respondents, the very existence of multiple communications channels was
hampering productivity of their employees. All problems stemmed from this one
problem. Due to this, it was becoming difficult to reach the right people at the
right time. Moreover, managing so many communications channels was itself
becoming quite a task, and not to mention the cost of owning so many channels.
So start by identifying the key issue you're facing with your communications
channels and what would it take to integrate them. This would help you figure
out the approximate cost and effort that would be required for the migration.
Incidentally, more than 50% of the respondents to our survey already had
audio/video conferencing and instant messaging in place. Slightly more than 40%
of the respondents were already using calendar sharing, while another 39% had
already shifted to IP telephony. Another 31% were already using online Web
conferencing facilities. If you already have these setup in your organization,
then the move to unified communications would be easier.
Define the benefits very clearly
Next, identify the key benefits you're likely to derive from this integration.
There were quite a few benefits that were told to us by the respondents through
our survey. Cost saving whether it's through reducing rentals, cutting down
travelling costs, or through reduced call rates, was one strong reason for
moving to UC. Whatever the case may be, UC must deliver a good ROI in the long
run. Ease of communication and managing multiple communications channels was
another reason. Some had linked it directly to business and said that their
objective for migrating was to increase the revenue and expand the market. Some
strongly felt that the key factors that will make organizations more competitive
in the future are reach and speed of service, and only unified communications
will offer such facility. There were also some benefits that were not directly
linked to business. Synergy across functions for instance is a key benefit of
unified communications. What if you need to interact with people in your
organization from multiple departments across multiple locations, and by using
multiple communications channels? Unified communications would definitely come
in useful there. Availability of people for communication will become much
higher, thereby improving the overall productivity of employees. We even
received responses that went as far as to integrate unified communications with
back office applications, systems, and business processes. It's important that
you define the business benefits you're likely to gain by migrating to UC. Also
do keep in mind that this would be a long term investment, and therefore returns
from the same would not be immediate.
Define metrics for success
Once you've deployed unified communications, how would you rate its success?
Please be very clear on this because this is the main reason for doing the
migration. According to our survey, higher customer satisfaction was the key
reason for moving to unified communication. More than 35% of our respondents
stated this as their reason. Other things like lower communication costs, higher
productivity per employee, reduced number of internal voice mail messages, and
even improved revenue came after this one reason. Of course, this might be
different in your case. Possibly, you're looking at it more from improving
employee productivity than anything else, or possibly you have it directly
linked to the revenue. Whatever the case may be, you need to clearly define the
metrics that you would be using for measuring the success of your deployment.
What's your UC wishlist?
Once you're ready to migrate, you need to define which elements would form a
part of your unified communications system. What all do you plan to deploy? IP
Telephony topped the charts in our survey, followed by video conferencing.
Another 60% of the respondents wanted to add Instant Messaging to it and another
60% (there were overlaps in choices) also wanted to bring smartphones and PDAs
into the picture. Interestingly, very few really opted for building presence
capabilities into the system.
This is surprising since the true value of a unified communications system
would be felt if you really know where the person you're trying to reach is
located and how best to contact him or her. Possibly this is because building
'presence' capabilities is also the most difficult and time consuming task as it
would come in only after all the pieces of a unified communications solution
have been integrated. Speaking of time, do keep ample time to do a complete roll
out of your unified communications strategy. More than 40% of our respondents
said that they will take up to a year and half to do the complete roll out.
There were another 30% who said they would be able to do it in a year's time
frame. So depending upon what all you plan to deploy, keep a time frame of 1 to
1.5 years handy for this.
"The two things we meticulously took care of were: bandwidth utilization and security. Basically the bandwidth utilization for critical operations should not hamper with the day to day operations. Security is also one of the major factors which was important for the process." Manikkam |
Key factors to consider
Defining the key factors to consider when migrating to unified communications
should also be a part of your strategy. One is user acceptability. Before
anything, you must ensure that you get a buy-in from your users. The only way
that this will happen is to convince them of the technology and its benefits.
Further, the only way to do that is to first understand the key challenges that
they're facing with the organization's communications infrastructure. To take a
quick example, how difficult is it in your organization to catch somebody from
the marketing team? They're the ones who travel the most and would therefore be
the most difficult to catch. Likewise, what's the success rate of voice mail
facilities given at each employee's extension? Do employees ever call back
people who've left a message in their voice mail? Do they even bother to ever
check their voice mail messages? Once you know of the problems faced by your
employees, you'd be in a better position to give them the solution. Moreover,
when you are giving them the solution, don't thrust it on them as one of our
respondents put it. Instead of doing that, create an appetite amongst the
employees for the requirement/need of unified communications.
Cost is of course anyways a factor to consider, and we've already pointed it
out. But as one of the respondents to our survey has put it, that the technology
for unified communications is available. You just need to justify the cost and
see the value for money. Also remember that the initial costs of deployment can
be quite high, as stated by one of the respondents in our survey. So, do a
thorough cost benefit analysis before proceeding. Security is another key factor
to consider when migrating to unified communication. As you would now have all
your communications channels integrated, it becomes even more important to
secure them. Monitoring the utilization of your system is another key factor to
consider. One key success factor for unified communication is employee training.
You must ensure that all your employees are fully aware of the system and how to
use it. Otherwise, it might end up becoming a dead investment. Your staff must
know how to use your unified communications facilities. What measures will you
have in place to ensure good quality of service for your unified communications
setup? It's very critical that you define this.
"Even Paresh Kamat, AGM IT at Patel |
Choosing a vendor/partner
So how do you decide whom to partner with for deploying your unified
communications? As this is still a new area, one thing you need to check is
whether the vendor has done any previous deployments in India. If so, then how
long did it take, what features were incorporated, and at what cost. Expertise
in technology, or rather skill of integrating multiple communications channels
is a must. The vendor must have experience in working with multiple
communications channels and should be able to integrate them together. The
geographical spread of the vendor was another key point that came up from our
survey. Is the vendor present across all locations as your own setup? Or at
least has other partners available for the job? What kind of after sales support
will the vendor provide is another key point to consider. Speaking of
integration, one must consider the legal issues and implications in the process,
if any. For instance, what would the interconnect charges be like if you're
connecting multiple communications channels such as voice with video or data.
According to some of our respondents, even some of the MTNL and BSNL authorities
are not clear about the policies for interconnect charges. The legalities of
using VoIP must be taken into account in any case.