Working towards a unified solution

Sunday Business Post - Computers in Business magazine - Feb 01 2009

Read the article on the Sunday Business Post website by clicking here.

The concept of unified communications (UC) is gaining significant traction in the Irish marketplace. It brings together communications channels including e-mail, voice calls, video conferencing and others, to enable all employees in an organisation to communicate better and work more efficiently.

Advances in the usability of the technology, and falls in the costs involved, means that UC is moving firmly into the mainstream, according to John McCabe, technical architect at CDSoft.

“UC is coming out of the earlier adopters' phase, where the technology was quite raw and sometimes clunky and more for the tech-savvy companies,” said McCabe. "It is now a more sleek, usable and easier to implement solution. More and more companies want to reduce the cost of managing their systems and due to the associated maintenance costs of UC, they realise they can reduce the amount of support contracts in place, which reduces their costs.”

Paul Kenny, head of infrastructure consulting services at Dell Ireland, said that particularly small and mid-size companies were looking at implementing UC solutions.

“Historically, the first companies that invested in UC were major companies trying to save on phone bills,” he said.” Today, it is more and more widely adopted by any kind of company. The technology from an end-user point of view is so simple to use that you do not need to be a tech guru to handle it.”

Pressure from individual staff members for the efficiencies and ease-of-use associated with UC was leading many companies to consider the technology, said Clive Ryan, director of advisory services at Eircom.

“People are used to this from their personal life, with instant messaging from Google, Yahoo, MSN and others,” Ryan said. “People want to dictate their presence to those who wish to contact them.”

Kim Majerus, managing director of Cisco Ireland, said that Cisco's internal research showed that interest in UC from Irish companies was increasing strongly.

“Our latest Irish research shows that about 30 per cent of Irish businesses cite unified communications as a high priority for their organisation in 2009,” said Majerus.

What is UC?
At its simplest, unified communications involves bringing together all of the different methods and channels of communication used by an individual during their working day, according to Joe Molloy, director of managed services with IT Force.

“Unified communications is about combining all the different means of communication into one - be it voice, video, e-mail, text, instant messaging - and facilitating the recipient to communicate back in their preferred manner,” said Molloy. "The 'unified' concept means the medium used to initiate the communicate does not necessitate that you communicate back through the same medium.”


McCabe said that the boundaries between communications channels were falling.

“UC generally means that, for example, you could receive a voice mail and later read it in your e-mail inbox or a user could instant message a colleague, escalate it to a phone call or full video meeting whilst sharing content to all users participating in the meeting,” he said.

In a full UC situation, individuals no longer have different e-mail addresses, phone numbers or instant message user names, Ryan said.

“It does not really matter what format the communication is in, whether it is a voice cal l, e-mail or instant message,” he said.” It all ends up in one common inbox, so the recipient of the communication can see it in one place. All the forms of communication can be mixed together, using a single identity or single logon.”

Present and correct
The user remains in control of this re-routing of all his communications, through the concept of ‘presence', which allows him to dictate to everyone else if and how he would like to be contacted at any given moment, according to Molloy.

“‘Presence' means that you can be contacted when and how you want,” he said.” It lets you know where someone is, whether they are available and how they wish to be contacted. It is effectively their contactable status, advertised to co-workers and in some cases third parties, such as suppliers or key clients.”

McCabe said that this presence function is one of the most useful elements of UC.

“It can tell you if a colleague is available, busy, on a call, at a meeting, etc,” he said. "This is real-time information, so it proves very useful if you are in a hurry to contact that particular person. UC provides the infrastructure for people to contact them via any particular method the person can choose to respond to the contact method if they wish but generally, once enabled for one UC, they are open to all methods of contact.”

Colleagues who were previously uncontactable by a particular communications method can now be reached using UC, Majerus said.

“It makes collaboration possible when users are online - no matter where they are,” he said. "For example, I can smartly ‘find' colleagues that I may need to join in a conference call at short notice. Generally, the users would define rules about when and how they can be contacted.

“Presence becomes particularly powerful when applications can decide on the best and most appropriate individual to contact and the best method to use.”

Jason Flynn, country manager for Avaya in Ireland, said that this did not mean that the status of all staff members was being constantly monitored.

“Presence does not mean a 'Big Brother' approach to business though,” said Flynn. "The user can decide to turn off their presence status if they are busy or unavailable. It just means that when they are working and available, they can be reached in the quickest, most efficient and most productive manner.”

Business case Kenny said that lowering communications costs was generally the primary motivation for a UC implementation.

“The costs reduction is the first objective,” he said. “UC allows a company to not go on the telephone network for internal company calls across multiple sites, including long distance and international calls. UC also allows a company to save on travel costs for internal meetings or internal training by organising very efficient video conferences.”

Speeding up communication between individuals was another important business benefit of UC, Molloy said.

“Without UC it can be difficult to quickly find, contact and share information with people,” he said. “Delays due to telephone tag and waiting for replies to e-mails negatively impact employee efficiency, and this is not good in the current climate, where time is money.”

Ryan said that the spiralling of the number and type of communications media in recent times had impacted negatively on people's productivity.

“Previously, there was a huge number of available communications devices or mechanisms that an employee had,” he said. "The employee in this case is actually unproductive, as people were trying to reach someone on multiple channels and missing them.

“People were also being deluged with different types of messages, emails, voice mails etc, and people trying to work together resulted in multiple copies of documents or notes being shared and piling up.”

Enhanced staff mobility was also a major attraction of UC, according to McCabe.

“Generally people use laptops or notebooks to do the majority of their UC interaction,” he said. "However, you can dial in with your mobile device and collect your e-mail or voice mail or faxes. You can also compose an e-mail or fax or have the presence and IM function if required.” Kenny said that implementing UC generally led to greater teamwork within organisations.

“UC allows an organisation to unlock their hidden teams by enabling people from different regions or areas to work together,” he said. "Presence allows them to see when their colleagues are available, then the ease of use of the variety of communication modes makes it easier to collaborate than not to.”

The joining up of the different channels enables better communication with clients or customers, Kenny said.

“Usually if someone calls you on your office phone and leaves a voicemail, you will get the message later that day,” he said. "With unified messaging, you will receive the voice mail in your inbox and you can hear it straight away.”

All of these business benefits tend to lead to higher productivity, Flynn said.

“With flexible working comes higher productivity through extended business hours, and an increase in responsiveness,” he said. “According to The Yankee Group, employees having access to unified and intelligent communications technologies can improve productivity by 15 to 20 per cent per day.”

Technology/ implementation
McCabe said that many of the larger technology suppliers were rushing into the UC marketplace.

“There is a lot of competition in the UC market,” he said.” There are UC solutions from all the major vendors and even some open source vendors. Each of the UC solutions essentially support all the same functions.”

Organisations could rollout UC solutions on a phased basis, Flynn said.

“They have the option to take either an evolutionary approach to implementation or a revolutionary approach,” he said. “Evolutionary being the choice for customers who wish to upgrade their solutions gradually, and revolutionary being for those who want to implement a complete set of IP solutions from day one.”

Vendors were typically working together to ensure that UC solutions were compatible with new and existing communications systems and business applications, McCabe said.

“UC itself used to be very difficult to implement and required specialists in both telecoms and data communications to bring it all together,” he said. "Now integration of systems is becoming easier to do and more secure.

“All the major companies who have UC in their product profile have very good documentation regarding installing and configuring the equipment and software. Not to mention friendly end-user experience, so adoption to the technology becomes very easy.”

Ryan said that a full UC solution generally involved working with more than one supplier or partner.

“We are not yet at the situation where it is a one stop shop,” he said. "You cannot buy or configure a UC solution entirely from one vendor; integration will always be required. You need to glue the UC platform into your existing infrastructure. For example you might have to integrate the UC solution into your existing e-mail application.”

Costs
Companies implementing a UC project generally need to invest in some new devices or networks, McCabe said.

“In most cases, they need some investment in new hardware, networks and/or handsets,” he said. “But when you consider that between the time saved for employees and the further reduced costs of managing the environment, the overall picture means a slimmer, more cost-efficient environment.”

Majerus said the cost of a UC system depended on the scope and scale of solution sought.

“Like any technology implementation, it would really depend on the size and scope of the solution - the hardware, services, implementation and other considerations,” he said.

“But to take a basic example, for a business that needs a simple yet effective collaboration solution, focused on online meetings, costs can start from about €50 per month for a fully hosted service, with no hardware to install or technical know-how required.”

Molloy said that a larger scale UC solution required a more significant investment.

“Where we have deployed a fully-f ledged UC solution, it is usual ly between €600 to €1,000 per user upfront,” he said. “However, when the immediate enhancement in employee productivity and efficiency are taken into consideration, and also the fact that you now have a solid and scalable foundation that allows you to plug in enhancements going forward, it makes great financial sense.”

Flynn said that UC projects could be designed with the requirements of the particular company in mind.

“It is also crucial that providers and vendors listen to their customers and take time to understand the specific challenges they face,” he said.” For example, an SMB working on skeleton staff may be most concerned about the mobility of its employees, whereas a large corporation may wish to integrate the latest video conferencing solutions into its existing infrastructure.

“Another key point to bear in mind is that in house technical know-how can vary depending on the type of business you are selling to and ease of use is therefore critical.”

Take-up so far
The costs previously involved meant that it had been mainly larger companies that looked at UC until recently, McCabe said.

“At the minute in the Irish market, enterprise customers have implemented UC more than SMB companies,” he said.” This is typically due to the perceived cost of implementing UC and the lack of understanding of how beneficial the roll-out of UC could be to them.”

McCabe said that companies with dispersed workforces tended to be early adopters of the technology.

"UC does suit some companies more than others at the minute,” he said. "Companies who have distributed offices or teams who work away from the office and, of course, large companies who employee hundreds of people benefit the most as they can communicate in real time with staff in the central locations without leaving their desk and usually without additional cost to the company.”

Organisations who either have a new premises or need to refresh their existing communications networks, are generally opting for UC-friendly systems, Molloy said.

“If a company is moving premises, has more than one office or needs to update the traditional telephone system, it is a no brainer, as new cabling and kit has to be done anyway,” he said.

Future
McCabe said he expected the take-up of UC to mushroom in the short to medium term in Ireland, particularly given current economic concerns.

“Over the next 18 months, Irish companies wil l be looking at costs and the associated cost centres,” he said.” They will be looking to become more efficient in how they operate. UC will certainly help with this. The technology around UC is becoming cheaper and easier to implement. Combine this with virtualisation and you can see that, for any size company, this is becoming a very viable solution to implement.”