1. plantemoran.com
Understanding & Applying Unified Communications

2. Confusion in the Market
 “UC” means different Integrated VM
things Chat applications
 Many products with File sharing
“Unified” in the name IP communications
 “UC” is often sold as a Webinar
“thing” you buy Teleconferencing
Speech recognition
Business process
integration

3. Today’s Discussion
 Define UC
 Identify major UC applications (“tools”)
 3 primary ways UC can be purchased /
rolled out

4. UC
Unified Communications

5. What is Unified “Communications?”
“Unified Communications is the integration of
communication functions into business processes”
Editor – CIO Magazine
“Communications integrated to optimize business
processes”
www.ucstrategies.com
“Technology that connects communication and
collaboration applications on a common platform”
Forrester Research

6. The UC Continuum

7. Three Stages of Unification
U-Infrastructure U-Applications U-Processes
 IP Telephony  Conferencing  Attendance
 Mobility notification
 Presence/IM  Embedded
Communications
 Third Party Call
Control

8. The UC Continuum
 At its lowest level, UC serves to join
multiple types of communications to:
 Consolidate infrastructure

9. Separate Networks
Phone Network
Data Network

10. Combined Networks
Data and Voice

11. Implications
 Lowest levels of UC is an IT project focused on
voice and data infrastructure
Consolidate Merge Collapse
Voice/Data Cabling Voice and data staff Voice onto the LAN
Vendors Voice onto the data
WAN
Better potential voice integration via IP and SIP

12. The UC Continuum
 At a moderate level, UC serves to join
communication applications to:
 Enhance Personal Productivity
 Enhance Workgroup Productivity
Jessica Young

13. Implications
 Moderate levels of UC is typically focused on
deploying user productivity tools:
 Presence
 IM/Chat
 Unified Messaging (voice/email/fax)
 Click to call / Click to conference
 Find Me / Follow me
 Conferencing (Meet Me audio bridge, video and web
conferencing)

14. The UC Continuum
 At its highest level, UC incorporates
functionality to:
 Build communication methods directly into
business processes
 Communications Enabled Business Processes
(CEBP)

15. Implications
 High levels of UC are often concerned with
integrating some form of communications
input/output in response to a business process
 This require deep knowledge of:
 The enterprise business
 Who is communicating with who
 How they are communicating
 What are the critical paths

16. Implications
 At the highest levels, vendors are not in a good
position to address this UC functionality
 They lack access to the customer organization
 They lack compensation for their time to figure this out
 This is where internal expertise or outside
assistance is required
 Customization may be required

17. The UC Continuum
 Thus, all the confusion…
 Vendors/Media often over simplify UC as a
“thing you buy” rather than a set of tools to be
figured out and applied to optimize business
communications
 Vendors/Media often present IP telephony,
Unified Messaging, and Unified
Communications as synonymous
 Vendors/Media often imply that UC capabilities
are contingent upon implementing IP telephony

18. The UC Continuum
 Thus, all the confusion…
 Vendor’s naming conventions often build
“Unified” into their product names
 Multiple vendors / New vendors to buy from
 Many vendors are still learning and evolving

19. What is Driving UC?

20. Communication Overload

21. What is driving UC?
 As telephone systems come up for
replacement, UC capabilities are the
newest feature sets to be considered
Available Features? Needed Features
Presence Click to Conference Presence
Web Conferencing IM IM
Click to Call Video Conferencing Click to Call
Federation Search Directory Search Directory
Kitchen Sink Tag

22. What is driving UC?
 Organizations are trying to figure out
 How to solve communication problems
 Bottlenecks
 Difficulty reaching the right person quickly
 How to optimize business processes
 Single Number Reach
 Speed up communication flows
 Better collaboration

23. UC Toolsets

24. Main Categories of UC Toolsets
Contact Management Messaging
& Directory Services
Conferencing & Mobility & Remote
Collaboration Office

25. UC Toolsets
 Presence
 IM/Chat
 Click to Call
 Enterprise Phonebook
 Enterprise dialing
Contact Management
& Directory Services  Call routing/Screening rules
 Single User Identity
 Email, phone, cell

26. UC Toolsets
 Presence
 Real time status – who is on-line and available?
 The “dial tone” of the future
 Today: Presence focused within the enterprise and
ability to have an IM session
 Tomorrow: Presence servers gathering information
from various sources/platforms from in/out of the
enterprise (requires federation)
 Basic Presence: On-line, level of activity
 Rich Presence: Location, type of device being used,
its OS, local time, outside-of-enterprise

27. UC Toolsets
 Instant Messaging
 Enterprise-grade/Enterprise-wide Instant
Messaging
 Security and Privacy
 Quick exchanges
 Multi-tasking / Ability to reach those that are “busy”

28. UC Toolsets
 Third-Party Call Control
 Activation of telephone features by point/click
 Click to Call
 Click to Conference
 The office telephone becomes a “handset”

29. UC Toolsets
 Synchronized Directory
 Single user identity to tie together
 Email address
 Office telephone number
 Mobile telephone number

30. UC Toolsets
 Integrated audio
conferencing
 Integrated web conferencing
 Integrated video
conferencing
Conferencing &
Collaboration

31. UC Toolsets
 Conferencing & Collaboration Tools
 Audio conferencing (including call in “bridge”
service)
 Video conferencing
 Web conferencing
 Collaborative capabilities
 Shared workspaces
 “White boarding”
 File / Document sharing
 Enterprise-wide Instant Messaging

32. UC Toolsets
 Unified Messaging
 Live reply/call return of
VM messages
Messaging

33. UC Toolsets
 Unified Messaging
 One in-box for email, voice mail – even fax
 Unified message notification for all message
types
 Ability to access any messages from any device
 Ability to forward voice mail messages as email
attachments
 Ability to work with voice mail messages from PC

34. UC Toolsets
 Advanced Call & Message Management
 Desktop call screening (rules for screening
inbound calls)
 Find Me/Follow Me
 Live Reply/Call Return of a VM message

35. UC Toolsets
 Single number service
 Voice commands
 Seamlessly swap calls from
cell to desk phone (and vice
versa)
Mobility & Remote  Soft phone VPN to corporate
Office network

36. UC Toolsets
 Mobility Tools
 Single Number Service
 Office Number routes to “hidden” cell number
 Voice mail messages pulled back to enterprise VM
server
 Outbound calls from cell show Office Number CLID
 Voice commands

37. UC Toolsets
 Speech Access & Personal Assistant
 Voice Recognition / Natural Speech commands
 Speech commands to control “personal
assistants”
 Access inbox
 Access calendar
 Access directory / contacts
 Set up outbound dialing

38. UC Toolsets
 Remote Telephony Access
 Soft Phone (Laptop/PC with headset/microphone)
 VPN over Broadband Internet Connection
 Remote workers can receive calls to their business
number
 Remote workers can place calls over the corporate
trunks

39. UC Toolsets
 What appears to be readily adopted?
 Instant Messaging
 Presence
 Click to Call
 Search Directory

40. UC Toolsets
Presence
IM
Click to Call
Search Directory
Tag
Click to Conference
Web Conferencing
Video Conferencing
Federation
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Blair Pleasant and Nancy Jamison – June 2008

41. UC in Action

42. Communication Grid
High
Phone
Intrusion
IM Email
Low
Immediate Delayed
Time

43. Process Optimizations
 Speed up the process of reaching someone
 Speed up and simplify the process of joining
multiple parties
 Simplify and enhance the process of collaborating
with disparate parties
 Enhance the ability of mobile users to be reached
and function with the tools available within their
office
 Set up triggers to automatically provide
notification at a critical point

44. Contact Management
 Presence shows who is available
 IM allows for instant access even if they are
engaged in another task
 One-Number / Find Me-Follow Me allows the
system to manage multiple venues – relieving
the caller from trying different numbers
 Directory Dialing and Click to Call simplifies the
process of identifying and contacting someone

45. Mobility
 One-Number / Find Me-Follow Me allows the
system to work through multiple venues – not
the caller
 Unified Messaging allows voice mail, email, and
fax to available through a single interface
(Smartphone user)
 Text-to-Speech allows access to email from
standard cell phones
 Natural Speech allows for easier interaction

46. Collaboration
 Audio conferencing (“Meet Me”)
 Video Conferencing (PC to PC up to telepresence)
 Web Conferencing
 Rapid virtual meetings
 Share documents and files
 Calendar and project timeline
 Presence

47. Communications-Enabled Portal
 Integrate Presence/IM with operating system
software
 Software identifies an event where assistance is
required
 Software identified individuals that could assist
 IM/Chat window is opened to communicate with
selected individuals
 Click to Call can be selected

48. 3 Ways to UC

49. 3 Ways to UC
 Telecom solutions
 Desktop solutions
 Application solutions

50. 3 Ways to UC
 UC via Telecom Provider solutions
 Avaya (Nortel)
 Cisco
 Siemens
 Mitel
 NEC

51. 3 Ways to UC
 UC via Desktop Provider solutions
 Microsoft
 IBM
 Webex
 Google

52. 3 Ways to UC
 UC via Application Provider solutions
 SAP
 Salesforce

53. Ted Mallires
Plante & Moran
248.223.3340
ted.mallires@plantemoran.com