1) The document discusses how involving stakeholders across an organization in the UC implementation process from the beginning can help ease adoption and overcome resistance to change. This includes gathering user requirements, developing solutions focused on user needs, training users, and providing support.
2) It recommends forming a cross-functional team, understanding user needs through interviews, developing a roadmap aligned with those needs, leveraging some existing solutions, creating a communications plan, and offering various training options.
3) The goal is to gain users' trust and encourage them to embrace changes by making users feel involved and demonstrating how UC can improve their work, rather than forcing changes upon them.
This newsletter provides an 8-step approach to developing a strategic roadmap for unified communications (UC). It recommends defining an organizational vision and requirements, evaluating current systems, identifying viable solutions, developing a transformation roadmap, and performing ongoing improvements. The newsletter includes an analysis from Gartner recommending a project-focused rather than technology-focused approach to UC planning to better match requirements with solutions.
Change buy in - how to get stakeholders to embrace changekate_bukowski
This document summarizes strategies for gaining stakeholder support for organizational change. It discusses:
1) Communicating the benefits of change to stakeholders can help reduce anxiety and gain their buy-in. Developing a detailed communications plan that engages stakeholders throughout the change process is important.
2) Identifying "clinical champions" or ambassadors for the change who can communicate the benefits to their colleagues is an effective way to promote adoption of the change.
3) Anticipating potential obstacles to change upfront and addressing stakeholders' concerns, like lack of time or computer skills, in the communications plan can help smooth the transition and gain cooperation. Regular updates on progress also maintain stakeholder involvement.
Directions Supplement - June eyes on_the_prize_singlessalterbaxter
1) Two recent examples from Goldman Sachs and ING demonstrate increasing pressure from investors for companies to integrate sustainability into their brands.
2) The document outlines four different approaches companies have taken to creating sustainable brands: GE focuses on stakeholder engagement, E.ON acts as an educator, Pepsi encourages hands-on involvement from consumers, and Cadbury emphasizes partnerships.
3) InterfaceFLOR's sustainability director provides six "dos and don'ts" of creating a sustainable brand based on their experience, including setting ambitious goals, addressing core issues, and making sustainability personal.
Unified communications (UC) integrates various communication systems and devices to allow users to easily collaborate in real-time. It streamlines communications, cuts costs by leveraging existing infrastructure, and ties together people, devices, and information. Key components of UC include unified messaging, instant messaging, presence/identity, integration with existing infrastructure like PBX systems, video conferencing, and linking UC with business processes. Companies realize value from UC by replacing insecure apps, automating workflows, reducing travel costs through virtual meetings, and providing a single identity for presence and communication across channels. When planning a UC strategy, companies should target objectives, take a phased approach, and partner with experts.
This document provides a roadmap for building an effective environmental employee engagement program. It outlines a four-phase approach:
1) Define clear business goals and metrics to measure success.
2) Get employees engaged by motivating them to complete measurable environmental tasks.
3) Harness engaged employees' enthusiasm to recruit others and achieve greater results.
4) Build executive support, identify champions, and integrate the program with HR to impact company culture.
The roadmap translates engagement into getting employees excited to "board the bus" of the program and then ask others to join. It aims to demonstrate business benefits, engage all employees, and transform many into environmental leaders both at work and beyond.
This document discusses six healthcare trends and why user experience matters for addressing them. It provides definitions of usability and user experience, arguing that user experience is broader and requires understanding user needs from the start. The six trends are: 1) increased adoption of electronic medical records, 2) increased patient engagement, 3) mobile health becoming mainstream, 4) moving towards accountable care, 5) rise of retail health clinics, and 6) increased care at home solutions. For each trend, the document discusses challenges and how user-centered design can help address them.
Star Collaborative Presentation For Hu Gmn Techday 2010ChangeGuild
The document discusses 12 change management tools that can be used to improve implementation performance. It summarizes each tool, including the learning cycle, engagement agreements, change magnitude assessments, change curves, stakeholder assessments, key role maps, defining current and future states, behavioral anchors, culture assessments, base deck communications, communication plans, and sponsor contracting. The overall purpose is to provide organizations with strategies and frameworks to better manage change initiatives.
This newsletter provides an 8-step approach to developing a strategic roadmap for unified communications (UC). It recommends defining an organizational vision and requirements, evaluating current systems, identifying viable solutions, developing a transformation roadmap, and performing ongoing improvements. The newsletter includes an analysis from Gartner recommending a project-focused rather than technology-focused approach to UC planning to better match requirements with solutions.
Change buy in - how to get stakeholders to embrace changekate_bukowski
This document summarizes strategies for gaining stakeholder support for organizational change. It discusses:
1) Communicating the benefits of change to stakeholders can help reduce anxiety and gain their buy-in. Developing a detailed communications plan that engages stakeholders throughout the change process is important.
2) Identifying "clinical champions" or ambassadors for the change who can communicate the benefits to their colleagues is an effective way to promote adoption of the change.
3) Anticipating potential obstacles to change upfront and addressing stakeholders' concerns, like lack of time or computer skills, in the communications plan can help smooth the transition and gain cooperation. Regular updates on progress also maintain stakeholder involvement.
Directions Supplement - June eyes on_the_prize_singlessalterbaxter
1) Two recent examples from Goldman Sachs and ING demonstrate increasing pressure from investors for companies to integrate sustainability into their brands.
2) The document outlines four different approaches companies have taken to creating sustainable brands: GE focuses on stakeholder engagement, E.ON acts as an educator, Pepsi encourages hands-on involvement from consumers, and Cadbury emphasizes partnerships.
3) InterfaceFLOR's sustainability director provides six "dos and don'ts" of creating a sustainable brand based on their experience, including setting ambitious goals, addressing core issues, and making sustainability personal.
Unified communications (UC) integrates various communication systems and devices to allow users to easily collaborate in real-time. It streamlines communications, cuts costs by leveraging existing infrastructure, and ties together people, devices, and information. Key components of UC include unified messaging, instant messaging, presence/identity, integration with existing infrastructure like PBX systems, video conferencing, and linking UC with business processes. Companies realize value from UC by replacing insecure apps, automating workflows, reducing travel costs through virtual meetings, and providing a single identity for presence and communication across channels. When planning a UC strategy, companies should target objectives, take a phased approach, and partner with experts.
This document provides a roadmap for building an effective environmental employee engagement program. It outlines a four-phase approach:
1) Define clear business goals and metrics to measure success.
2) Get employees engaged by motivating them to complete measurable environmental tasks.
3) Harness engaged employees' enthusiasm to recruit others and achieve greater results.
4) Build executive support, identify champions, and integrate the program with HR to impact company culture.
The roadmap translates engagement into getting employees excited to "board the bus" of the program and then ask others to join. It aims to demonstrate business benefits, engage all employees, and transform many into environmental leaders both at work and beyond.
This document discusses six healthcare trends and why user experience matters for addressing them. It provides definitions of usability and user experience, arguing that user experience is broader and requires understanding user needs from the start. The six trends are: 1) increased adoption of electronic medical records, 2) increased patient engagement, 3) mobile health becoming mainstream, 4) moving towards accountable care, 5) rise of retail health clinics, and 6) increased care at home solutions. For each trend, the document discusses challenges and how user-centered design can help address them.
Star Collaborative Presentation For Hu Gmn Techday 2010ChangeGuild
The document discusses 12 change management tools that can be used to improve implementation performance. It summarizes each tool, including the learning cycle, engagement agreements, change magnitude assessments, change curves, stakeholder assessments, key role maps, defining current and future states, behavioral anchors, culture assessments, base deck communications, communication plans, and sponsor contracting. The overall purpose is to provide organizations with strategies and frameworks to better manage change initiatives.
Organizational change management is one of the most overlooked and under-planned parts of many SharePoint implementations. You simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of this topic. Successful organizational change management is a critical component to ensuring the success of any SharePoint initiative.
In this session, we will discuss field-proven tactics to help your users make sense of the change that your SharePoint solution will inevitably bring into their daily work lives. You will learn a user adoption framework and some factors you should consider when planning your next SharePoint initiative. We will challenge the mindset that adoption can be driven, and embrace the concept of designing change for long-term sustainable cultural acceptance. By attending this session, you will be able to:
Design your own organizational change-management strategy
Understand how to foster user adoption
Understand how to engage and build solution champions
Build a communication plan
Apply field-tested strategies in your organization
This document provides an overview of WebTek Labs Pvt. Ltd., which is an IT solutions company founded in 2001. It discusses the company's various business verticals including recruitment & staffing, software development & testing, digital marketing, enterprise mobility, certifications & trainings. The document then describes a proposed project for a personal finance management web application called "YRMoney Analyzer". It discusses the purpose and objectives of the new system, which would allow users to track income, expenses, and budgets online in order to better manage their personal finances. The methodology discussed is a waterfall model approach involving requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance.
Do UX designers have a role in reducing digital waste?User Vision
UX designers are primarily concerned with ensuring the experience of end users, but should we also consider the impact on the environment?
Do the ultra-usable and convenient digital lifestyles we help create provide ease-of-use at the cost of sustainability?
We'll explore the surprisingly large impact that digital has on C02 emissions and other contributors to the climate crisis.
Then we’ll discuss what can be done by individuals and as a profession to raise awareness of the issue contribute to ways to mitigate the problem.
Mobile Accessibility Breakfast Briefing - Oct 2020User Vision
Contents:
Why mobile accessibility is important for everyone
How has legislation effected accessibility on mobile
WCAG 2.1
Built-in accessibility features on mobile
Mobile accessibility downfalls:
-Navigation
-Layout
-Providing use of context
Examples of common accessibility issues
The document outlines a template for a service sketchpad that can be used to plan new solutions or enhancements. It includes sections to describe users and problems, solution ideas, how users currently address problems and competitive solutions, how the solution would provide value to users and be adopted, metrics to measure success, and financial considerations. The overall template provides guidance on the key elements to document when developing new service or product opportunities.
User Adoption Strategies - Engaging Users for Higher ProductivityProlifics
The document discusses various strategies for improving user adoption of new technologies. It presents a four stage model of user adoption: 1) winning attention, 2) cultivating basic concepts, 3) enlivening activity, and 4) making it real. It also discusses the importance of proper resources to support growth, allowing users to share content, rewarding users, and getting existing users to help spread the word to others.
The document discusses best practices for digital journal app advertising to healthcare professionals. It provides insights from Wolters Kluwer Health's experience emerging as a leader in native journal apps. Some key advantages of journal app advertising highlighted include the ability to leverage new interactive technologies to create longer and more frequent interactions. Tips are provided for using multimedia like video and links effectively in digital ads to engage readers, demonstrate expertise, and build relationships.
This document is the foreword and introduction to Volume 2 of The Stakeholder Engagement Manual. It acknowledges contributions from AccountAbility, the United Nations Environment Programme, and Stakeholder Research Associates. The forewords discuss how stakeholder engagement can help companies address challenges, align corporate strategy with sustainability, and create value for all stakeholders. The introduction explains that Volume 2 builds on Volume 1 by providing practical guidance for strategic stakeholder engagement planning and implementation.
This document describes an innovative project management model called "Risks and Rewards" that was implemented for a large telecommunications customer. The key aspects of the model include:
1) Setting quantified objectives based on the customer's annual business plan targets, with project costs and profits tied to achieving those targets.
2) Sharing both the risks and rewards between the customer and implementation organization, with 25% of costs only paid if targets are met and profits calculated based on incremental revenue and earnings.
3) Making the customer's CFO and annual business plan a central part of running the project to directly tie performance to financial goals.
4) Focusing on user adoption of the new technologies to ensure the
These are detailed notes from the visit at the Copenhagen's Danish Design Centre, which had on display a very informative exhibition on a model for a design-driven innovation, developed by the Danish Design Centre.
Design-driven Innovation (DIN) is a tool for developing better responses to complex challenges while ensuring implementation through a design-driven approach.
I was interested in the potential of this model for designing public communication.
The credit for all the information in this document goes to Danish Design Centre.
Karen Smith is a highly motivated business professional with over 20 years of experience as a business analyst. She has a track record of building relationships to understand business needs and develop requirements. She is experienced in line management, project management, process improvement, and health and safety advocacy. Her skills include requirements gathering, workshop facilitation, presentations, and stakeholder management. She has worked in various roles for organizations such as Amey, United Utilities, Littlewoods Retail, and NNC developing solutions that optimize IT use and improve customer experience.
This document discusses various initiatives taken by an organization to improve customer experience and access to information. It summarizes different channels used like technical whitepapers, blogs, forums, videos and wikis to engage customers. Key metrics like top call drivers are analyzed to identify pain points and improve solutions. Search engine optimization techniques are implemented to make information more accessible to customers.
1. The document discusses different approaches to project prioritization and their shortcomings, including "what I say goes", "oiling the squeaky wheel", and group voting.
2. It proposes a new dynamic approach involving stakeholders to identify issues and desired changes, logically triaging them, developing projects to address the issues in sequence, and communicating the process to gain support.
3. The key steps are to involve stakeholders, triage issues transparently, develop projects addressing the issues in a high-impact sequence, create business cases, adjust timing based on resources, and communicate the plan.
Turning Crowd Innovation Into Real Products and RevenueMindjet
When any organization ramps up a new or refined business approach, it must align with their goals as a company and provide benefits that outweigh any associated costs. And, due to their typical ambiguity, corporate innovation programs often present many challenges that can be difficult to face without expert guidance.
In this presentation, Mindjet’s John Welder discusses how you can support your crowd innovation management programs through design thinking, agile methodologies, and lean start-up processes, in order to accelerate real business outcomes and revenue.
Collaborative techniques for developing usability requirementsKaren Bachmann
Usability requirements are non-functional requirements that translate user research into meaningful guidance for design and into measures of success for testing. Learn about how to guide collaborative requirements definition and integrate user research and business analysis in defining usability requirements. Presented at UPA 2011.
MindManager Users: Spotlight on Project ManagementMindjet
This presentation showcases how MindManager users from all over the world use Mindjet's mind mapping software to facilitate efficient, focused, and successful project management.
San Francisco Project Pride: Lessons learnedMikael Wagner
The document provides a summary of lessons learned from Project PRIDE. Some key points include:
1) It was easier to engage individuals than entire communities, and actively engaging priority communities should have been a higher priority.
2) There was misinformation circulating in priority communities that prevented some from accessing resources.
3) Poor communication across departments and too many managers resulted in inefficiencies and difficulties achieving goals. Engaging community organizations and listening to community needs worked better.
The document discusses the business case for using videoconferencing to improve collaboration and productivity. It outlines both soft benefits, like faster decision making and higher impact meetings, and hard quantifiable benefits like travel cost savings. Real-world examples show how videoconferencing can reduce time-to-market, lower recruiting costs, and generate substantial savings from reduced business travel. Implementing videoconferencing solutions allows companies to work more efficiently and gain a competitive advantage over those that do not adopt these collaboration tools.
This newsletter discusses how AT&T is helping companies mobilize their unified communications capabilities and business applications. It highlights how the AT&T Mobile Enterprise Application Platform allows companies to develop applications once and deploy them across multiple devices. The newsletter also discusses challenges of mobile application development and how AT&T services can help with strategies, application development, integration, management and security of mobile unified communications. It includes an excerpt from a complimentary Gartner report on key issues for mobile applications in 2011.
The document provides an overview of IT professional services offered by AT&T Consulting Solutions. It describes AT&T Consulting Solutions' mission to deliver world-class infrastructure consulting services and their focus on strategic clients with large, complex IT needs. It outlines eight strategic service areas including advanced infrastructure, cloud and data center, security, IT service management, contact center, unified communications, IT transformation, and project management. For each service area, it lists relevant offerings and provides brief descriptions.
Organizational change management is one of the most overlooked and under-planned parts of many SharePoint implementations. You simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of this topic. Successful organizational change management is a critical component to ensuring the success of any SharePoint initiative.
In this session, we will discuss field-proven tactics to help your users make sense of the change that your SharePoint solution will inevitably bring into their daily work lives. You will learn a user adoption framework and some factors you should consider when planning your next SharePoint initiative. We will challenge the mindset that adoption can be driven, and embrace the concept of designing change for long-term sustainable cultural acceptance. By attending this session, you will be able to:
Design your own organizational change-management strategy
Understand how to foster user adoption
Understand how to engage and build solution champions
Build a communication plan
Apply field-tested strategies in your organization
This document provides an overview of WebTek Labs Pvt. Ltd., which is an IT solutions company founded in 2001. It discusses the company's various business verticals including recruitment & staffing, software development & testing, digital marketing, enterprise mobility, certifications & trainings. The document then describes a proposed project for a personal finance management web application called "YRMoney Analyzer". It discusses the purpose and objectives of the new system, which would allow users to track income, expenses, and budgets online in order to better manage their personal finances. The methodology discussed is a waterfall model approach involving requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance.
Do UX designers have a role in reducing digital waste?User Vision
UX designers are primarily concerned with ensuring the experience of end users, but should we also consider the impact on the environment?
Do the ultra-usable and convenient digital lifestyles we help create provide ease-of-use at the cost of sustainability?
We'll explore the surprisingly large impact that digital has on C02 emissions and other contributors to the climate crisis.
Then we’ll discuss what can be done by individuals and as a profession to raise awareness of the issue contribute to ways to mitigate the problem.
Mobile Accessibility Breakfast Briefing - Oct 2020User Vision
Contents:
Why mobile accessibility is important for everyone
How has legislation effected accessibility on mobile
WCAG 2.1
Built-in accessibility features on mobile
Mobile accessibility downfalls:
-Navigation
-Layout
-Providing use of context
Examples of common accessibility issues
The document outlines a template for a service sketchpad that can be used to plan new solutions or enhancements. It includes sections to describe users and problems, solution ideas, how users currently address problems and competitive solutions, how the solution would provide value to users and be adopted, metrics to measure success, and financial considerations. The overall template provides guidance on the key elements to document when developing new service or product opportunities.
User Adoption Strategies - Engaging Users for Higher ProductivityProlifics
The document discusses various strategies for improving user adoption of new technologies. It presents a four stage model of user adoption: 1) winning attention, 2) cultivating basic concepts, 3) enlivening activity, and 4) making it real. It also discusses the importance of proper resources to support growth, allowing users to share content, rewarding users, and getting existing users to help spread the word to others.
The document discusses best practices for digital journal app advertising to healthcare professionals. It provides insights from Wolters Kluwer Health's experience emerging as a leader in native journal apps. Some key advantages of journal app advertising highlighted include the ability to leverage new interactive technologies to create longer and more frequent interactions. Tips are provided for using multimedia like video and links effectively in digital ads to engage readers, demonstrate expertise, and build relationships.
This document is the foreword and introduction to Volume 2 of The Stakeholder Engagement Manual. It acknowledges contributions from AccountAbility, the United Nations Environment Programme, and Stakeholder Research Associates. The forewords discuss how stakeholder engagement can help companies address challenges, align corporate strategy with sustainability, and create value for all stakeholders. The introduction explains that Volume 2 builds on Volume 1 by providing practical guidance for strategic stakeholder engagement planning and implementation.
This document describes an innovative project management model called "Risks and Rewards" that was implemented for a large telecommunications customer. The key aspects of the model include:
1) Setting quantified objectives based on the customer's annual business plan targets, with project costs and profits tied to achieving those targets.
2) Sharing both the risks and rewards between the customer and implementation organization, with 25% of costs only paid if targets are met and profits calculated based on incremental revenue and earnings.
3) Making the customer's CFO and annual business plan a central part of running the project to directly tie performance to financial goals.
4) Focusing on user adoption of the new technologies to ensure the
These are detailed notes from the visit at the Copenhagen's Danish Design Centre, which had on display a very informative exhibition on a model for a design-driven innovation, developed by the Danish Design Centre.
Design-driven Innovation (DIN) is a tool for developing better responses to complex challenges while ensuring implementation through a design-driven approach.
I was interested in the potential of this model for designing public communication.
The credit for all the information in this document goes to Danish Design Centre.
Karen Smith is a highly motivated business professional with over 20 years of experience as a business analyst. She has a track record of building relationships to understand business needs and develop requirements. She is experienced in line management, project management, process improvement, and health and safety advocacy. Her skills include requirements gathering, workshop facilitation, presentations, and stakeholder management. She has worked in various roles for organizations such as Amey, United Utilities, Littlewoods Retail, and NNC developing solutions that optimize IT use and improve customer experience.
This document discusses various initiatives taken by an organization to improve customer experience and access to information. It summarizes different channels used like technical whitepapers, blogs, forums, videos and wikis to engage customers. Key metrics like top call drivers are analyzed to identify pain points and improve solutions. Search engine optimization techniques are implemented to make information more accessible to customers.
1. The document discusses different approaches to project prioritization and their shortcomings, including "what I say goes", "oiling the squeaky wheel", and group voting.
2. It proposes a new dynamic approach involving stakeholders to identify issues and desired changes, logically triaging them, developing projects to address the issues in sequence, and communicating the process to gain support.
3. The key steps are to involve stakeholders, triage issues transparently, develop projects addressing the issues in a high-impact sequence, create business cases, adjust timing based on resources, and communicate the plan.
Turning Crowd Innovation Into Real Products and RevenueMindjet
When any organization ramps up a new or refined business approach, it must align with their goals as a company and provide benefits that outweigh any associated costs. And, due to their typical ambiguity, corporate innovation programs often present many challenges that can be difficult to face without expert guidance.
In this presentation, Mindjet’s John Welder discusses how you can support your crowd innovation management programs through design thinking, agile methodologies, and lean start-up processes, in order to accelerate real business outcomes and revenue.
Collaborative techniques for developing usability requirementsKaren Bachmann
Usability requirements are non-functional requirements that translate user research into meaningful guidance for design and into measures of success for testing. Learn about how to guide collaborative requirements definition and integrate user research and business analysis in defining usability requirements. Presented at UPA 2011.
MindManager Users: Spotlight on Project ManagementMindjet
This presentation showcases how MindManager users from all over the world use Mindjet's mind mapping software to facilitate efficient, focused, and successful project management.
San Francisco Project Pride: Lessons learnedMikael Wagner
The document provides a summary of lessons learned from Project PRIDE. Some key points include:
1) It was easier to engage individuals than entire communities, and actively engaging priority communities should have been a higher priority.
2) There was misinformation circulating in priority communities that prevented some from accessing resources.
3) Poor communication across departments and too many managers resulted in inefficiencies and difficulties achieving goals. Engaging community organizations and listening to community needs worked better.
The document discusses the business case for using videoconferencing to improve collaboration and productivity. It outlines both soft benefits, like faster decision making and higher impact meetings, and hard quantifiable benefits like travel cost savings. Real-world examples show how videoconferencing can reduce time-to-market, lower recruiting costs, and generate substantial savings from reduced business travel. Implementing videoconferencing solutions allows companies to work more efficiently and gain a competitive advantage over those that do not adopt these collaboration tools.
This newsletter discusses how AT&T is helping companies mobilize their unified communications capabilities and business applications. It highlights how the AT&T Mobile Enterprise Application Platform allows companies to develop applications once and deploy them across multiple devices. The newsletter also discusses challenges of mobile application development and how AT&T services can help with strategies, application development, integration, management and security of mobile unified communications. It includes an excerpt from a complimentary Gartner report on key issues for mobile applications in 2011.
The document provides an overview of IT professional services offered by AT&T Consulting Solutions. It describes AT&T Consulting Solutions' mission to deliver world-class infrastructure consulting services and their focus on strategic clients with large, complex IT needs. It outlines eight strategic service areas including advanced infrastructure, cloud and data center, security, IT service management, contact center, unified communications, IT transformation, and project management. For each service area, it lists relevant offerings and provides brief descriptions.
TAG IoT Summit - Why You Need a Strategy for the Internet of ThingsEric Sineath
- The document discusses the need for companies to develop Internet of Things (IoT) strategies to take advantage of connecting people, improving interactions, and enabling new businesses through real-time data from billions of connected devices and sensors.
- It outlines key aspects of a successful IoT strategy including having both short-term "sprinters" to develop solutions and long-term "long distance runners" to develop broader strategic plans and scale proofs of concept.
- The document provides examples of how IoT can drive business values like production optimization, consumer engagement, new revenue models, and innovative businesses through connecting people, processes, data and things.
Reuters: Pictures of the Year 2016 (Part 2)maditabalnco
This document contains 20 photos from news events around the world between January and November 2016. The photos show international events like the US presidential election, the conflict in Ukraine, the migrant crisis in Europe, the Rio Olympics, and more. They also depict human interest stories and natural phenomena from various countries.
The Six Highest Performing B2B Blog Post FormatsBarry Feldman
If your B2B blogging goals include earning social media shares and backlinks to boost your search rankings, this infographic lists the size best approaches.
1) The document discusses the opportunity for technology to improve organizational efficiency and transition economies into a "smart and clean world."
2) It argues that aggregate efficiency has stalled at around 22% for 30 years due to limitations of the Second Industrial Revolution, but that digitizing transport, energy, and communication through technologies like blockchain can help manage resources and increase efficiency.
3) Technologies like precision agriculture, cloud computing, robotics, and autonomous vehicles may allow for "dematerialization" and do more with fewer physical resources through effects like reduced waste and need for transportation/logistics infrastructure.
The document discusses the findings of a survey conducted by Arkadin on unified communications (UC) adoption. Some key points:
- Most firms (67%) have adopted UC, but some (26%) remain unsure of its value. UC is seen to increase productivity, improve support for mobile workers, and enhance customer service.
- UC adoption is becoming a strategic, C-suite level issue. However, users are often not involved in decision making. Not involving users can limit UC's benefits since employees may resist changes.
- No single UC solution fits all employees. Tailoring solutions to user needs is important but seen as an obstacle. Partners can help customize solutions.
- Future priorities include simplicity, security
Digitizing the Customer Experience within a Utility Robert Simon
Welcome to Transistor! The first ever strategic planning approach to taking the first steps towards building a digital customer experience within a Utility.
Drawing upon our independent research, workshops and extensive experience in customer experience, we have developed a foundational model for any utility looking to chart the course to stay relevant, be more effective (and competitive) as a digital customer centric organization. So what you’ll find inside this guide is a way to get the planning and preparing process started immediately to determine the roadmap you are going to need to build out, manage, and operationalize a lot of change.
Gaining Competitive Advantage by Implementing the Microsoft Unified Communica...Leo Barella
This document provides best practices and lessons learned for successfully deploying a Microsoft Unified Communication platform based on the author's experience managing such deployments for large organizations. It stresses the importance of executive buy-in, branding the program, generating excitement, customizing training and communications for different user roles, identifying advocates and power users to help with adoption, and viewing the deployment as a cultural change rather than just a technology change. The author estimates that 30-50% of the total cost should be invested in organizational change management to ensure users gain productivity from the new system.
The document discusses how companies must focus on providing seamless user experiences across digital channels in order to drive digital transformation and remain competitive. It emphasizes the need to adopt a user-centric approach, understand user behaviors, and use data to personalize experiences in real-time. It also highlights that organizational change is required to embed user experience principles throughout products, processes, and company culture.
The document discusses how companies must put users at the heart of digital transformation to provide seamless experiences across channels. It emphasizes that users now expect simplicity and convenience based on their experiences with other digital services. To meet these expectations, companies need to understand users' behaviors, goals and contexts of use. They must design products from the user's point of view and integrate data to provide personalized, tailored experiences across all touchpoints. The document recommends organizations change to a user-centric approach, constantly engage users for feedback, embrace experimentation and failure to improve the experience, and make user experience a strategic priority.
Seamless User Experiences How to put them at the heart of digital transformationJames M A Williams
The document discusses how companies must put users at the heart of digital transformation to provide seamless experiences across channels. It emphasizes that users now expect simplicity and convenience based on their experiences with other digital services. To meet these expectations, companies must understand user behaviors, design with the user perspective in mind, and make experience optimization a continuous process. The key is integrating teams, embracing experimentation to get early user feedback, and ingraining a focus on the user experience throughout a company's strategy and operations.
Why is Threads Losing Active Users and the Role of Retention in Their Future ...priya697714
As Threads navigates the challenge of waning active users, the significance of a robust retention strategy cannot be overstated. By understanding user concerns, prioritizing personalization, fostering transparent communication, addressing technical issues, innovating responsibly, and infusing a human touch, Threads can carve a path to resurgence and renewed success.
For the marketing team, this journey serves as a valuable case study, emphasizing the critical role retention plays in sustaining and revitalizing a brand. By applying these insights, the team can contribute to Threads’ evolution, ensuring that it not only recovers from the current dip but emerges as a stronger contender in the dynamic landscape of social media.
RealDolmen outlines a User Adoption Framework to help ensure successful adoption of new IT projects and maximize business value. The framework consists of four steps - winning attention, cultivating basic concepts, enlivening applicability, and making it real - to guide end users in efficiently and effectively using new solutions. RealDolmen's User Adoption specialists can assist companies in applying the framework and assessing adoption. Ensuring user adoption through this process is key to avoiding unnecessary expenses from underutilized new systems.
There are ten guidelines with a broad coverage, ranging from develop.pdfsudhirchourasia86
There are ten guidelines with a broad coverage, ranging from developing a strategic role for
information to the development of capabilities and the marketing of the information unit. There
is a considerable degree of overlap between these guidelines, since many of them support and
depend on each other. Mostly, they are guidelines for development, not maintaining the status
quo. Therefore it is essential that you should regularly devote at least 10% of your time to these
activities, and certainly more in the early stages.
1. Establishing the Strategic Role of Information
This is a two stage process: (1) a research and investigation phase that gives you the information
you need for (2) articulating your mission and strategy. The first phase requires an assessment of
the attitudes of senior management to information and how much they are willing to pay for it. I
recently asked the head of a market research unit how hard it was to justify their existence and
budget. He commented: \"that has not been a problem, ever since we spend hundreds of millions
of dollars on a new product and then lost market share to the Japanese\". This direct link between
a large strategic investment and the bottom line delivered a sharp lesson to senior management
on the value of competitor intelligence.
Some of the strategic decisions whose successful outcomes depend on the availability of good
information include:
Market selection and targeting
New investments
Location of factories and offices
New product development and launch
Pricing and Promotion
Find out how these decisions are made, what information is used, and from where it is sourced.
You may already have data from feedback on how the information you have supplied has helped
such processes (if not, you should get it!). Has your organisation recently had successes or
failures that could be directly attributed to good or bad information? From these investigations
you can determine areas of high information leverage where you could play a role. Identify the
linkages between information and results. This should then be a cornerstone of your strategy.
Use every opportunity to let people, especially senior managers, know about it.
2. Identify Users Real Needs
This is the first of the marketing guidelines. It is essentially about market research. Therefore use
the methods used by researchers - surveys, interviews, usage analysis. You already have users.
Find out how they use your output and again what results and benefits they achieve. One
particularly useful way of teasing this out (used, by the way, to justify office automation
systems) is to ask what would happen if you did not offer that service.
Getting to senior management users and non-users is an important strand of this activity. You
must also learn about their real needs, not the ones they may initially express. Some of these may
be psychological needs such as \"I want to impress our senior management team with the range
of authoritative information I have .
The document discusses strategies for effective collaboration between IT and business teams. It recommends that IT teams focus on solving business problems rather than users' envisioned solutions, divide work based on user stories instead of developer specialties, and provide working demos each sprint to validate requirements. It also suggests implementing "walk-in" hours for developers to interact with business users to clarify assumptions and synchronize with business needs. Modeling complex business rules together with business users can help ensure solutions meet both functional and technical requirements.
OverviewDraft an announcement and agenda for a meeting with stakemelyvalg9
Overview
Draft an announcement and agenda for a meeting with stakeholders to present the key aspects of a plan to adopt the new or upgraded telehealth technology proposed in the previous assessment. Then, develop and record a 10–15-slide audiovisual presentation. Test your recording hardware to ensure that it is working properly and that you are familiar with its use.
Note:
Each assessment in this course builds upon the work you have completed in previous assessments. Therefore, complete the assessments in the order in which they are presented.
As a nurse leader, you must be able to identify the key stakeholders in the adoption of a new or upgraded telehealth technology. In addition, you must be able to communicate the benefits and strategic value of the technology to obtain their support and ensure effective use of the technology. One method of communicating with stakeholders is to introduce them to the technology in a department meeting. In this meeting, it is important to discuss how this technology will enhance care and improve quality and safety outcomes.
This assessment provides an opportunity for you to consider how you would introduce to stakeholders the new or upgraded telehealth technology that was the focus of your previous assessment with the goal of obtaining their buy in and support.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Competency 1: Evaluate technologies used to gather patient data; inform diagnoses; and enhance care quality, safety, and outcomes.
Explain how a new or upgraded telehealth technology will support enhanced patient outcomes and organizational effectiveness.
Competency 2: Develop a collaborative technology integration strategy.
Identify the key stakeholders who should attend a technology acquisition meeting.
Identify the steps and timeline needed to deploy a new or upgraded telehealth technology.
Competency 3: Develop a strategy for managing technology use that enhances patient care and organizational effectiveness.
Identify the outcome measures an organization or patient care setting will use to determine the effectiveness of a new or upgraded telehealth technology.
Competency 4: Promote effective technology use policies that protect patient confidentiality and privacy.
Address patient confidentiality and privacy concerns associated with the use of a new or upgraded telehealth technology.
Competency 5: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with applicable organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
Draft a meeting announcement and agenda.
Develop slides that augment a multimedia presentation.
Argue persuasively to obtain stakeholder agreement with, and support for, a new or upgraded telehealth technology.
Support assertions, arguments, propositions, and conclusions with relevant and credible ...
This document discusses best practices for developing a digital strategy through user engagement. It recommends conducting research such as user testing, interviews, and surveys to understand user needs, priorities, and preferences. This will help determine digital priorities and frameworks. Insights should then be translated into actionable recommendations and quick/long-term plans to improve the digital experience. Engaging users directly is important to ensure digital tools meet real needs rather than just assumed needs.
The document outlines key principles for effective change management, including being user-focused, minimizing disruption to productivity, and building credibility. It recommends understanding how changes impact all stakeholders, from end users to tangential teams. The process involves planning by assessing impacts, then executing in three phases - awareness, readiness, resilience. Success is measured through surveys, usage data, and feedback to assess adoption and identify lessons for future changes.
The document outlines key principles for effective change management, including being user-focused, minimizing disruption to productivity, and building credibility. It recommends understanding how changes impact all stakeholders, from end users to tangential teams. The process involves planning by assessing impacts, then executing in three phases - awareness, readiness, resilience. Success is measured through surveys, usage data, and feedback to assess adoption and identify lessons for future changes.
How to support the change management process for your project?
To review, change management is the process of delivering your completed project and getting other people in the organization to adopt it. In this reading, we will discuss strategies for approaching change management as a project manager.
Your project’s success depends on the adoption and acceptance of your project—whether that entails the launch of a new external tool or a process that will change operations at a production facility. In both cases, the greatest impact of the change will be on the people who use and interact with the product or process that is changing.
For example, if your website’s user interface changes, the major impact of that change affects the user. The user must learn how the website has been reorganized and adapt to the new way to navigate it. If part of the website’s interface update includes a new brand logo, the major impact of that change impacts your organization’s employees. They must be made aware of the new logo and measures must be taken to ensure that all company communications include the new logo, not the old one.
You can help ensure your project’s success by embracing changes as they come and by convincing the wider audience, whether that is the end user or members of the organization, to embrace changes, too. When you implement a careful approach to change management, you can address issues that might occur in the later stages of your project.
Change management is a major undertaking and a project in and of itself. When it comes to change management, you may not always be responsible for leading and planning the entire end-to-end process. There will be times when your manager, a team member, or another senior leader might be responsible for taking on that transition and successfully implementing the changes. However, just because you're not the one directly leading the change, there are still ways in which you can support and participate in the successful adoption of your project.
As a project manager, you can think of change management as necessary for the successful outcome of your project. Both change management and project management aim to increase the likelihood of project success. They also incorporate tools and processes to accomplish that goal. The most effective way to achieve a project goal is to integrate project management and change management, and it is your responsibility as a project manager to do so.
When you are thinking about change management as it relates to your project, begin by asking yourself the following questions:
How will the organization react to change?
Which influencers can affect change?
What are the best means of communication?
What change management practices will lead to the successful implementation of my project?
The answers to these questions will help you prepare for a variety of possible scenarios and allow you to craft solutions to effectively support the adoption of your project.
Deactivated
Kelie Hein
3 posts
Re:Topic 1 DQ 1
Two GCU library scholarly databases that will help me find the best research articles for my proposal are two databases that I appreciate, and currently use often: CINAHL Complete and PubMed. I like CINAHL Complete because it is quite specific to nursing. It also provides many full text articles free of charge, which is unfortunately not that common. Some databases provide only abstracts, and some require one to purchase the article (which can be 50 dollars!). I like PubMed because it has a wide array of health science articles that are peer-reviewed, but often have language that is easier to understand. PubMed is also quite user friendly.
These two databases are better than Google Scholar and/or a general internet search, for several reasons. While Google Scholar provides scholarly articles, it can sometimes be difficult to limit the search. Inexperienced users an easily become overwhelmed with the amount of data the search returns. A general internet search is not only daunting in terms of qualified research, but can be dangerous as well: Wikipedia sources, the evil of internet research, are often returned with general internet searches. Anyone can post on Wikipedia (and the internet in general). Scholarly databases are the safe way to go: safe for the researcher, and safe for the patients under the researcher’s
1
3
Strategies That Facilitate Influencing Power
AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc Company
STRATEGIES THAT FACILITATE INFLUENCING POWER
Acel Rx Pharmaceuticals Inc. has always provided quality service to its clients but the adoption of an online drugstore is a project that could make the services even better. However, various measures have to be put into place to facilitate the success of the project.
Strategies to Adapt Organizational Change
To adopt the online marketing and networking with customers then the Acel Rx Pharmaceuticals Inc. has to undergo some organizational change. Though the internet is the Internet could enable profound changes in the nature and structure of the healthcare industry and, ultimately, the delivery of healthcare services its adaptions should be strategic. First, there is need to carry out the change in phases with the start-up phase being clarifying the expectations and roles, assessing readiness, contracts and getting buy-in. In this phase is usually where the relationship between you (the initial change agent) and your client starts, whether you are an external or internal consultant. This means that Acel has to establish who its clients actually are, define the project conduct field research on the opinions of the customers after which they have to make the customers feel the problem at hand and the need to adopt this new technology which is aimed at making things better. It is important that the change agent should have good communication skills both verbal and non-verbal and a good listener.
Second in line is a jo.
This was a 2 month project for a major telecommunication company. This is merely a high-level overview of the work completed, but will give the reader an idea of the process (without divulging proprietary and confidential information).
Here are some potential pros and cons of bitcoin:
Pros:
- Decentralized: No single entity controls the bitcoin network or currency supply. Transactions occur peer-to-peer without an intermediary.
- Pseudonymous: Users can transact without revealing personal identifying information.
- Borderless: Bitcoin can be used globally without restrictions of geography or regulation.
- Limited supply: Only 21 million bitcoins can ever be created according to its coding, unlike fiat currencies which face inflation.
Cons:
- Volatility: Bitcoin prices are highly volatile and fluctuate greatly on a daily basis.
- Anonymity: The pseudonymous nature can enable criminal activity like money laundering and ill
1. AT&T Newsletter
Issue 4
AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
Facing the Challenge of
Change-Resistant Users
Focus on the Human Factor to Ease UC Adoption
Featuring research from
For technology
users, and
human beings
in general,
consistency
equals comfort.
People will hang
on to the “old
ways” of doing things, even
when the “new ways” could
make their work easier, faster
or even more enjoyable.
In this edition of the AT&T
Unified Communications
Newsletter, we’ll discuss how
involving stakeholders in your
UC implementations – from
pre-deployment strategy
sessions to post-deployment
support – can ease adoption
and change.
In fact, the complimentary
Gartner Report within
this newsletter, “User
Experiences Reveal Best
Practices for Deploying
Unified Communications,”
identifies stakeholder
engagement across your
organization as a critical
success factor for UC.
Our goal is to help you
encourage stakeholders and
users alike to embrace, not
resist, the positive changes UC
can bring to their workday and
your organization.
David Mingo, VP, AT&T Consulting
User Experiences Reveal
Best Practices for
Deploying UC
“Through Gartner
engagements with clients
during the UC solution
implementation process,
we’ve noticed a direct
correlation between the
level of involvement with
various stakeholders across
the organization and the
overall success of the UC
implementation.”1
1
(Source: Gartner, “User Experiences
Reveal Best Practices for Deploying
Unified Communications,” Jay
Lassman, June 2011.)
See the complimentary Gartner
Report within this newsletter.
2. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
2
Today, users aren’t just resistant
to change, they are weary
of it. In a work environment
largely ruled by the economic
downturn, they’ve been
subjected all too often to the
downside of changes that are
completely outside their sphere
of control. They’ve grown tired
of the organizational upheavals
and staff cutbacks that have
only served to make their
workdays more difficult and
draining.
When it comes to adopting a
new solution, users are often
expected to force fit it into the
work they perform every day,
and with little or no training
until the new app appears on
their desktop.
Even when users receive training
on how to use a new solution,
there’s no clear reason why
they should. This often occurs
because organizations neglect
to gather and understand user
requirements upfront. Instead,
they approach UC horizontally:
Everyone gets the new app
whether it meets their needs
or not.
The Challenge: Earning Trust, Winning Acceptance
There are certainly benefits that
can be garnered from that type
of deployment. But for maximum
adoption and utilization, a new
solution really needs to be tightly
linked to a specific business
process. If the UC solution
expedites a specific function
performed by a user on a daily
basis, they will more readily
accept and leverage the new
solution as part of their workday.
To gain their attention, trust and
acceptance, organizations must
also convince both stakeholders
and users that change doesn’t
have to be daunting – it can be
empowering when those changes
are focused on their needs, rather
than forced upon them.
Source: AT&T
3. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 3
To successfully implement a
new UC solution, the answer
is to roll out the red carpet to
change-resistant users, involving
them before, during and after
implementation:
Assemble a cross-functional
team of stakeholders. Since
stakeholder engagement across
the organization is key to
successful UC implementations,
kickoff your deployment by
forming a cross-functional
working team of people. Make
sure representatives from all of
the key IT areas responsible for
UC are part of the team – from
messaging, telecom and video
collaboration to other relevant
apps. It should also include
line of business managers and
stakeholders who may use the
new solution, such as people
from finance or marketing.
The goal is to avoid deploying
UC in a vacuum, to get everyone
talking upfront, so they can feel
a part of the ultimate solution.
Keep in mind that this is no place
for naysayers. If possible, try to
infuse the team with people who
are naturally open and supportive
of change. Their positive outlook
will be key to solving issues as
they arise.
Gather user requirements.
You can’t expect users to believe
a new solution will meet their
needs if they don’t believe you
understand their needs from
the start. To build credibility and
encourage acceptance, identify
knowledge workers and the
jobs they perform. Involve them
in interactive working sessions
and interviews to determine
their functional and technical
requirements before choosing
a solution.
The Solution: Involve Stakeholders Early and Often
Use the time to develop
tangible use cases with them;
specific situations where UC
capabilities could provide direct
benefits by improving a specific
business process or solving a
specific business problem. It will
help you identify critical needs
and the UC solutions to address
them.
Develop a roadmap based
on user needs. While getting
a good fix on user needs is key
to building their enthusiasm
and confidence, that
enthusiasm will soon wane if
the selected UC solutions fail to
ease or improve their core daily
activities. AT&T consultants can
help you carefully roll the user
requirements you gathered
into your technology roadmap
to help ensure the solutions
you choose closely align with
user needs.
Leverage current solutions
to lessen the impact of
change. Familiarity can breed
acceptance: Users will be more
open to change if it is tempered
with a bit of consistency.
So, rather than focusing on
migrating to one completely
new UC solution, consider taking
a hybrid solution approach:
Focus on Users
“A critical success factor for
implementing UC is dependent
upon the IT organization
developing a UC road map
holistically focused on user
requirements.”
1
(Source: Gartner, “User Experiences
Reveal Best Practices for Deploying
Unified Communications,” Jay
Lassman, June 2011.)
Combine new best-of-breed apps
with some of the existing legacy
technology, UC and custom apps
you have in place today to make
the transition easier for users.
AT&T UC solutions can help you
integrate your multi-vendor UC
environment.
As you select solutions,
remember that simplicity is also
key to adoption. For example,
rather than requiring users to log
into one desktop app for e-mail,
another for IM and still another
for conferencing, there are ways
to integrate these applications
behind the scenes
4. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
4 AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
4
with a common, enterprise-wide
directory and “single sign-on”
capabilities.
Create a communications plan.
Users are far more apt to accept
change when they are prepared
for it, so don’t keep them in the
dark. Let people know what’s
going to happen ahead of time.
For example, you can create an
internal UC adoption web site or
community where people can
share information, ask questions
and get the latest updates on
rollout plans.
Close the training Gap. When
people master a new skill, it
makes it much easier for them
embrace it as part of their
workday. But, all too often,
training is an after thought.
The solution is pushed out to
users and, even if they use it,
they don’t know how to take
advantage of its fullest potential.
You can close that training gap
by incorporating training into
your overall implementation
plan. Use a variety of methods,
from formal group sessions to
targeted demonstrations focused
on proving the value of a given
solution to a specific department
or set of users. Use leave-behind
cards for a quick reference
guide on how to perform the
most common UC functions.
Conduct web-based “how to”
workshops using the latest video
collaboration technologies.
Create a self-service portal for
users. Include a list of frequently
asked questions for answers to
the most popular questions and
provide online instructions on
performing tasks – like setting
up Single Number Reach. All
this can help users master new
UC capabilities to make them
their own, while reducing ticket
volumes at the IT help desk.
Develop and train the “power
users” in each department,
people who are more technically
inclined than the average user.
You’ll find them more than happy
to serve as the expert resource
for their peers, the star of their
own YouTube style “how to”
videos and an evangelist for your
UC implementation.
Build a unified UC service
management capability. Beyond
initial implementation, you’ll need
to make sure the UC services you
provide to the organization today
can continue to meet user needs
in the future. AT&T consultants
can help you take a structured
approach to UC and overall IT
Service Management. Our lifecycle
services can help improve demand
management and capacity
planning to help you meet
required service levels over the
long term for sustained benefits
and user satisfaction.
Source: AT&T
The fact is, you can’t expect users to willingly adopt a new solution without winning their acceptance
upfront. By focusing on the human factor, not just technical functionality, you can lay out the welcome
mat for users – encouraging them to be both a participant and a partner in change.
Find out more about AT&T UC solutions and AT&T UC Consulting Services.
Source: AT&T
Partners in Change
5. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 5
AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 5
Complimentary Analysis from Gartner
User Experiences Reveal Best Practices for
Deploying Unified Communications
A UC environment requires an
enterprisewide infrastructure
with capacity to support voice,
data, video and multimedia
communications and applications.
Implementation is accomplished
through the convergence
of physical communication
channels, networks, devices
and systems, as well as through
the consolidation of controls
over them. With the shift in
communications architecture
expected during the next three
to four years, coupled with an
emphasis on open standards, it is
important that organizations not
become tied too closely to any
vendor’s proprietary UC and IPT
technology, application or system.
Project Phases for a UC
Implementation
It is useful to consider the major
phases of a UC project when
learning from the experiences of
organizations that have adopted
and deployed UC:
• Phase 0 – Justifying a UC
implementation
• Phase 1 – Developing a project
plan
• Phase 2 – Developing a design
• Phase 3 – Selecting a vendor
or vendors
We highlight the key areas and
issues that organizations had to
consider while carrying out the
phases of their UC initiatives.
Phase 0 – Justifying UC
Define Enterprise
Communications
Requirements
Ascertain the business goals of
senior management, including the
organization’s business drivers and
critical needs, both current
Enterprises can benefit from
Gartner clients whose experiences
deploying unified communications
have yielded valuable best
practices, cost justifications and
critical success factors.
Overview
This research provides a
summary of some of the
lessons organizations such
as McDonald’s, Indiana
University, the University of
Kentucky and others have
learned about implementing
unified communications (UC).
Their experiences will help
other enterprises develop
strategies and processes for
integrating voice over IP (VoIP),
Internet Protocol telephony
(IPT) and UC with established
communications infrastructures,
business processes and
applications.
Key Findings
• A critical success factor
for implementing UC
is dependent on the IT
organization developing a UC
road map holistically focused
on user requirements.
• Organizations can provision UC
features in standard bundles
that mirror users’ equipment
and software configurations.
• Departments and individuals
will adopt technologies at
different speeds, such as
the use of IM, presence and
videoconferencing, in pace with
their needs and job functions.
• UC requires multiple products
from different vendors,
which increases integration
complexity. Properly structured
RFPs help organizations
satisfy business and technical
requirements, optimize cost,
and ease comparisons of
alternative solutions and
vendors.
Recommendations
• Develop a strategy suited
to the communications
requirements of individual
users, as well as the business
processes of the organization.
• Obtain support of senior
management, and acquire
a deep level of telephony
platform and software vendor
commitment to ensure success.
• Assemble a project team
that includes support groups,
marketing, IT security,
knowledgebase workers,
training, business process
analysts and technology
partners. All team members
must exhibit a spirit of
cooperation, especially when
inevitable technical and
administrative challenges arise.
• Use real-world
demonstrations to generate
enthusiasm and show specific
business value. Pilot programs
with the IT organization and
senior management to get
their support; develop a
business case based on value
and cost savings.
Analysis
What Is UC?
Gartner defines UC as products
that enhance enterprise
productivity by enabling and
facilitating a user’s management
of enterprise communication
systems, and the integration of
these systems with business
processes. UC brings a new set of
desktop capabilities – such as IM,
presence and notification services
– that extend to the desktop, as
well as mobile devices.
6. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
6 AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
6
in-house personnel, compared
with the cost of time division
multiplexing (TDM) deployments.
Consolidating communications
platforms can lower
communications costs by
reducing the number of voice
service platforms that require
maintenance and upgrades. Use
of this model has been growing
among large, multisite global
organizations. Furthermore, the
aggregation of user licenses can
yield lower costs per license.
VoIP technology offers additional
benefits by enabling the use of
converged networks that reduce
the need for separate voice and
data transport, as well as for
help desk facilities. It extends
the enterprise communications
reach to mobile personnel and
key resources, and facilitates
collaboration and problem
resolution.
and planned. Typically, individuals
use UC products to facilitate
personal communications, and
enterprises use the products
to support workgroup and
collaborative communications. In
some cases, the communications
are integrated with collaboration
applications and business
applications. Some UC products
may extend communication
boundaries outside the company
to expand and enhance business
interactions among large
public communities or among
individuals. As a result, look for
opportunities that, in addition to
voice, can leverage the use of IM,
presence and videoconferencing.
Identify Benefits of UC
Typically, benefits include that UC:
• Uses collaboration to
accelerate product
development and reduce time
to market.
• Improves customer service
and satisfaction.
• Reduces travel expenses.
• Extends enterprise
communications to mobile
personnel and key suppliers.
• Enhances fixed and mobile
remote access to enterprise
network cost-effectively.
• Supports wireless and
wireline handset options
for the same user.
• Enables single-number
reach for users.
• Leverages current and
emerging multimedia
applications, and leverages
lower costs of Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks.
• Enables the user to see if
someone is available, thus
accelerating collaboration and
problem resolution.
• Enables the secure
transferring and sharing of
documents without affecting
email storage capacity.
Anticipating possibilities for
UC is important, since many
benefits will result from how
UC transforms how people
communicate within and outside
their communities of interest.
Develop a Business Case
for Deploying IP Technology
and UC
As organizations gain
experience with their
deployments, users are
discovering hard cost savings
and business value justifications
for IP technology and UC.
Hard Cost Savings
IP technology provides tools
that enable technicians
to do remote monitoring
and troubleshooting that
often obviates the need to
deploy personnel for break/
fix requirements, leading to
reduced costs for operations
and maintenance, moves,
adds and changes (MAC), and
improved uptime of resources.
The technology also enables the
deployment of new endpoints,
devices and sites with lower
third-party costs, while reducing
travel time and expenses for
7. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 7
AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 7
Although acquisition costs
are often similar,
overall, Gartner clients
conservatively report
total cost of ownership
(TCO) reductions for
hardware and software
maintenance, upgrades
and operations during
a three-to-five-year
period of 20% to 30%,
compared with TDM.
Gartner clients with
1,000 users report this
amounts to a savings
for operations costs of
more than $40,000 per
year, and more than
a $12,000 reduction
per year for MAC expenses.
Organizations with more users
can expect even better cost
savings, based on economies
of scale.
Business Value
Enterprises are often tempted
to measure ROI of the capital
costs of communications
technology investments for end
users, without considering the
improvements and efficiencies
the investments will yield.
IT managers and CIOs can
be instrumental in helping
CEOs and other stakeholders
understand the broad picture,
and in demonstrating how
these investments can provide
flexibility and speed within and
among departments. The best
way to justify communications
technology investments is to
show how various projects,
programs and areas integrate
and work more efficiently after
deployment, rather than using
the projected ROI of capital costs
as the only evaluation measure.
For example, you can show how
effective use of communications
technology improves
collaboration, enhances customer
Phase 1 – Project Planning
Identify Project Stakeholders
Form a team of stakeholders who
will be involved with the initiative.
Ensure that the group is balanced
– i.e., represents various job
types, regions and business units
(such as voice, data, software
applications, server groups and
end users); and that it is receptive
to innovation and change. Include
the CEO and other C-level
executives at the inception of
the deployment plan, before
procuring the technologies.
The IT organization’s holistic
focus on user requirements is
needed to develop a road map
that will lead to a successful
UC implementation. Teamwork
between server and telephony
engineering groups, and support
of senior management are critical
for project success. Through
Gartner engagements with
clients during the UC solution
implementation process, we’ve
noticed a direct correlation
between the level of involvement
with various stakeholders
across the organization and
the overall success of the UC
implementation.
experiences and satisfaction,
reduces order processing and
shipping intervals, introduces
new disaster recovery and
business continuity solutions,
and generates cost savings
by consolidating suppliers.
Although many organizations
have expected to reduce staff
size, they are discovering that
personnel with IPT expertise
are difficult to find and more
expensive to hire than traditional
telecom engineers.
Cost Benefits of SIP Trunks
Recently, an increasing number of
Gartner clients have been using
SIP trunks for UC deployments.
They report that savings of
more than 40% can be realized
by replacing the Primary Rate
Interface (PRI)/T1 and other TDM
transports with SIP trunks. This
typically amounts to a savings
of more than $4,500 annually
for every PRI/T1 replaced with
equivalent SIP trunks throughput,
based on generally available
commercial rates in North
America, and more savings in
other regions. Furthermore,
enabling trunk aggregation at
the centralized site can achieve
economies of scale and improve
utilization efficiency.
8. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
8
8
Figure 1 illustrates how
technological change affects
organizational change.
Phase 2 – Design
Considerations
Leverage Continued
Investments in Voice
Platforms
With large investments in older
PBX platforms, such as those
from Avaya, Nortel and Siemens,
and long-term support and
financial commitments with
other vendors, where feasible,
it’s logical for organizations to
continue appropriating funds for
hardware and software releases.
Upgrading telephony platforms
often:
• Improves resiliency and
reliability
• Enables in-house technical
staff to gain hands-on
experience with IP technology
• Reuses desktop telephones,
and enables them to test
and keep pace with SIP
developments
Figure 1. The Effects of Technology
Source: Gartner (June 2011)
AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
For example, the HR department
at McDonald’s Europe wanted
to initiate a program that
would help personnel achieve
a healthy work-life balance by
minimizing business travel since,
as a global company, most
employees often travel to meet
and share best practices. At the
outset of the initiative, the HR
and IT departments engaged
stakeholders with business
functions that needed UC and
videoconferencing tools the
most, and made user training and
help aids available to encourage
acceptance of these UC and
collaboration components among
personnel. In another example,
we look at Indiana University. With
major campuses in Indianapolis
and Bloomington, Indiana to
support, the IT organization had
the same issues and the same
desire as McDonald’s: Achieve
a healthy work-life balance.
Indiana University created a team
that included stakeholders from
the business school and then
expanded to others
within the university as the UC
project evolved.
Organize for UC
Companies must initiate
organizational changes that
leverage planned technology
adoptions. With the growth of
IPT and the adoption of VoIP,
the trend has been to combine
telecom and IT personnel
in the same departmental
management structure. This
improves an organization’s
efficiency and facilitates direct
sharing of the resources
required to support voice and
data networking, as well as the
systems used to support IP voice
and data applications, such as
Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol/Domain Name System
(DHCP/DNS) services.
Users at Indiana University
report that a single directory,
such as Active Directory,
is essential for efficiently
integrating the university’s
real-time collaboration system
and enabling users to look up
anyone within an organization
to launch IM conversations,
audio calls, video calls or Web
conferences. UC also enables
efficient sharing of applications
or desktops.
Voice
Data
Data
Voice
Network
Org.
Data
Voice
Network
Org.
.
s
p
p
A
.
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Technology
Organization
2008
1998
Maturity
Availability
1980s
1970s
Maturity
Availability
2015
2005
Maturity
Availability
2020
2010
Maturity
Availability
• Separate data/
voice networks
• Dedicated
voice devices
• Unification of
voice and data
• Mainly a replacement
with limited feature/
function enhancements
• Business application
and process integration
• Significant process
improvements
anticipated
• Primarily focused
on amalgamating
traditional means
of communication
(e.g., conferencing,
messaging, wireless)
Wireless
Network
Org. including
Wireless
and Data
Voice and
Comm. part
.
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p
p
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9. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 9
AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012 9
Including a well-written RFP in
a final contract can mitigate
risk and expense for buyers and
sellers, while facilitating dispute
resolution.
The RFP should cover the
following topics:
• Statement of work
• Project specifications
• Organization and vendor
responsibilities
• Vendor performance levels
• Precutover test procedures
• Postcutover acceptance plans
Plan to partner with specific
vendors on implementations
such UC client, video and
conferencing applications. Early
in the project, obtain written
SLAs from vendors specifying
how “integrated” technologies
will be supported (escalation
path, incident ownership, etc.).
This will avoid escalating issues
across vendor technology
boundaries. Obtain timelines
from vendors to prevent
unnecessary delays, enable on-
time integration of technologies
and advance the project to the
next level of execution.
Phase 3 – Vendor Selection
Identify Providers That Best
Meet UC Requirements
UC is not a single solution that
can be supplied by a single
vendor and deployed all at
once. Rather, enterprises will
likely require multiple partners
to support a complete UC
solution, such as Cisco for
telephony, Microsoft or IBM
for email, and/or Polycom or
Tandberg for video. Enterprises
will implement these as
continuous improvements in
capabilities and integrations,
using a range of components
that need to work together. In
general, enterprise planners
will typically need to look for
alternative suppliers to support
IM, presence, unified messaging
and videoconferencing
functionalities.
After developing a strategic
plan, as well as the short-
and long-term goals for the
environment, you can use this
format to create RFPs that
enable potential suppliers to
propose solutions for satisfying
appropriate UC requirements
whenever these needs arise.
Modest expenditures for
hardware and software upgrades
can extend useful platform
life by two to three years. For
example, the University of
Kentucky had Cisco Unified
Communications Manager
(UCM) servicing the medical
center, and an Alcatel-Lucent
5ESS servicing the campus.
Consequently, the University
of Kentucky IT department
piloted interoperability with
each platform to ensure both
would perform satisfactorily with
Microsoft Office Communications
Server (OCS). However, when
platforms are close to or
have reached the end of their
useful lives, it no longer makes
economic and strategic sense
for users or solution providers
to support them, which qualify
the platforms for complete
replacements. In addition, with
regard to the need for network
infrastructure upgrades, it’s
important to perform a network
assessment, consider power over
Ethernet (PoE) and cabling, and
gauge expected power
and cooling requirements, as
well as prevailing trends, in
solution architectures.
Most enterprises have significant
investments in communications
infrastructures, typically with
specific technology partners.
These investments often need
to be preserved. Therefore, the
recommended approach is to
develop convergence road maps
to migrate platforms, especially
via standards, toward increasing
levels of interoperability. The
road map guides decisions for
new purchases and upgrades.
During the next three to five
years, Gartner expects that
the total number of strategic
communication partners used
by a company will be reduced,
as an increasing number of
vendors offer portfolios with
comprehensive UC suites.
10. AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
10 AT&T Newsletter - Issue 4, 2012
10
• Use department-specific, real-
world demonstrations to prove
business value and generate
enthusiasm among users.
• Consider developing an
intranet website or newsletter
that provides a convenient and
user-friendly means to train
users, and communicate with
them about the various UC
configuration options.
• Expand UC adoption by
incrementally deploying
applications that build credible
user references.
• Expect technical challenges,
such as the need to possibly
modify the original PBX dial
plan for resolving internal
and external domestic and
international routing errors.
Bottom Line
A successful UC deployment
necessitates defining the goals of
the project, building a justification
based on cost savings and
business value, focusing on user-
specific requirements, selecting
and partnering with vendors
best qualified to satisfy these
requirements, and then having
a realistic implementation and
adoption plan that considers
technical and human factors.
Source: Gartner RAS Core Research Note
G00213443, Jay Lassman, 21 June 2011
Technical
Challenges
Here are some
specific technical
challenges that users
have encountered. McDonald’s
had to recognize that workers
who used IBM Lotus Notes as
their primary email application
could not schedule a meeting
with the Microsoft OCS, but
could participate in Microsoft
Live Meeting conferences.
Indiana University had to modify
the original dial plan for its CS
2100 to fix internal and external
domestic and international
routing errors. In addition, it was
necessary to resolve formatting
differences between room-based
and desktop videoconferencing
applications. Other challenges
that can arise during UC
deployments include:
• Creating a unified dial plan
to support multiple sites in
multiple area codes
• Minimizing latency that
is causing problems with
simultaneous ringing, call
forwarding and the ability to
access voice mail
• Training PBX technicians on
SIP servers
• Developing a best practice
to avoid Domain Name
System and certificate-
related conflicts associated
with users being present in
multiple domains
Summary of Critical Success
Factors
• Emphasize teamwork
between server and
telephony engineering
groups, and support of
senior management. This is
an important key to project
success.
• Develop a business case
based on business value and
cost savings.
• Involve support groups,
marketing, IT security,
knowledgebase workers and
the training group on the
project team.
• Partner with vendors on
specific implementations,
such as applications from
different solution providers.
• Pilot functionality with the IT
organization and with senior
IT management to get their
buy-in.
• Implement technical and user
training, as well as internal
communications. These
activities make users aware of
upcoming changes and help
“sell” them on the benefits of
improved business processes
that are essential.
• Obtain written SLAs early
in the project from vendors,
specifying how integrated
technologies will be
supported (escalation path,
incident ownership, etc.). This
will avoid escalating issues
across vendor technology
boundaries once the project
is under way.
• Obtain timelines from vendors
to prevent unnecessary
delays, enable on-time
integration of technologies
and advance the project to
the next level of execution.