Three years ago iStart prophesised that unified communications was going
to be the next big thing. But three years, in the days before BYOD and
when the cloud was in its infancy, is a long time ago.
So where are we now? What is the business case for UC and what’s the best way
to turn it to competitive advantage? Where is return on investment and has the
technology finally caught up with the promise? Jonathan Cotton investigates...
Implementation of a Virtual Customer Care Program: How to Guarantee Success 0...VIPdesk
Presented by: Jack Heacock, Sr. Vice President TelCoa, The Telework Coalition
Topics Include:
-Virtual customer care: in-house or outsource?
-Hiring, training, retaining, coaching and supervising a virtual workforce
-Workforce management
-Industries best suited for virtual customer care
-Best practices and case studies
Many analysts and writers talk about the transition that is happening in today's world: from the "Information Age", dominated by "transactions and documents" to the "Conceptual Age", governed by "relations".
The Conceptual Age redefines many of the traditional patterns. Co-creation is the norm and "Sharing knowledge" becomes more important than possessing it.
Leading Companies are accompaining this transformation by redefining themselves, changing from "organizations" to "organisms", where the previous "mechanical interactions" are being replaced by "organic touches". And the way in which these Companies do Business becomes a "social activity" shaped by the rich relationships involving employees, partners and customers.
Becoming a Social Enterprise is the way these leading Companies have chosen to address the challenges of the Conceptual Age.
Implementation of a Virtual Customer Care Program: How to Guarantee Success 0...VIPdesk
Presented by: Jack Heacock, Sr. Vice President TelCoa, The Telework Coalition
Topics Include:
-Virtual customer care: in-house or outsource?
-Hiring, training, retaining, coaching and supervising a virtual workforce
-Workforce management
-Industries best suited for virtual customer care
-Best practices and case studies
Many analysts and writers talk about the transition that is happening in today's world: from the "Information Age", dominated by "transactions and documents" to the "Conceptual Age", governed by "relations".
The Conceptual Age redefines many of the traditional patterns. Co-creation is the norm and "Sharing knowledge" becomes more important than possessing it.
Leading Companies are accompaining this transformation by redefining themselves, changing from "organizations" to "organisms", where the previous "mechanical interactions" are being replaced by "organic touches". And the way in which these Companies do Business becomes a "social activity" shaped by the rich relationships involving employees, partners and customers.
Becoming a Social Enterprise is the way these leading Companies have chosen to address the challenges of the Conceptual Age.
Visit http://www.gomomentum.com/ to find out about UC communications.
Virtual work is on the rise. Consumer-driven unified communications services are changing the landscape of the workplace and giving the jobforce the power to work from anywhere in the world. Virtual tools and UC solutions are making the days of a traditional workplace with centrally located employees a thing of the past for most businesses.
Equipped with a UC solution, employees can use the Internet to power real-time communications capabilities, including voice, instant messaging and web collaboration, and to hold meeting with audio and web conferencing tools. The agility of employee-driven communications can have a positive effect on both performance and job satisfaction.
Momentum did some research and compiled the most interesting data as a business case for telecommuting. Here’s what we found:
You know technology is truly functional when you don't need to get off the sofa, be that to change channels, make a call, order your daily bread or even earn your daily bread, and it looks like we're finally getting there. A keen chronicler of the changing times since he got his first programmable calculator in 1978, Philip Anthony, head of Co-Operative Systems, talks about his personal journey, daily battles with technology and where we might be headed. Often the results of applying technology are not as anticipated ...
iLinc Case Study: Expand Web Conferencing Capabilities and Cut Costs by Switc...BroadSoft
To learn more, please visit www.ilinc.com
Case Study: Demand Management expands web conferencing capabilities and cuts costs by switching from WebEx to iLinc.
To learn more, please visit www.ilinc.com
Whatever makes employers so resistant to the growing phenomena that is teleworking, it’s likely that many of their fears are based on myths. In this presentation Telework Recruiting addresses several of these common myths and helps reveal the facts behind them.
Avaya IP Office is the right choice for
any small business today—whether
you are 5, 25 or 250 employees…
just getting started or already
established…have a single office, a
home office or multiple stores/sites.
Avaya IP Office unifies your
communications, providing your
employees with a solution that
lets them handle all their business
communications on the device of
their choice: their laptop, mobile
phone, office phone or home phone—
using wired, wireless or broadband
connections.
Divergence - what happens after ConvergenceRob Manson
Convergence is the verb that everyone is focused upon. Divergence is the noun at the end of that process. This presentation lays out some foundation ideas for mobile strategy development.
IBM Connect BP302 Social Communications: A Roadmap for Connecting Sametime with Everything
Social Business, Mobile or Social Communications: what path should you take? Does Connections need Sametime or does it stand alone?
What are the most critical decisions an organizations makes to unify existing audio conferencing, video conferencing, and phone systems? In this session we will offer a roadmap to Unified Communications that marks the critical “forks in the road” on the journey to UC and illustrate experiences from actual implementations. We’ll cover UC platforms (Sametime, Lync, Jabber), video (Cisco, Polycom, Avaya), telephony (Cisco, Avaya, ShoreTel or legacy), firewalls, mobility, and call control/dial plans. The session will wrap-up with a live demo featuring full integration of Sametime, Connections, and Polycom video.
The very nature of work, the way we work and where we work is changing. Businesses are reducing real estate, maximising the use of the space they have, increasing work from home and expecting their employees to adopt new practices from hot desking to unified communications. The need to collaborate with colleagues has never been greater, the pace of business has never been faster, and the pressures to be more productive are ever increasing. This white paper explores the drivers, need for change and case studies behind the technology solutions that are being deployed today to deliver collaborative solutions that fundamentally and permanently change the way we work.
Visit http://www.gomomentum.com/ to find out about UC communications.
Virtual work is on the rise. Consumer-driven unified communications services are changing the landscape of the workplace and giving the jobforce the power to work from anywhere in the world. Virtual tools and UC solutions are making the days of a traditional workplace with centrally located employees a thing of the past for most businesses.
Equipped with a UC solution, employees can use the Internet to power real-time communications capabilities, including voice, instant messaging and web collaboration, and to hold meeting with audio and web conferencing tools. The agility of employee-driven communications can have a positive effect on both performance and job satisfaction.
Momentum did some research and compiled the most interesting data as a business case for telecommuting. Here’s what we found:
You know technology is truly functional when you don't need to get off the sofa, be that to change channels, make a call, order your daily bread or even earn your daily bread, and it looks like we're finally getting there. A keen chronicler of the changing times since he got his first programmable calculator in 1978, Philip Anthony, head of Co-Operative Systems, talks about his personal journey, daily battles with technology and where we might be headed. Often the results of applying technology are not as anticipated ...
iLinc Case Study: Expand Web Conferencing Capabilities and Cut Costs by Switc...BroadSoft
To learn more, please visit www.ilinc.com
Case Study: Demand Management expands web conferencing capabilities and cuts costs by switching from WebEx to iLinc.
To learn more, please visit www.ilinc.com
Whatever makes employers so resistant to the growing phenomena that is teleworking, it’s likely that many of their fears are based on myths. In this presentation Telework Recruiting addresses several of these common myths and helps reveal the facts behind them.
Avaya IP Office is the right choice for
any small business today—whether
you are 5, 25 or 250 employees…
just getting started or already
established…have a single office, a
home office or multiple stores/sites.
Avaya IP Office unifies your
communications, providing your
employees with a solution that
lets them handle all their business
communications on the device of
their choice: their laptop, mobile
phone, office phone or home phone—
using wired, wireless or broadband
connections.
Divergence - what happens after ConvergenceRob Manson
Convergence is the verb that everyone is focused upon. Divergence is the noun at the end of that process. This presentation lays out some foundation ideas for mobile strategy development.
IBM Connect BP302 Social Communications: A Roadmap for Connecting Sametime with Everything
Social Business, Mobile or Social Communications: what path should you take? Does Connections need Sametime or does it stand alone?
What are the most critical decisions an organizations makes to unify existing audio conferencing, video conferencing, and phone systems? In this session we will offer a roadmap to Unified Communications that marks the critical “forks in the road” on the journey to UC and illustrate experiences from actual implementations. We’ll cover UC platforms (Sametime, Lync, Jabber), video (Cisco, Polycom, Avaya), telephony (Cisco, Avaya, ShoreTel or legacy), firewalls, mobility, and call control/dial plans. The session will wrap-up with a live demo featuring full integration of Sametime, Connections, and Polycom video.
The very nature of work, the way we work and where we work is changing. Businesses are reducing real estate, maximising the use of the space they have, increasing work from home and expecting their employees to adopt new practices from hot desking to unified communications. The need to collaborate with colleagues has never been greater, the pace of business has never been faster, and the pressures to be more productive are ever increasing. This white paper explores the drivers, need for change and case studies behind the technology solutions that are being deployed today to deliver collaborative solutions that fundamentally and permanently change the way we work.
Seizing Opportunities, Overcoming Productivity Challenges in the Virtually Co...Cognizant
By following a few simple rules, organizations can overcome the barriers to social and virtual ways of working, including concerns about distractions, personal detachment and business disruption.
In today’s consumer technology world,
the quality of the experience is
everything. So why shouldn’t the
business IT experience be as good as
the one we enjoy at home, during our
leisure time?
CIO | 3 STEPS to Maximizing ROI for Microsoft Lync Enterprise VoiceChristiaan Stavorinus
ENTERPRISES ARE STANDING AT A CROSSROADS AND COMMUNICATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS.
In today’s highly competitive, global marketplace. Executives need to make decisions quickly, but information and employees are spread out in many different locations. To operate efficiently, businesses need fast, simple ways to exchange data.
As a result, many enterprises stand at an important crossroad. They have invested large sums in legacy Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) network voice infrastructures that do not easily support modern Unified Communications (UC) solutions, such as the increasingly popular Microsoft Lync.
“About 70% of businesses are now using Lync in some fashion,” states Irwin Lazar, Vice President and Service Director for The Nemertes Research Group, Inc. “Most of these companies use it for instant messaging, web conferencing, and voice/video chat. A small but growing percentage are using it to replace or augment their PBXs.”
In addition to delivering new communication options, Unified Commu- nications delivers other benefits. By leaving behind their legacy PBX and moving ahead to a new Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network infrastructure, businesses reduce their capital expenditure (CapEx) and lower their ongoing maintenance requirements, which can decrease their operating expenditure (OpEx) by as much as 50%.
The transition from the old to the new works with the right network infrastructure. Enterprises need one that is rock solid. “Today, businesses simply cannot tolerate downtime,” says James Rodd, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Modality Systems, Unified Communications specialists. Businesses must also have a way to integrate their traditional systems with new, modern functions. Finally, they need a solution that offers robust security, so corporate data
is protected as it travels from location to location. To deliver such functionality, enterprises need a Session Border Controller (SBC) that works in conjunction with Lync to enable the delivery of sophisticated voice, data, and video services to enterprise users.
ZK Research: Virtual Infrastructure Creates Communications AgilityAvaya Inc.
The role of the CIO has changed more in the past five years than any other position in the corporate world. Historically, the CIO and IT department has been responsible for managing and running the technology infrastructure and has had little to do with augmenting the business. Today, IT leaders are tasked with deploying technology to drive the business and be a catalyst for change.
A simple presentation on UC irrespective of brands or companies. The references and views are taken from different market leaders, vendors & internet search. All Copyrights with their respective vendors.
Vendor hype has devalued the promise of unified communications and threatens to cause confusion with the move to cloud computing. In the absence of clear and unambiguous explanations of the benefits of embarking on such projects, end users could be forgiven for thinking that these are technologies without a purpose. However, a revolution is underway, bringing with it real benefits to enterprises and to workers.
Making a Pain-free Migration to Unified CommunicationsReadWrite
Every firm, company or enterprise with distributed data and voice networks is looking for ways to control costs and increase efficiency. To achieve these goals, businesses need to integrate both voice and data onto a single, converged network to reduce costs and improve productivity. A converged voice and data network is the foundation for Unified Communications (UC), which fosters productivity through mobility and collaboration. Mobile technology allows users to work smarter with simple, end-to-end solutions that combine time-saving communication tools that boost user performance, such as virtual private networks and wireless applications. UC also promotes effective collaboration by connecting people with the right resources the first time, thereby increasing productivity. This paper examines the value of UC applications, tools and technologies to provide guidance for pain-free migration to a more efficient and high-performance business environment.
The cloud is revolutionising how business is done nowadays as BYOD, remote working, mobility and security are becoming increasingly important.
In this presentation, we look at how technology has evolved over the years and how businesses can make the most of these changes.
IBM Messaging and Collaboration solutions: an introductionJacques Pavlenyi
Introduction to IBM Messaging and Collaboration solutions. Designed for businesses of all sizes, it provides for the rapid development and deployment of collaborative and workflow-driven business applications, including email, calendar, contacts, teamspaces, and much more, that bring people and ideas together in a security-rich enterprise-ready platform. Includes IBM Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Domino, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, IBM Lotus Protector, IBM Lotus Expeditor, and IBM Lotus Symphony. To learn more visit us at http://www.ibm.com/lotus/notesanddomino
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From the Editor - Clare Coulson:
(view this as an eMagazine here: http://www.istart.co.nz/data/116906/FLASH/index.html)
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iStart - Unified Communications comes of age
1. Feature
UNIFIED
COMMUNICATIONS
COMES OF AGE
Three years ago iStart prophesised that unified communications was going
to be the next big thing. But three years, in the days before BYOD and
when the cloud was in its infancy, is a long time ago.
So where are we now? What is the business case for UC and what’s the best way
to turn it to competitive advantage? Where is return on investment and has the
technology finally caught up with the promise? Jonathan Cotton investigates..
60 Quarter Three 2012
2. G
one are the days when unified communications
solutions offered little more than instant mes-
saging for workers or point-and-click dialling “ Mobility’s all well and good if
for contact centres. These days, UC promises
enterprises a holy trinity of productivity ben-
you’ve got Wi-Fi everywhere.
efits, streamlined communications and accelerated business But we’re not there yet. ”
processes.
Advanced conferencing capabilities, presence technology, Colin Steeples, general manager, Amtel
and highly sophisticated internal networking technologies
are rapidly becoming part of the everyday tech landscape,
with over 85 per cent of Fortune 500 companies having now
deployed some kind of unified communications solution. UC is speeding up workflow process because you’re finding the right
now considered a ‘must-have’ solution for businesses looking to person first, those are very real benefits, but trickier to mea-
improve their productivity and bottom line. sure.”
And the technology has most certainly come of age. With An easier benefit to gauge however is the new breed of UC
a well-implemented UC solution, companies can now com- collaboration solutions – technologies that allow companies to
municate across numerous branches, internally and externally, connect to a central platform, view a shared item, and collabo-
and over vast distances as though meeting face-to-face. Easily rate on that item in real time – creating highly productive and
accessible desktop sharing and video conferencing is boosting cooperative work sessions.
productivity, vastly improved presence and messaging function- “UC is not just about conferencing anymore,” says Kok. “It’s
ality is removing needless latency, and the potential for remote about being able to collaborate and share documents, being
workers to improve bottom lines, thanks to faster response able to have geographically separate teams edit a single
times and improved collaboration, is revolutionising the way spreadsheet for example. In the past a company would have
employers think about the office. one PBX infrastructure for New Zealand and a separate infra-
structure in Australia and they would never be connected. Now,
So is the ROI keeping up? those are becoming more integrated . You can now reach out
The return on investment, however, is difficult to assess at to someone on the other side of the world in the same way as
first glance, as soft returns, such as presence management, you’d reach to some at another local branch. You simply don’t
instant messaging (IM) and softphone applications, compliment have to be in the same room anymore.”
the more concrete benefits of reduced VOIP calling costs, less According to the Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q1
travel and eliminating third party conferencing costs. 2011, 57 per cent of North American and European information
“When you’re talking about the return on investment for uni- workers interact with at least 11 other employees at their com-
fied communications it is quite a hard thing to quantify,” says pany as part of their day-to-day job. One of UC’s most obvious
Jan Kok, principal architect of networked ICT products, Gen-i. benefits is in maximising the efficiency of these every-day
“There are certainly some very specific ‘hard’ ROIs, such as interactions.
conferencing costs. You can straight way say ‘I’m not going to “Believe it or not,” says MyNetFone CEO Rene Sugo, “the
dial an audio conference provider and pay a permanent price, most popular feature is always voice mail to email. Hands down,
I’m going to host that internally on my UC platform, and you every quarter that always comes up as the number one thing
can really put a dollar value on that. users like about our system.
“But when we talk about presence and IM, they’re very soft “But it makes sense. If you miss a call using a traditional
ROIs. For example, spending two days leaving voice mails and mobile provider, you get an instant message on your phone
trying to find the right decision maker and not getting that, telling you you’ve got a voice mail and that’s all it tells you. It ››
Quarter Three 2012 61
3. Feature // Unified Communications
such, is still in its infant stages.
“Mobility’s all well and good,” says Amtel general manager,
Colin Steeples, “if you’ve got Wi-Fi everywhere. But we’re not
there yet.”
Wi-Fi access is changing though according to Stephen Philip
of Aerohive Networks. “Wi-Fi in a corporate setting is becoming
increasingly ubiquitous, because it needs to be to support the
plethora of Wi-Fi enabled devices. The iPhone just exploded it,
and UC is adding to the pressure on network managers.” [As
it happens, Philip has just the solution, but it doesn’t fit the UC
beat here, so he’s given us a full case study on Aerohive’s net-
“ In the past a company would have one PBX worked Wi-Fi set up at BCS – refer page 66.]
infrastructure for New Zealand and a separate Rethinking the office
These days of course not all out-of-office workers are mobile
infrastructure in Australia and they would never workers.
be connected. Now, those are becoming more With the number of outsourced home agents expected to
double by 2015, presence and softphone technology is playing
integrated...You simply don’t have to be in the a key part in the work-from-home employee movement, pro-
viding the twin benefits of increased productivity and lowered
same room anymore. ” overheads.
Jan Kok, principal architect of networked ICT products, Gen-i “We have a client who runs an online gift shop service, where
you can order flowers or gifts online,” says Sugo. “His six or
eight staff all work from their respective homes with a PC and
a MyNetFone phone. He doesn’t have an office. He has a local
doesn’t tell you who the caller is, you don’t know what it’s about. number and the calls come into our cloud.
But by having [that message] in your inbox, you get the caller “His peak times are Valentines’ Day and Mother’s Day and
ID, you can see who it is on screen, then you can click it, pause he never misses a call. If all his agents are busy he gets voice
it and rewind it. You don’t have to worry if you don’t have a pen mails automatically and the voice mails simply go to email, so
because it’s saved in your inbox, so you don’t have to worry as soon as the agents get off the phone they can see the email
about deleting it. You can save it, file it, archive it, forward it on backing up with voice mails.
to someone to action, and it’s done. That convenience pays off.” “He says that last Mother’s Day was the biggest day he ever
And with workforces that are increasingly distributed, virtual had and he didn’t lose a single order. His solution means that
and mobile, leveraging communications technology to mobile even though they don’t have an office, they still work as a
devices, slates and tablets across 3G and wireless networks team.”
means increased productivity, efficiency and availability of The unified communication application that’s topping many
employees. companies’ ‘must-have’ list is ‘federation’, which allows enter-
“We’re now starting to roll out voice, video and collabora- prises to connect with people outside their business as easily as
tion to mobile devices,” says Kok. “With your iPad, or Microsoft those within. Companies with a UC infrastructure can ‘federate’
Surface, you can sit there and run a video conference and see with another business with a UC infrastructure, sharing their UC
content and be able to talk. That’s just starting to push across tools as trusted partners.
3G and 4G Wi-Fi networks. It’s amazing.” Several instant messaging UC platforms support federation,
Such a single, unified, mobile-friendly communication solu- with Microsoft considered by many to be the leader.
tion is contingent, of course, on network capabilities, and as “Using your Lync infrastructure, you can communicative with
62 Quarter Three 2012
4. Five ways UC can improve
productivity in your business
1. By eliminating ‘phone tag’.
Through real-time presence reporting, UC lets you know
your vendor partners who have taken the time to federate with where a colleague is, what they’re working on, and whether
you,” Jaimie Robson, director, DeployTech. “It’s easy. You simply they’re available to take a call.
pop open your Lync client and send someone an instant mes- If they’re busy or in a meeting, UC can estimate when they’ll be
sage. It’s instantaneous.” available and notify you the instant they are.
Users from one organization can reach those within another Not only does this eliminate ‘phone tag’, it also improves
federated organization via IM, click to call, video, web conferenc- productivity across the board by letting everyone in the
ing or desktop sharing, at the click of a button. IM, presence, business to work smarter and more efficiently.
voice and video federation also work between Lync and any of
the 400 million Windows Messenger users. And because Lync 2. By allowing ‘best-method’ communication.
feeds back through Microsoft Outlook, voice and chat sessions UC similarly enables everyone in the business to choose the
are recorded, offering the perfect catch-all for those businesses most appropriate communications method at any time.
with a significant interest in compliance. Taking into account either a contact’s status, current activity
“From a compliance perspective and general data manage- or geographic location, communicators can choose to call,
ment,” says Robson, “you can actually replace your traditional voice-mail, video conference, email or instant message –
PBXs, your voice mail solutions, everything, with Microsoft Lync, whatever the most productive medium is at the time.
soft phones, physical phones where required, and conferencing
cameras”. 3. By integrating your handset with Outlook.
So does this mean that traditional PBX systems are increas- The best UC systems integrate the handset on the user’s desk
ingly seen as a thing of the past? Absolutely, says Jan Kok. with Microsoft Outlook.
“UC, two or three years ago, was something that worked This allows you to quickly make or redirect calls by clicking
beside of, or on top of, a PBX. Not today. Today we’re pulling on a contact, removing the need to remember numbers,
PBX systems out completely and putting in UC platforms like extensions or the correct combination of buttons for forwarding
Lync and Cisco. The time when people are piloting and trialling a call.
it is gone. They’re now really getting into it.
4. By allowing you to control incoming communications.
“A year or two ago it was all about conferencing, now it’s all
UC allows you to decide how and when you’ll be contacted. If
about PBX replacements. We’re seeing UC platforms taking the
you need to go uninterrupted, a simple click will divert all calls
place of the traditional PBX platforms, because clients put it in
to voice mail.
for voice, but then get all the other incremental benefits as well.”
UC systems also provide everyone in the business with a
single phone number, able to reach them both at their desk or
Making the jump
on their mobile.
Set-up costs vary of course, depending on the size of the
workforce, what existing infrastructure is present, and whether 5. By empowering your receptionist.
an open system or all-in-one solution from a single manufac- One person likely to experience a large productivity boost
turer is implemented. from UC is your receptionist. A typical estimate of time-saved
So what’s the best way forward for an average company answering and directing calls via UC is around 50%.
looking to make the leap? You’ll also improve your businesses’ responsiveness and
“A good time to do this is when you’re going through your customer service by allowing your receptionist to check that a
Windows 7 upgrades,” says Robson. “It’s all about minimising contact is ready to receive a call before putting your customer
disruption. You’ve just got to make sure that the back-end infra- on hold – easily redirecting the caller to another contact if they
structure is going to support it. If you’ve got Exchange [Server] are not.
2003 on a small business tablet it’s not going to work how you
think it’s going to work, so you’ve got to work out those details Robert Chau is Telephony Practice Manager, Brennan IT
beforehand.”
Leveraging existing equipment via UC as-a-service reduces ››
Quarter Three 2012 63
5. Feature // Unified Communications
enforced. They also want to be sure they can regain control of
their data if they are unhappy with their SaaS provider, or if their
SaaS vendor goes out of business or their services are seriously
disrupted.”
Vendors however, have robust security technology – includ-
ing encryption where appropriate, refined user access control
– well beyond what most businesses can afford themselves.
“These security measures far exceed what most small- and
mid-size enterprises can put into place,” says Boyd. “They also
go beyond the safeguards of many large-scale enterprises by,
among other things, providing integrated auditing capabilities.
And, the off-site hosting brings built-in disaster recovery and
business continuity benefits.”
The future
“ If you go with a premise-based solution, Leveraging a robust UC platform in new ways can cre-
ate efficiencies in other areas of enterprise and offer returns
generally your IT provider will come out, look from unexpected quarters. UC-empowered “Communications
Enabled Business Processes” (CEBP) is the hot new method of
at your requirements and they’ll do everything automating processes to increase efficiency.
for you, and you will pay for the privilege. ” “One of the big things you’re going to see in the software
industry in the coming years, that offers the highest return on
Rene Sugo, CEO, MyNetFone investment, is based around workflow,” says Steeples. “There is
so much inefficiency in business that there are huge wins to be
had around process automation.”
Essentially, CEBP leverages existing unified communications
upfront costs and eases deployment. A quick return on invest- technologies to reduce the human latency that slows down
ment, rapid deployment times, flexibility and a pay-as-you-go business processes.
model delivered via the web, can be a very attractive option to “Communications Enabled Business Processes takes the call
business looking to keep costs down. centre technology that knows about people’s presence and
“If you go with a premise-based solution, generally your IT knows about people’s skills,” explains Steeples. “It takes that
provider will come out, look at your requirements and they’ll do incoming call and says ‘this number requires this kind of skill’.
everything for you, and you will pay for the privilege” says Sugo. Or perhaps the customer has entered something in an IVR or
“If you go with a cloud-based provider however, for a soft-phone someone who's completed an application on a website or sent
option, the set-up costs are very minimal.” an email, it takes that interaction and routs it to someone who
“As with most technology, as it evolves and matures it gets is available to deal with it.”
simpler and simpler, to where do-it-yourself is a realistic option. By embedding the unified communications solution into the
And let’s face it, if you’re a small business saving money is one business process workflow itself, those processes are acceler-
of the most important things.” ated and simplified. By seeking out the processes that currently
As with any cloud-delivered solution though, questions over have high amounts of delay due to human intervention (or lack
integration, security concerns, impact on application perfor- of intervention) those areas can be automated with CEBP and,
mance and complex pricing models persist. importantly, the efficiency gains measured.
“Many have concerns over security, including fear about put- “We are pushing that work to people. We’re saying ‘you’re not
ting company data into the hands of a third party,” says tech just a call centre agent getting phone calls, now you’re a call
commentator Becky Boyd. “Other concerns about application centre agent who’s been assigned work items, which form a
performance and availability, also deter adoption.” work flow. We are now routing that work to employees who can
“IT and business executives want to ensure that their cor- deal with it, and it’s all based on the presence information we
porate data is protected and that privacy policies are properly already have.”
64 Quarter Three 2012