Gear up for unified communications

When taking into account today's fast-paced working culture, if you ask business managers what they dislike most about their organisations' current communications solutions, the majority will most likely respond that they are 'interrupted too often' and that it is 'hard to find people when you need them'.

The number of communications tools on the market continues to increase. Today we have mobile phones, BlackBerries, the Web, wikis, instant messenger, e-mail, deskphones and video conferencing, to name but a few.

The challenge for the business user is to manage these communications tools, that all exist in their own silos. For example, when having a conversation on a landline, you might also have to field a call from your mobile phone. Unified communications helps users to take each of these communications tools that are in the enterprise, and make it better.

A widely used description of unified communications is that it provides a common infrastructure to deliver different e-mail, instant messaging, intranet, business applications, storage, computing and networking.

The reason most enterprises like convergence is because it is based on standardisation. Many find they need fewer vendors in the IT environment, which is a benefit and leads to standard operating procedures. However, standardisation fundamentally impacts the architecture. In turn, achieving a standardised service-oriented architecture is a journey over time.

This journey starts with the network. Even before enterprises implement unified communications, they must ensure they have a solid network in place. It is worthwhile for organisations to conduct network assessments to determine the current state of their branch office WAN, campus LAN and remote worker connectivity to see what network equipment investments are needed. This could, for example, include Power over Ethernet, WAN routers or wiring closet power and cooling. The design goals for the network should be reliability, security and latency.

Once enterprises have a sound network in place, the next step is to investigate the business case for unified communications. This includes analysing the current lease and maintenance costs for traditional PBXs, investigating whether the enterprise needs to comply with regulatory solutions in terms of call recording and policy auditing, and then to find voice-intensive business processes, such as urgent call lists.

Enterprises need to look for places where they are able to replace a PC with a phone running a small set of applications. They also need to ask themselves: How does voice fit into our disaster recovery plan? Do we have users of CRM systems? The business case will help them to determine which pieces of the puzzle they need to integrate.

Consumers are more educated in using new converged communications applications than we give them credit for.

Cecil Thokoane is CTO of Dimension Data, Middle East and Africa.

Tremendous innovation can be achieved when you simplify and integrate unified communications elements. It is important to look beyond the technology element, use what the business users already have and consider typical user behaviour and activities. Look beyond a single technology element and across traditional silos to see how business processes will be affected and how the company can best utilise users' skills.

For example, enterprises can leverage legacy infrastructure to benefit from unified communications applications. Rich presence can be integrated in a Microsoft environment, which is displayed in Microsoft SharePoint and Outlook. Basically, wherever in the Microsoft world, you have the availability of presence. This holds huge benefits and will not take a lot of user education to achieve.

Information technology, in general, is becoming more consumer-driven. Consumers are more educated in using new converged communications applications than we give them credit for. IT departments now need to leverage consumers' skills in the workplace to fast-track adoption.

While cost saving has been the primary driver for the adoption of converged communications, the concept of unified communications delivers the productivity gains many organisations have failed to see before.

These include saving time with efficient phone usage and employee access (reducing voicemail messages or phone-tag), to decrease the time to get key information.

In turn, it also leads to an increase in employee satisfaction as they can increase response time to colleagues or project teams.

* Cecil Thokoane is CTO of Dimension Data, Middle East and Africa.