UC is as much a Business Decision as a Technical one
UC or Unified Communications is all the buzz. By now, almost certainly someone in your enterprise has approached the topic of a unified communications strategy – even if you have not yet defined what that means for your organization. Whether you are at the strategic, conceptual, or deployment stage, one thing for sure is your UC experience will likely be better if it is a partnership.
As suggested by techtarget UC is “not as simple as putting in a circuit. This is more business consulting than technical architecture. Enterprises usually overlook or underestimate the non-technical aspects of planning and deploying unified communications projects, which is where a UC consultant can help IT departments.”
What should IT be considering regarding UC deployment? First, engage more help upfront.
“With almost everyone I talk to who’s done a recent UC deployment, if I ask them if they could do something again in their deployment, the most common thing they say is, ‘We would get more help up-front,’” as reported in techtarget by Zeus Kerravala from the Yankee Group. This makes sense, especially as organizations look both to outside help for expertise and to inside user groups to understand the demand and relevancy for UC applications.
Second, consider with whom you want to partner. Partners can include outside consultants, vendor engineers, service providers, system integrators, or any combination of those aforementioned. With unified communications being the new frontier, individual expertise is being developed one product, application, and deployment at a time. Even in the largest of enterprises, it is likely that outside help can enhance and complement the internal level of expertise.
Third, don’t forget to engage your internal business user groups. Even if you decide to forego external partners and keep the entire deployment in-house, do include internal partners. Technical expertise is not the only factor that affects a positive UC deployment. Understanding and anticipating the potential user experience is critical. How will different groups and individuals leverage UC within the enterprise? In a recent survey by In-Stat, for example, respondents ranked collaboration (file sharing) while in conference as the application of most importance. What applications will be most important to your users?
Finally, once deployed, take time to train and educate your internal users. As simple as it sounds, we can execute a near flawless deployment, but it will be the users that realize the benefits for the organization.
For UC to work well and meet the expectations of the enterprise, I am convinced it must be a partnership that extends beyond the IT organization. And with UC solutions now a reality, two trends are in your favor says In-Stat, to enrich your UC experience: “SIP trunking, now touted as a cost-saving mechanism, will ultimately enable interconnection of unified communications islands, thus enriching communications across suppliers, business partners, and customers. Second, the wireless industry’s evolution toward higher data rates is enabling the extension of unified communications to smartphones and other wireless data devices”. The recent Sprint-Tango collaboration is an excellent example of mobile UC.
With the right strategy, resources and partnerships, the time is ripe for your enterprise.
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SubscribeTags: collaboration, In-Stat, mobile integration, SIP trunking, Tango Networks, Tech Target, Unified communications
March 11th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Why an organization purchases the technology that enables unified communications all they have really done is take the first, and easiest step into UC. The real work begins after this. The system may have some requirements on how the steps flow, but the real trick is how you can use this new Unified Communications system to enhance your business.
You are going to have to define the responsibilities of each department in your organization in order for the implementation to be successful.