Analysts think that the unified communications market in Australia is worth over $600 million – but before investing even $1 in the technology, smart companies build themselves a spreadsheet. They load it with information about how many employees they have in which offices, how much they spend on phone calls, on teleconferences, on interstate travel. If they are a large greenhouse gas emitter – or part of the supply chain to such an entity – they add in data about their carbon footprint.
Then, and only then do they allow themselves to gaze longingly at the seductive marketing materials evangelising unified communications. Thanks to the spreadsheet they know what communications costs them today and can start to work out what it might mean if their people had access to IP telephony, SMS, video conferencing, instant messaging, emails, collaboration tools- all available wherever and whenever employees want.
Companies have found that using this approach allows them to understand where savings can be reaped, and many report the payback period can be two years or less. And the reduction in frazzle among employees who might otherwise have to spend hours in airport lounges waiting aimlessly for connections should not be underestimated.
Where unified communications probably doesn’t add up is for businesses with one office and a small team. For these outfits it’s still probably more sensible to stand up and bellow over the partition than install inter-desk web conferencing.
Where unified communications really makes a difference is in organisations running geographically separated teams which need to communicate either with one another or with customers when on the move.
To realise their fullest potential unified communications environments need to provide anytime, anywhere, any device access to information from enterprise applications – but that’s still beyond the remit of most current unified communications roll outs. It will come, but not until the plumbing’s perfected.
And right now unified communications is generally about getting the plumbing working.
Like real plumbing – it’s often a job best left to specialists.
Although some organisations are considering using hosted unified communications solutions, many more are hiring specialist systems integrators to tackle their unified communications plumbing.
These specialists can help work out what computing platform to use, who will supply the network switches and call manager solutions, where will they source the videoconferencing system, what software will manage the communications and collaboration, and who will supply the inter-office network to underpin it all.
Not surprisingly few IT managers choose to do it themselves, but call in specialised systems integrators who have done this all before and understand that for unified communications to really deliver a return on investment to the business, it has to be developed so as to properly map the business processes.
And that’s the second tip – after that spreadsheet is built and proves there would be a return on an investment in unified communications, the savvy manager goes and kicks a few tyres. They’re impervious to shiny brochures and salesmen’s smiles. They want to talk to someone who’s done it for real, to ask them what they’d do differently if they had their time over, get them to cast an eye over their spreadsheet.
Then and only then do they open their wallet.