There is still uncertainty about unified communications (UC). Vendors have pushed features such as presence, click to call, and the benefits of integrating IP telephones with business applications. However, Gartner's Munch says very few enterprises have been able to identify a solid business driver to deploy unified communications. "The market is still going through a phase of dabbling," he says.
That seems to be the case with some deployments, but others also highlighted the fact that UC was dictated by characteristics unique to different markets.
Suncorp has integrated its Avaya-based system with 3,000 seats of Microsoft Office Communicator, which links phones with email, calendaring, instant messaging, and video-conferencing. This was set up within the finance giant's business technology group, where Cameron sits, as well as to its banking staff, in order to have presence and click to call features.
At a call centre level, Suncorp used to hire special staff to handle difficult calls, but the Avaya system, in conjunction with Office Communicator's instant messaging feature, has enabled call centre staff to access knowledge internally. "There may be an individual answering six to seven different queries from someone of our call centre operators," says Cameron.
Bjarne Munch, Gartner research analyst
(Credit: Gartner)
One interesting application of the technology has been what Suncorp has called its "Business in a Box" — a business continuity and work-from-home initiative. "We're in pilot with this at the moment," said Cameron. "The basis of that is a Suncorp locked-down laptop computer ... and a soft phone running with a headset. We'll be able to take that home and staff will have the same applications they would in the office."
As part of Suncorp's roadmap it had divided business units into critical and non-critical. "If you're non-critical and we need to fire up a call centre within 24 hours we'll just move [the call centre] into that part of the office and we'll send those people home or to another part of the building," Cameron said.
SWARH's Druitt says business benefits of UC currently espoused by vendors were "more hype than action" and, in terms of integrating voice with other applications, supposed benefits were "a little esoteric" compared with the hard dollar savings seen by reducing inter-office call costs.
The IP video system, however, presented a clear value — a 30 per cent return, he reckoned — because travel costs could be directly related to investments in it. The other factor against UC was complexity for the end-user. "We haven't gone down that track at this stage. Although there is some benefit in centralising things for the user, there is a level of complexity in them having everything on the one device and knowing how to use it — things like telepresence," Druitt says.
On the other hand, the IT director says he is also looking to integrate the health alliance's portable IP handsets with duress alarms, GPS systems, pager-style messaging and RFID to track medical staff location. There are also plans to integrate the IP surveillance systems with handsets to allow nurses to see who's at the door.
IP telephony in the rear-viewAs with most large investments in technology, winning the support and gaining the confidence of a project's sponsors and users is critical. While most CIOs would understand this, the ways of achieving it can vary.
"Have a simple business case," says SWARH's Druitt. "If you can't express it on the back of an envelope, you may as well not express it. If you have an existing network, I would have thought the business case was very simple: use your network for telephony and get more value from your network," he said. "My advice would be to invest in your network and leverage everything you can off your network. IP telephony is a no-brainer, particularly if you have multiple sites."
Suncorp's Cameron says that enterprises need to settle on their architectures first as the four major IP telephony companies offer different architectures. "There are no hybrid models," he says. "You can't take a big bang approach. If it doesn't make sense you're better off leaving the money in the bank."
However, in Suncorp's case, the sharpest end of the project was call centres. "So that means getting close to your business who use telephony as a competitive advantage and understand the benefits of it, then you get them on your side — very key — and then the rest will follow," the executive says.
The City of Sydney's Naimo says the vendor's road map was a critical factor: "The integration partner must have a demonstrable track record and show that they could adapt their implementation to the way we wanted to do things. We wanted to maintain our systems internally, so we wanted a partner that was strong on knowledge transfer and Alphawest was good in that regard."
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