In real-estate its location, location, location, in the UC world I believe it’s process, process process!

First I went to Wikipedia to see if they had a reasonable definition. The Wikipedia definition is “Unified Communications (UC) is a commonly used term for the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices and applications. This potentially includes the integration of fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), presence, voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and white boarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler experience.”

UC Strategies  defines UC as “Communications integrated to optimize business processes”, a much easier way to comprehend for simpler minds such as mine. Then there is an array of different definitions from Avaya, Cisco, ININ, Mitel, NEC and Nortel, sorry if I left any of my astute colleagues out.

The history of Unified Communications is tied to the evolution of the supporting technology. Unified Communications relies on the Internet Protocol (IP), which also supports e-mail and the World-Wide Web.

But I need to digress for a moment. Do you remember when the telephone company introduced PRI, in 1990? No body including the telephone company knew how to configure it properly, never mind install it correctly. Only through time and effort did PRI finally come to the common enterprise around 1993-1994. What about IVR and CTI? The first CTI was created by IBM in 1987. The problem was nobody knew the in’s and out’s of it. Everything became customer code and it took till 2002-2003 for CTI to be able to show it could work for the everyday enterprise. Read the book, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore, for a good history of CTI. Well although VoIP has been around 7 plus years, people are still not sure what to do with it. Yes, its here to stay but in order to make UC work you need the VoIP component. But you need other components as well.

Okay that’s all great but why has everyone in the world not jumped all over this? I think they do not know where to start. Everybody has such different needs, are in different stages and have different tools to work with. They do not know how to put the pieces together.

Most enterprise customers truly do not know what they have and what it will take to even consider UC. You do! Develop a tool kit or checklist of what the entry level to look at UC is. This can come from vendors, manufacturers, peers or research. Appraise the customer’s environment against that list. This creates a baseline to work from. We have a customer who is in the media business and across 10 divisions they do not share common email, business process or disciplines. How in the world is some one like that going to implement and benefit from UC with out taking stock?

Work with the client to develop a budget of what it would take to even consider UC in their organization after taking stock. Next determine the business solutions, revenue generation and cost containment opportunities that will make UC a success for that customer. Remember one organizations opportunity is not the same next door. Take the Hispanic customer in the USA. The latest estimates by the US Census Bureau at the time of writing put the US Hispanic population at 42,687,224 or 14.4 percent of the US population. That equates to one person out of every seven in the US being Hispanic. The projection for 2050 is that this will increase to one in four people or 25 percent of the total population. That means that the client wanting to serve the Hispanic customer needs something different then the client who does not, as only one example. The manufacturer client wanting to communicate out on the line has different needs then a retailer.

Third and most importantly develop the process that will be accepted, implemented and must be adhered too by all stakeholders. If this is not done up front it will never get done. There is no rule book on “How to implement UC” out there that I know of yet. Collectively the consultant community has the opportunity to develop a process that could be applied by anyone practice, group or enterprise.

No technology can fix poor people skills, as reported by Paul Stockford recently in the NACC “In Queue” blog or fix bad or non existent process. If you disagree with that theory please call me, I will gladly provide you with a myriad of examples. Even if you agree we want to hear from you.

Tags: UC Information by Samantha Kane
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Having once played extensively on the vendor side of the field, I have empathy for the vendors’ perspective on where consultants fit in their go-to-market equation.  After all, we’re not as easily categorized as the end-user or reseller audiences.  And quantifying our impact on vendor revenues has never proved straightforward.  But we’re here, we’re very much a part of the UC equation, and we’re not going anywhere.  So I offer a few starter anecdotes and tips on how we add value to the enterprise market and how vendors can benefit from our involvement.1.  As an independent UC consultant, our clients expect us to always be on top of the latest “whiz-bang” application or concept. While vendor-marketing buzz may succeed in prompting attention from these end-users, it actually serves as a double edge sword for the consultant community. Often we find that even if we’re not familiar with the whiz-bang’s name de jour, a second look tells us it’s simply a newer version of a familiar application. Yes, manufacturers are incorporating enhanced functionality and features in their rebranding efforts, but in most cases the products are very similar to their predecessors where it counts most to us - in terms of technical requirements and integration issues.  A Marketing ‘de-coding’ tool would save us a lot of time.

2.  Demand for an independent consultant within an enterprise often starts with the CFO.  Many manufacturers and their distributors focus almost exclusively on “soft cost” business cases and (surprisingly), more often than not, these campaigns are effective.  The reasons for success are varied, yet a soft-cost business case often hits a roadblock when a consultant is engaged.  Why is that?  Are consultants not interested in soft costs?  Of course we are, but we are hired to address what the business stakeholders require most - The Bottom Line.  In today’s toughening economic climate, capturing illusive IT dollars requires a solid business case that considers hard and soft dollar returns.  The proof, though, is in the pudding; we follow-through after implementation to prove that the forecasted returns have been achieved, an important step which is often omitted.  Your probability of additional  sales would be greatly improved if you conducted or participated in such post-sales evaluation processes?

3.  Integration is a key driver to achieving returns, yet an area where businesses - and sometimes vendors - lack the necessary skills to evaluate related issues.  We surely don’t write integration code, but we have the expertise and responsibility to ask the hard questions that may otherwise be overlooked.  Can this slow down a sales process?  Yes, but enterprises can only leverage new ways to communicate when installations are successful.  An independent resource and client advocate who assembles the necessary pieces of the UC puzzle increases the likelihood of success for all involved.   Keep us educated on the integration side of house.

Remember, these are not knocks on anyone.  On the contrary, actually, strong working relationships with the consultant community allow us to effectively represent vendor capabilities.   Consultants should not be perceived as a threat, but as an educated avenue that can improve a vendor’s probability of success.  If an enterprise is willing to expend resources on a consultant, this reflects the enterprise’s seriousness to evaluate and invest in improving or optimizing their technology.  At the end of the day, an independent consultant and the vendor are after the same result - a satisfied and referenceable customer who can confidently say they achieved their business objectives.  Let’s keep talking.

Tags: UC Information by Candice Sherman
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Independent consultants (IC) symbiotically aid both the customer and the vendor. We help the customer better understand the vendors, and we help the vendors better understand the customer. So why then do some vendors have such a negative reaction to ICs? That’s a question I am periodically left asking myself, wondering why some vendors resist the use of an IC on a project. I wonder why they don’t seem to understand how the customer>consultant>vendor relationship can benefit all constituencies. I believe vendor resistance to ICs falls into two primary categories. One category I’ll loosely characterize as “friction”, and the second category I’ll call “competition”. This month I’ll focus on the “friction”. The “friction” speaks to the perception some vendors have that ICs sit “between” them and the customer. While not the only objection cited, one of the most common is that an IC may slow the sales cycle. I unapologetically agree with that, as we seek to bring some structure to the project and move it away from the raw “pitch” stage. Yet, there are a number of friction related complaints with which I disagree. A few of the most egregious follow: Looking at the sales cycle example, one should look at the associated opportunity growth. An IC may cause a 60-day opportunity to become a 120-day opportunity. But, that opportunity will likely grow 3, 4, or 5 fold as we help the customer better understand the magnitude of their requirements, and help them better understand why they should invest in the extra capabilities, functions, redundancy, and the like. If you are an investor, wouldn’t you wait an extra two months to increase your return four times over? Sometimes the vendor believes the IC keeps the customer from understanding the “real value” of the vendor solution. In fact, a significant portion of many IC projects involves customer education. We might not always agree with the vendor that something is “special”, but we do educate the customers to help them see the “value” of all their options.

‐ Vendors often forget the ways in which an IC can reduce the vendor’s pre‐sales time expenditure. We help the customer understand and articulate their needs; we help develop designs; we help articulate the customer’s position, their pricing requirements, their service levels requirements, and more. We also often play a crucial role, without which any vendor would be stymied - we help with the internal business case packaging for senior management so that the project actually gets funded.

‐ Customer satisfaction grows if a skilled IC is involved. We work to make the customer understand what they are buying and what they can expect from it, and we develop a clear set of criteria. Furthermore, if the customer is dissatisfied despite the vendor performing as agreed, we seek to recalibrate the customer’s expectations. We actually do push back on the customer as warranted.

‐ ICs are, in military parlance, a “force multiplier”. A vendor can spend one perishable hour with a customer. Or, a vendor could spend an hour with consultant, and see that hour pay dividends at multiple customers. Of course, if you are vendor and you choose to establish an adversarial relationship with the Consultants, then the multiplication may prove problematic for you.

In the end, vendors will be well served recognizing that independent consultants are their allies. Our allegiance is to our clients, but we really do help both parties.

Due next month… the “competitive” resistance

Tags: UC Information by Tom Marsh - Dataflow Management
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