Presence, smresence, what’s the big deal with Presence? Presence is all about connections. If you were to ask a user what presence is, you would probably get a lot of different answers: Presence is telling whether someone is available, online in the case of IM, or in a meeting until 3PM in the case of Microsoft Outlook, etc. Presence equals efficiency, especially for an end user. Contact Centers are the ultimate proving ground for a company’s ROI.

Presence allows anyone not just Contact Centers the ability to pull in enterprise resources to resolve any issue immediately. Efficiency increases when a company can eliminate phone tag, by letting users know, through device presence, if someone is on the phone or available to accept a phone call. Imagine the possibilities if you could integrate all forms of presence (IM, device presence and email) and federation. End users desperately need this type of UC interoperability.

Earlier this year Blair Pleasant wondered about the future of UC without federation. While Federation might be number one on many people’s list; I think she needed to include the importance of presence. Blair wishes for federation, but right now Presence makes my life more efficient because I am not playing phone tag, and I do not foresee the big 3 playing nice in the sand box so federation is way down on my list. Nothing ruins my day more than having left a voice mail at the beginning of the day and by the EOB I haven’t heard from my contact, only to hear that they have been in a meeting in my own building all day. Presence can make my day, by telling me through MS Outlook, that my contact has a lunch break at 1:00, so I will walk on over to the meeting and catch him in the hallway. A much more efficient use of my time than waiting on a return call from a voice mail message I left at the beginning of the day.

I would consider Presence Integration to be more important than Federation when it comes to UC interoperability between multi vendor platforms like Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, such as letting an end user know when the contact in your IM client is “in a call”. While many would scoff at that possibility, I call that the “Ultimate Presence Experience”, eliminating phone tag, ensuring reach-ability, eliminating email latency, and eliminating the frustration of how can I connect with someone now. I continue to lead the charge for efficiency through presence, and what better way for all of us to keep our New Year’s Resolution than with UC Interoperability and Integrated Presence!!

Tags: UC Information, Unified Communications Information by Mark Littlefield
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Yes, you’re eyes are still working!  It’s true.  The unrelenting push by Microsoft to make a product that delivers some version of enterprise telephony has broken into the Gartner MQ for that exclusive club, Corporate Telephony, that was published only last Friday, August 8. 

Now, most of you know that Microsoft had already propelled itself to the Leaders quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications 2007, but this is PBX and IP-PBX territory. 

What’s the catch?  Well, Microsoft is in the lower right quadrant — the Visionaries quadrant.  That’s the place for companies with completeness of vision, and Microsoft is rated far to the top (the right on the x-axis) on that scale, but still with work to do on “ability to excute”. 

While some may say this is bad for Microsoft, since they will look weak in the telephony group, it seems to me that this is ideal for them!  It says that Gartner sees Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 as addressing the future directions of Corporate Telephony, but isn’t ready to do it all.  That’s great.  I’ve argued before that Microsoft does not want to win as a leader in the PBX market, they want to win as a leader in the “communications” market, where their software can make major improvements in business operations, not just simply replace a phone. 

Gartner suggests that Microsoft OCS is on target for those who want to “look beyond enterprise telephony to different ways of working, especially for nomadic and knowledge workers.”  I agree entirely.  In fact, you read it here first, on UCStrategies.com.  We called this out from the beginning, advising readers, clients, and our workshop and VoiceCon attendees to look for breakthrough improvements for the specific users in specific business processes.  This is why we have always said that UC is, “Communications integrated to optimize business processes.”  Just look at the 200 Microsoft case studies for OCS 2007 – some are just simple travel avoidance or international toll cost savings, but many really are new ways to communicate and are real business optimizations. 

We’ll bring you more news on this as it unfolds, both here and at NoJitter.com.  If you want to know about Unified Communications, and if you want to know how UC will intersect Corporate Telephony, this is the place to be! 

Please do add a comment below, so we get a lively dialog on this momentous event.

Tags: UC Information, Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
1 Comment »

He’s singing my song! The “Holy UC, Batman..” article by my colleague Jay Brandstadter certainly struck a chord with me. For years, I have avoided falling into the jargon pit that both the voice and data industries seem to love so much; and there is good reason for this avoidance. When I work with resellers, whether VARs or telecom dealers, one of my goals is to help them understand the importance of consultative selling rather than product selling. To me this means approaching any sale from the perspective of the customer’s needs rather than from technology and products. So I try to speak the language of business… not technical jargon (of course, this encourages some in our industry to assume that I don’t understand the technology - too bad for them).

But to my point… it seems to me that the unified communications industry is so busy trying to define UC according to what a product or group of products can DO, that they’re missing a very important issue. THEY’RE CONFUSING CUSTOMERS! And when customers are confused, they don’t buy! Why not define UC according to what it means to a business - how it can improve business overall? It’s similar to defining a car as a vehicle with 2 or 4doors, 4 wheels, an engine, etc. So what? From a customer perspective, a car is a means of getting them from here to there quickly, safely and comfortably. THAT’s why they buy a car.

If I’m a customer, I don’t care if “UC” is about presence or mobility, or even integrating business processes with my communications system. I’m going to buy a solution (whether it is “real” UC or not) solely because it is going to make my business more profitable by reducing costs, making my employees more productive and/or improving customer service.

If UC is to grow as an industry, customers must buy solutions that we know are made up of products and software that we manufacture or develop…. and today’s customers are smarter than ever. Steve Burgess, a very savvy integrator and CEO of Guidant Partners, firmly says that the customer doesn’t care HOW it works, they just care that it DOES work - and that it makes a positive difference in their business. So I’m going to be so bold as to offer another definition for “UC”…. Unified communications brings together and utilizes communication tools and information tools to make workers more productive from wherever they are, provide management with the information and means to make better and faster decisions, provide better customer service and improved customer experiences, and overall help a company be more profitable. How are we going to do this? The person who signs the check to buy doesn’t really care how!!!!!!! Only the vendors who provide the products and the distribution channels who sell and install those products care “how”.

Let’s stop talking to ourselves and begin talking to the customer - please!

Tags: UC Information, Unified Communications Information by Pam Avila
2 Comments »

I have been following Siemens and their unified communications strategy even before we called it UC. Their strategy has evolved but their direction has been surprisingly consistent. Siemens worked with Microsoft on solutions we now call UC. They were ahead of the market but it looks like they now have an opportunity to become a market leader in the UC space.

My colleagues have posted several blogs and articles on UCStrategies.com discussing Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEC) joint venture (JV) with The Gores Group (TGG).

• Marty Parker - “SEN has arguably the best software stack for UC solutions in the entire industry in their OpenScape Communications Suite.”
• Don Van Doren - “My suggestion is that Gores and SEN strive to become the systems integrator of choice for integrating voice communications into business processes.”
• Paul Stockford - “Siemens in unquestionably a power to be reckoned with in the emerging UC market, but they’re a non-entity in the well-established contact center market.”
• Michael Finneran - “In the near-term, mobility could be the joint venture’s ace-in-the-hole.”
• David Yedwab - “the US focus of The Gores Group and its contribution of Enterasys and SER Solutions to the JV is logically designed to have significant positive impact”

The JV will be well positioned from the start with $350M Euros for investment to shore up any product or distribution deficiencies and $500M Euros in working capital (and no debt) to cover any losses - which are unlikely with SEC’s recent cost cutting initiatives and TGG’s practice of turning acquired companies profitable within months of acquisition (JV in this case).

The challenge - will the new joint venture be able to take advantage of this opportunity. I have always felt - Siemens has a great UC story but nobody is buying it - why? I have already mentioned they were early to market and, they have a great marketing executive in Mark Straton - so why haven’t they been more successful? A simple explanation - Siemens is too large to easily evolve with the changing market and technology. The market is changing but Siemens corporate was not agile enough to change quickly to leverage the opportunity (you can read - challenges at Avaya and Alcatel Lucent into this).

To become a market leader they need to change the way enterprise customers look at communications. This is something we at UCStrategies.com are passionate about. We believe the vendors needs to support what they already know - the PBX is changing from the center of communications to a part of an enterprises communications solution. UC is communications integrated to optimize business processes and is not about buying a new PBX.

SEC appears to be the only vendor positioned for the changes UC brings. Most vendors have not been able to change their business model and still require the revenue and profits associated with sales of new IP-PBX’s. SEC is position to be successful by selling UC solutions - no matter whose PBX is part of the solution.

Too many enterprise customers are stuck in the same old model that is slowly killing past industry communications giants. The first thing they think about is replacing their current PBX with an IP PBX that will migrate to UC. They should be thinking - how can I communications enable a business process. If we need a new PBX great but that is not the core decisions process.

The SEC and the JV has an incredible opportunity. In not too many years we could look back and say Alec Gores was a genius. He leveraged an opportunity and his company became a market leader. Time will tell.

Tags: UC Information by Jim Burton
1 Comment »

Over the past four years Siemens has made it pretty clear to industry that they are not interested in the contact center market. The company’s commitment to that market has continued to wane over the years to the point where many industry watchers, me included, consider Siemens to be a non-player in the contact center industry today.

That’s why yesterday’s announcement of Siemens’ joint venture with The Gores Group barely caused a blip on the contact center industry radar. While the unified communications (UC) industry was fairly excited about the possibilities this new JV could bring to the burgeoning UC market, the contact center industry reacted with a collective yawn. There is a bit of irony here.

In earlier posts to this blog I took the position that the contact center will be the launching point for UC into the greater enterprise. Of course there will be exceptions to this, but I still believe that UC will begin to see mass market momentum when the contact center adopts it for its own. Siemens in unquestionably a power to be reckoned with in the emerging UC market, but they’re a non-entity in the well-established contact center market. Thus we have the irony that seems to have kept the contact center industry politely disinterested in the Siemens/Gores Group announcement.

There’s another small but potentially interesting kink in this new arrangement and that is the fact that The Gores Group owns SER, the contact management/predictive dialer company out of Dulles, VA, and they’re throwing SER in as part of the deal. Now, SER is no Aspect but it’s no slouch either and I question whether the new Siemens/Gores JV can afford to ignore it in deference to Siemens’ apathy toward the contact center industry. I foresee a bit of a quandary as the new Siemens Enterprise Communications comes to life.

Long term, the problem will probably take care of itself. Siemens is not going to take its eye off the UC ball but it is going to have to come to terms with the role of UC in the contact center. For the short term Siemens will have to follow the majority stakeholder Gores Group in its support of SER’s products and the contact center industry. This is not, however, where I see Siemens in the long run.

Long-term, I believe Siemens’ role in the industry will evolve with the industry itself. As the UC industry sorts itself out, I believe the players will become increasingly specialized. For example, one company might specialize in UC software. Another might specialize in infrastructure. Siemens’ specialization will be services. Siemens Enterprise Communications has made noise about transforming itself into a services company for years. Now it is out from under the heavy hand of Siemens AG, it finally has the chance to actually do it.

As for SER? Probably acquired by Aspect.

Tags: UC Information by Paul Stockford
2 Comments »

Our UCStrategies.com team has been discussing the acquisition of Siemens Enterprise Networks (SEN) into a joint venture with The Gores Group, who also owns Enterasys and SER.

As we pondered the situation, it became clear that this is an ideal time for some dramatic action.  SEN has arguably the best software stack for UC solutions in the entire industry in their OpenScape Communications Suite.  (Yes, we mean just the OpenScape Suite, not all the updated telephony-centric products such as the HiPath 8000, et al.).  

Our modest proposal is that the new SEN look past the traditional converged voice and PBX market, in which they are in a money-losing fourth place position (this according to their own slides from yesterday’s announcement) and look instead to the future via Unified Communications. 

What if they told all of their installed base customers that the new SEN is different?  The new SEN will not declare end-of-support on all that good Siemens technology that still works.  Instead, the new SEN recommends that the customers don’t waste their time replacing PBXs with IP PBXs and buying new phones, but rather spend their time and money installing OpenScape, connected to any PBX they own (old or new, of any brand).  Since OpenScape provides the complete set of communications tools that integrate seamlessly with both Microsoft and IBM (SEN has alliances for this with both companies) and with the enterprise back-office or hosted solutions (think SAP, Salesforce.com and more), SEN has the best chance of any company to come out as the market leader in Unified Communications. 

Hmmm. So the choice is to continue to sell PBXs, where SEN lost 602 million Euros on revenues of 3,200 million Euros in FY2007 and try to hold on to fourth place with declining market share, or to use this opportunity to truncate the loses in PBX selling (but continue the more profitable servicing business) and shoot for the leadership position in UC.  Losses/share laggard or smaller but profitable leader?  Oh, yeah, let’s be the leader! 

So, there’s our modest proposal.  What do you think?  Please post away on our blog here.

Tags: UC Information, Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
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Aspect Software recently commissioned a study to look at opportunities to improve customer service through unified communications (UC). Aspect retained Leo J. Shapiro and Associates LLC of Chicago to conduct the survey of 50 contact center supervisors and 50 contact center agents at the end of 2007. The findings of the study clearly identify customer service stumbling blocks that could be overcome by the deployment of UC in the contact center.

The Aspect study found that, according to the supervisors and agents interviewed, 10.3 percent of all telephone inquiries handled on a daily basis required assistance from knowledge workers outside of the contact center. When these calls requiring outside help occur, the study reports that one of two things generally happen:

• Contact center personnel place the customer on hold while they seek the expertise required, then relay that information to the customer secondhand; or
• Contact center personnel attempt to resolve the customer issue to the point that outside expertise is needed, and then the customer call is transferred to the knowledge worker for resolution.

I submit that a third scenario is also possible - that the customer service rep takes the information from the customer and promises a call-back once the answer can be gleaned from the appropriate resources. In any case, these scenarios negatively impact two important contact center performance metrics; average call handle time, also known as average handle time (AHT), and first call resolution (FCR). An increase in AHT or a decrease in FCR can both be detrimental to the operational performance and customer service levels of the typical customer care center.

The Aspect-sponsored Shapiro study found that the average call was increased by approximately 2.5 minutes each time a knowledge worker outside the contact center was required to in order to resolve a customer inquiry. Although the study didn’t pinpoint how much of that 2.5 minutes was spent searching for the knowledge worker and how much was spent on the phone with the customer, we can reasonably assume that a good percentage of that time, perhaps as high as half of that time, was spent searching for and connecting to the knowledge worker outside of the contact center.

If that one-to-1.5 minutes spent searching for a resource could be reduced or eliminated through the use of such UC-enabled solutions as Presence, the cost savings and increased productivity could be significant. Think of the number of calls your own call center handles each day and what might be saved by shaving a minute or more off of ten percent of those calls. Although this is conjecture, it still serves to illustrate a point: UC in the contact center comes with a built-in return on investment (ROI) that is not only demonstrable; it is enough to make even the most hard-hearted CFO take notice.

Full details of the Aspect Software survey are available at www.aspect.com.

Tags: UC Information by Paul Stockford
4 Comments »

It all starts in the contact center.

That’s my contention anyway. When you look for the obvious launch point for unified communications in the enterprise, it has to be the contact center. Almost all discussions about UC in the enterprise include a mention of Presence, the UC concept that provides users with an overview of the availability and status of other knowledge workers in the organization and a means to efficiently tap into those resources as necessary.

If you think about it, the contact center is the most logical place for the initial use of Presence and UC in the enterprise. The goal of most, if not all, customer contact centers is first call resolution. In other words, the folks in charge of running customer service generally prefer to have a customer issue resolved in one call. There are two reasons for this, the first of which is customer satisfaction. As a consumer or customer, aren’t you generally happier if the company you call can resolve your issue in one call without repeated call transfers or without asking you to call back in order to speak with someone else later? Everyone’s time is valuable these days and no one likes to have to make repeated phone calls to get a question answered or an issue resolved.

Presence would allow an agent the ability to pull in enterprise resources from outside the contact center in order to resolve a customer call. Agents would be able to identify which internal subject matter experts might be available and the best way to reach them. While still engaging the customer, contact center agents would have the additional resources at their fingertips to keep the customer happy or at least resolve an issue without repeated call transfers or callbacks.

The second reason customer service professionals strive for first call resolution in the contact center is cost. Each time a customer service agent picks up the phone, it costs the contact center in terms of salary, benefits, etc., and if they’re paying for an agent to address the same problem with the same customer more than once, that is usually money down the drain. UC in the contact center makes absolute sense from a cost savings perspective. Here’s where we run into our conundrum, though.
If you’ve been around the contact center long enough you’ve undoubtedly heard the discussions about the strategic importance of the customer service center in terms of its value to operational success and profitability. To hear some people talk you’d believe that the business universe revolved around the contact center. If you haven’t been around the contact center and heard this talk, trust me when I tell you that it’s mostly lip service.
The truth is, the contact center is as important as all the pundits claim it is but the fact is that most businesses look at the contact center as a cost center. As you probably know, it is generally very difficult to get a business to invest in a cost center. Thus our conundrum: an investment in UC on the contact center would undoubtedly lead to cost savings and a tangible return on investment, but there is a general reluctance to invest in cost centers such as the contact center.
I think we may be able to find our way out of this potential quagmire if the industry in general follows the lead of the small percentage of companies who really do view their customer service function as a strategic advantage or differentiator and will invest in UC in order to provide their agents with Presence functionality. It’s going to take time and there will still be those executives who will drag their contact centers into the 21^st century kicking, screaming and protesting the whole way.

Any other ideas?

Tags: UC Information by Paul Stockford
3 Comments »

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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One of the many valuable resources at UCStratgies.com is the “Ask an Expert” feature.  Post your question and one of the UC Experts will send a reply with information, suggestions or other support.

For example, about a week ago we got these questions:

“What are the challenges facing the implementation of Unified Communications in small-medium enterprises (SMEs)?  In terms of deployment of UC, what approach should the implementation take?  I simply mean the phases of implementation.”

These are interesting and important questions, and we thought others might have them, too, so here is the reply from one of our UC Experts:

Thanks for your inquiry.  As a UC consultant at UniComm Consulting that focuses on Business Enterprise customer needs in Unified Communications, here is our response to your questions.
 
The challenges are both clear and manageable.  The main challenge is to decide what you are trying to get accomplished by adopting Unified Communications (UC).  UC should be a tool that improves you business, hopefully giving you high return on investment.  Some examples might include:

• If your business has a large number of field personnel (say sales, distributorship, service organization, real estate) then a UC solution that integrates with the user’s mobile device(s) could really improve your business, allowing clients to reach your people much more successfully. Such a UC solution could also allow the in-office team to see the presence (availability) of the mobile people to link up to them and allow the mobile people to see the presence of the in-office folks so as to get an answer for a customer almost instantly. Lots of other options, too. Microsoft Office Communications Server with the Office Communicator Mobile client is one example of this option. Other examples are available from IBM as well as some of SME solutions from the IP PBX suppliers.
• If your business has a major back-office process, such as would occur in an insurance brokerage requiring underwriting approvals, or a professional services firm like a consulting firm, law firm, architecture firm, accounting firm, etc. then the UC solutions would focus more on the desktop options and the “collaborative” tools. The UC solution would enable a staff member or team member to see the availability of a the appropriate experts (often by skill or role, not just by name) so they can immediately get a consultation or a decision. The consultation might start with an IM session; then with one or two mouse clicks can become a live call or a web sharing session (to review a document), or a video conference, or even a collaboration with reference to documents, client information, etc. Tools for this type of UC are available both from the telecommunications suppliers (Mitel, NEC, Siemens, Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and others all have packages for Small-Medium Businesses or SMBs). Microsoft Office Communications Server with Microsoft SharePoint and IBM’s Lotus Sametime with the IBM Quickr product are also great solutions for this type of business process.

These suggestions focus on improving your business processes.  Of course, if you install the UC solutions, your employees will also find many other benefits for their day-to-day user productivity, but the business process changes usually deliver the greatest ROI, since you can actually manage and measure the changes.  
 
As to the Implementation approach, our recommendation is:

1. Determine what you are going to focus on (as suggested above).
2. Based on those focus areas, decide which features you will need and which employees will need them. Note that sometimes you don’t need to provide UC for all the employees; but depending on the size of your business it may be just as easy to provide UC to everyone.
3. Shop for the best products and support services for your SMB needs. You will usually find one or two suppliers who are “the best” for your needs. Make sure to find a good VAR or distributor who understands this UC approach, not just a telecom or e-mail reseller who “cuts and runs”. The cost for a good VAR will be paid back in higher ROI, for sure.
4. Get a sample copy of the UC solution (or pre-install the system) and test out the new procedures and methods, so you’re comfortable with how they will work. From this, prepare new process documentation (”the new way we will do our work”), the training and “change management” (i.e. the messages from the business leaders, the enrollment of “champions” for the new methods, and the help/support procedures as people learn the new UC methods). Be sure to include communications to your clients, if these new processes will be visible to (and likely much better for) them.
5. Finish the installation and “roll it out” to the employees (some or all, as above). Watch carefully for the questions they have and the “tweaks” you will likely need to make.
6. Monitor the business improvements. Celebrate the successful improvements.

Then, at that point, you can look for more processes to improve, as your next round of UC investments.

Well, that’s the end of the response to that question.  Do you think it was a good answer?  What would you add or change in this response.  We would welcome your post below.

Tags: UC Information by Marty Parker
1 Comment »