Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
June 29, 2009
Big Mobile UC Payoffs Coming From Outside The Enterprise
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
Anything you read these days about business communications tries to align the technologies within the framework of “unified communications” (UC). What that really means is questionable.
UC is quickly becoming the battleground for all forms of business activities, not only from a technology perspective, but also for the primary constituencies in an enterprise organization. As new UC technologies continue to evolve and converge, legacy communications and new integrations with business process applications are challenging enterprise management to change the way end users do business. This will not only affect people within their own organizations, but key processes that involve their business partners and, most importantly, their customers who generate revenue.
Drilling Down To Enterprise UC Requirements
There are three main constituencies within any enterprise organization that need to significantly benefit from implementing UC technologies and services in order to gain their interest and support: They are:
1. Business and operational management – To generate revenue, minimize risks and losses through strategic and tactical business policies, processes, and procedures
2. Internal end users – To perform their different job responsibilities in business processes easily, efficiently and effectively
3. Technology management – To provide flexible, reliable, and secure business process technology tools, network service infrastructure, and support services to for points 1.and 2. (above) at minimal cost.
All three constituencies will be affected, directly or indirectly, by the migration to mobile, multi-modal UC, especially as it affects communication contacts with different types of people involved in high-value, time-sensitive business processes. These can be characterized as:
· Person-to-person contextual contacts (voice calls, multi-modal messaging)
· Person-to process on-demand access to information, automated transactions, and live assistance
· Process-to-person personalized contacts, especially real-time notifications and interactions
· Increasing personalized contact accessibility for all of the above through mobile devices and services
While Business Management will help identify operational work flow problems, requirements, and priorities for UC needs in enterprise business processes, and IT management will establish UC technology implementation plans, integrations, support, administration management and budgets, the third constituency, the end users, are really the most complex and critical elements to satisfy. Not only do enterprise end users have different job responsibilities and contact relationships, but they also have varying work environment needs for both desktop and mobile business contacts. Finally, what happens with the end users will typically affect the performance of most business processes.
More UC Payoffs – Partners, Customers, Inbound vs. Outbound Mobile Self-services
To complicate matters further, enterprise UC must realistically accommodate efficient business contacts outside of the organization as part of high-value business processes, i.e., business partners and customers. UC facilities must therefore be provided not only to support flexible communication contacts (e.g., federated presence) directly between people wherever they may be located, but also directly between people and automated business process applications, regardless of user endpoint device type and modality of interaction. Only then can business process performance be maximized and “human (contact) latency” be minimized across any group of involved end users.
There has always been a big revenue “pony” under customer contact communications, and traditional call center technology has always taken the lead in supporting both live and automated inbound call-handling activities for customer care applications. However, the real-time demands of voice telephony, coupled with the legacy Telephone User Interface (TUI), left much to be desired in terms of the user experience and efficiency of complex self-service applications.
Although on-line interactive application usage on the Web has now far surpassed traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) self-services, the two are starting to converge both at the PC desktop and with mobile communication devices. The screen interface provides greater flexibility for complex input and output of information, which the limitations of legacy IVR applications could not even begin to deal with and thus always required immediate access to highly trained live assistance.
Automated outbound contact applications were also hampered by the limitations of telephony-based voice contacts in successfully making person-to-person contacts with a particular individual. Now, with the rapid consumer adoption of personalized, mobile, “smart-phones,” all that is changing, for both business and personal service applications. Proactive Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP), coupled with flexible mobile contact accessibility, is now positioned to bring the power of a variety of automated application services plus access to live assistance, when necessary, to individual end users, wherever, whenever needed.
Given these convergence changes, the enterprise market needs better UC-based products and services to replace legacy telephony technologies. For example, it will be inefficient for outbound application notifications to function simply as “Proactive IVR,” since outbound contacts from a business process application will have to capitalize on personalized, mobile “smart-phone” accessibility through mobile UC, not traditional, location-based phone call attempts that rely on the limitations of voice-only interactions.
Instead, consider starting with immediate delivery of a mobile notification message of any kind from a business application service to an end user, followed by the user’s option to access a multimodal portal that offers the recipient choices of automated self-service interaction (voice or online input/output), along with live assistance access options (chat, voice, video). This approach was demonstrated several years ago by Intervoice, since acquired by Convergys. However, the real payoff can now be finally realized from the proliferation of proactive application contacts that will result from the explosion of “smart-phone” usage and “App Store” mobile applications.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sprint Network Services For Enterprise UC
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
May 12, 2009
Sprint Network Services Put “Meat on The Bones” Of Enterprise UC
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
By now, most of the enterprise market understands what UC technology is basically all about (“Why of UC”) – i.e., enabling individual end users to flexibly communicate easily and cost efficiently anywhere and anyhow to do their jobs faster and better. Not only will end users be more productive, but business operations also become more cost efficient and effective. Because UC involves a significant change in handling phone calls within the context of increased mobility, messaging, and online information access, the biggest challenge to enterprise organizations is how to move forward with their migration to UC.
Sprint Nextel’s announcement this week offers a practical shortcut to business organizations to selectively bridge the gap between existing enterprise communications and the missing elements required for UC. Using their “Now Network” facilities, Sprint has teamed with strategic partners to offer new network services for mobile device support, multi-modal IP networking services (wired, wireless), integration with IP Telephony, Unified Messaging, Instant Messaging and presence management.
Connecting Enterprise Applications, Desktops, and Mobile Users
With the increased growth of wireless communications and multimodal “smart-phones,” business process operations can now support any form of contact that an individual end user requires. Not only does this apply to people within an organization, but also to any external business contacts they deal with (business partners, customers) whose communication facilities are outside the control of the enterprise.
While UC flexibility is useful at the desktop, it’s greatest value is when it is combined with the power of mobile accessibility. That is also when users really need the flexibility of choice in communicating with eyes-free, hands free speech, silent screen interactions and text messages, or video interactions. Without the combination of mobile access and choice of communication modality, operational time delays of “human contact latency” can seriously impact high-value business processes and cause missed or delayed revenues, serious financial loss, and even loss of human life.
Such concerns are no longer just about traditional person-to-person contacts. As business processes become more automated and monitor operational workflows, they too need to proactively and selectively notify responsible people of any situations that require awareness, decision-making, or action taking by people. Those people, in turn, therefore need to be as communication-accessible as possible in order to be responsive to such operational situations, especially if they are time critical. That’s where mobility and UC services are needed most.
Mix and Match - Sprint “Now Network” Services Will Connect People, Networks, And Enterprise UC Applications
In Monday’s announcement, Sprint revealed the integration of it’s comprehensive 3G and 4G, SIP-enabled, wired and wireless “Now Network” facilities with UC technologies provided by industry leaders Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco for enterprise-based Instant Messaging, Email, and IP Telephony. Their new service can help close the gap and speed up the migration from legacy PSTN TDM voice applications to IP-based, interoperable UC applications. In addition, Sprint’s UC solution can also open new avenues for enterprise business applications to access and interact with different types of end users, but still be efficiently managed and controlled by individual enterprise operations.
Sprint emphasized its use of SIP trunking over an MPLS network for its IP Telephony (VoIP) service offerings and interoperability with the PSTN network, as well as with enterprise IP Telephony networks. In addition, Sprint will initially provide Mobile Integration to support their subscribers’ Sprint CDMA phones in a Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) business environment. As the smart-phone market continues to explode, we would expect the service to become more open and device independent, as well as support “dual persona” mobile devices. That is where the UC action will really explode for all kinds of communication services and where we expect all network operators to follow Sprint’s lead to compete for mobile subscribers and enterprise applications access.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Siemens Gets Ready For UC Enterprise Battles
Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
April 27, 2009
Siemens Sales Strategies For The New UC Markets
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group) new executive team discussed how they are addressing the changing needs of the global UC market that will absorb traditional premise-based telephony. As already reflected by competitive announcements from other leading UC technology providers, such as Avaya’s Aura, the Siemens announcement highlighted the need to support existing telephony investments while offering new “open,” IP-based application software for UC.
Key changes in marketing strategies mentioned by CEO James O’Neill and President of Sales Mark Vayda included the following:
Siemens is aggressively reorganizing its sales and marketing organization with new incentives and new staff to support the shift to software, services, and partnering strategies that UC implementations will require. Both O’Neill and Vayda lay claim to their successful experience in the software and services business with Oracle Corporation.
The challenge of migrating from legacy telephony to UC, IP Telephony, and mobile technologies will be the same for the entire industry, The question is how quickly will the technology and service providers get their acts together and offer flexible and future-proof solutions to meet many different customer needs.
What Do You Think?
Contact me at artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360
April 27, 2009
Siemens Sales Strategies For The New UC Markets
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group) new executive team discussed how they are addressing the changing needs of the global UC market that will absorb traditional premise-based telephony. As already reflected by competitive announcements from other leading UC technology providers, such as Avaya’s Aura, the Siemens announcement highlighted the need to support existing telephony investments while offering new “open,” IP-based application software for UC.
Key changes in marketing strategies mentioned by CEO James O’Neill and President of Sales Mark Vayda included the following:
- Global approach to sales and marketing
- Exploit “Cloud Computing” – Hosted/Managed services
- Software based, real-time telephony applications expertise
- Targeting key vertical markets such as Government, Health care, Education, Utilities, in major geographical area
- Shift of emphasis to channel-based sales, coupled with strategic direct sales activities
- Channels to include System Integrators, Carriers, VARs, Service Providers, etc.
- Device independence for end users (wired, wireless)
Siemens is aggressively reorganizing its sales and marketing organization with new incentives and new staff to support the shift to software, services, and partnering strategies that UC implementations will require. Both O’Neill and Vayda lay claim to their successful experience in the software and services business with Oracle Corporation.
The challenge of migrating from legacy telephony to UC, IP Telephony, and mobile technologies will be the same for the entire industry, The question is how quickly will the technology and service providers get their acts together and offer flexible and future-proof solutions to meet many different customer needs.
What Do You Think?
Contact me at artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360
Sunday, April 05, 2009
UC And The Future of Desktop Telephony
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
April 5, 2009
The Real Message From VoiceCon – How To Prepare For Enterprise Desktop Telephony “End-of-Life”
Unfortunately, a fractured foot kept me from attending the Spring VoiceCon show as planned, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t see and hear the important messages that were delivered there. Needless to say, from a “vision” perspective, those messages are no real surprise any more. What we are finally seeing are practical products and services that will help enterprise IT to start selectively planning and delivering IP Telephony and UC applications, based upon real demand from both individual end users and specific, high-value business processes.
There is no question about where new telephony technology (IP Telephony) is going, from both a business and consumer (customer) user perspective. It will become an integrated UC application to make voice contact with people more flexible and efficient, “anywhere, any time, any way.” UC, in turn, will be integrated with all aspects of information access and information exchange, often referred to as “collaboration.” While direct access to information has become increasingly easy with web search facilities and portals, making real-time contact with people still remains a challenge that UC and presence management technology is helping to simplify.
To attain such objectives:
·IP telephony functions will be software-driven and personalized
·IP telephony usage will be location, device and network independent
·UC device (smartphone, softphone) interfaces will exploit screen, keyboard, and speech interfaces instead of the legacy Touch-Tone keypad. This will enable person-to-person communications to be device-independent, multi-modal, cross-media, and trans-modal (switching between real-time contacts and messaging)
·UC will facilitate both person-to-person and process (application)-to-person contact initiation, thus making business processes more proactive (via CEBP integrations), flexible, and efficient for real-time operational performance management
The real challenge to enterprise IT management or third-party support services is how they should be migrating from current legacy telephony technology to the new and more complex UC-IP Telephony world of the future.
The “End of Life” Strategy of UC Implementation Planning
Unfortunately, every level of telephony communication technology will be affected by the convergence and integration requirements of UC. This means that changing legacy architectures, products, and old telecom perspectives will be necessary to deal with all the changes that will be evolving, even if the new technology were free! So the main message today from vendors attacking the upcoming UC market is to start the migration selectively with existing applications that can be updated with minimal disruption and costs. In addition, they will all offer expertise and consulting services to help inexperienced IT organizations plan and cost justify practical implementations.
With today’s economy forcing everyone to control technology spending as much as possible, the potential of lower costs and increased people/process productivity may not be enough to justify customer UC movement. This is particularly true when there is not enough “demand” from Line of Business management or individual end users of the technology who just may not be aware of the benefits they will gain from UC (UC-B, UC-U).
However, what is starting to force the issue of moving forward with UC, is the growing need to replace existing “end-of-life” enterprise technologies that are not only getting more expensive to maintain, but cannot be simply replaced with old technology. Needless to say, everything that is old and TDM telephony based, falls into this category, including desktop telephones, PBXs, TDM trunking, key systems, voice mail systems, call center systems, etc.
Growing use of personalized, mobile phones for increased accessibility is adding another driver for the need for UC flexibility. Throw in the fact that mobile and desktop smartphones, as well as PC-based softphones, can minimize the need to buy traditional and limited desktop phones, and you have a new ballgame for UC implementation planning. What is also complicating matters for enterprise IP Telephony planning perhaps even more, is the fact that IP-based, hosted/ managed services offer new implementation alternatives as opposed to traditional premise-based ownership.
Bottom Line For Enterprise IT In UC Planning
They can’t really do it by themselves! They will need to find the new requirements for UC applications and the business priorities for those requirements, before they can even start looking at the new UC products and services that are being announced daily.
What will also make it hard for the move to IP telephony and UC is that UC is not just about voice telephony, and the “elephants in the room” already are text messaging technologies (email, IM, SMS) and the myriad of online business process applications that are ready to exploit CEPB (communications enabled business process) capabilities to initiate automated notifications or contextual person-to-person telephone contacts. The aggressive presence of Microsoft and IBM at VoiceCon underscored their interest in enterprise UC/IP Telephony migrations.
So, it is interesting to see the kind of long-overdue architectural changes that leading telephony providers like Avaya are making to migrate their customers to IP Telephony in the UC marketplace. Open, real-time communication application software, rather than just desktop hardware, along with integrations with business process applications is obviously the new focus of their UC game. But it’s also obvious that they can’t just sell telephone systems separately anymore, so look for more teamwork between the operating systems providers, the desktop application providers, and the communication providers.
Which vendor will lead the UC migration? Who knows!
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or .
April 5, 2009
The Real Message From VoiceCon – How To Prepare For Enterprise Desktop Telephony “End-of-Life”
Unfortunately, a fractured foot kept me from attending the Spring VoiceCon show as planned, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t see and hear the important messages that were delivered there. Needless to say, from a “vision” perspective, those messages are no real surprise any more. What we are finally seeing are practical products and services that will help enterprise IT to start selectively planning and delivering IP Telephony and UC applications, based upon real demand from both individual end users and specific, high-value business processes.
There is no question about where new telephony technology (IP Telephony) is going, from both a business and consumer (customer) user perspective. It will become an integrated UC application to make voice contact with people more flexible and efficient, “anywhere, any time, any way.” UC, in turn, will be integrated with all aspects of information access and information exchange, often referred to as “collaboration.” While direct access to information has become increasingly easy with web search facilities and portals, making real-time contact with people still remains a challenge that UC and presence management technology is helping to simplify.
To attain such objectives:
·IP telephony functions will be software-driven and personalized
·IP telephony usage will be location, device and network independent
·UC device (smartphone, softphone) interfaces will exploit screen, keyboard, and speech interfaces instead of the legacy Touch-Tone keypad. This will enable person-to-person communications to be device-independent, multi-modal, cross-media, and trans-modal (switching between real-time contacts and messaging)
·UC will facilitate both person-to-person and process (application)-to-person contact initiation, thus making business processes more proactive (via CEBP integrations), flexible, and efficient for real-time operational performance management
The real challenge to enterprise IT management or third-party support services is how they should be migrating from current legacy telephony technology to the new and more complex UC-IP Telephony world of the future.
The “End of Life” Strategy of UC Implementation Planning
Unfortunately, every level of telephony communication technology will be affected by the convergence and integration requirements of UC. This means that changing legacy architectures, products, and old telecom perspectives will be necessary to deal with all the changes that will be evolving, even if the new technology were free! So the main message today from vendors attacking the upcoming UC market is to start the migration selectively with existing applications that can be updated with minimal disruption and costs. In addition, they will all offer expertise and consulting services to help inexperienced IT organizations plan and cost justify practical implementations.
With today’s economy forcing everyone to control technology spending as much as possible, the potential of lower costs and increased people/process productivity may not be enough to justify customer UC movement. This is particularly true when there is not enough “demand” from Line of Business management or individual end users of the technology who just may not be aware of the benefits they will gain from UC (UC-B, UC-U).
However, what is starting to force the issue of moving forward with UC, is the growing need to replace existing “end-of-life” enterprise technologies that are not only getting more expensive to maintain, but cannot be simply replaced with old technology. Needless to say, everything that is old and TDM telephony based, falls into this category, including desktop telephones, PBXs, TDM trunking, key systems, voice mail systems, call center systems, etc.
Growing use of personalized, mobile phones for increased accessibility is adding another driver for the need for UC flexibility. Throw in the fact that mobile and desktop smartphones, as well as PC-based softphones, can minimize the need to buy traditional and limited desktop phones, and you have a new ballgame for UC implementation planning. What is also complicating matters for enterprise IP Telephony planning perhaps even more, is the fact that IP-based, hosted/ managed services offer new implementation alternatives as opposed to traditional premise-based ownership.
Bottom Line For Enterprise IT In UC Planning
They can’t really do it by themselves! They will need to find the new requirements for UC applications and the business priorities for those requirements, before they can even start looking at the new UC products and services that are being announced daily.
What will also make it hard for the move to IP telephony and UC is that UC is not just about voice telephony, and the “elephants in the room” already are text messaging technologies (email, IM, SMS) and the myriad of online business process applications that are ready to exploit CEPB (communications enabled business process) capabilities to initiate automated notifications or contextual person-to-person telephone contacts. The aggressive presence of Microsoft and IBM at VoiceCon underscored their interest in enterprise UC/IP Telephony migrations.
So, it is interesting to see the kind of long-overdue architectural changes that leading telephony providers like Avaya are making to migrate their customers to IP Telephony in the UC marketplace. Open, real-time communication application software, rather than just desktop hardware, along with integrations with business process applications is obviously the new focus of their UC game. But it’s also obvious that they can’t just sell telephone systems separately anymore, so look for more teamwork between the operating systems providers, the desktop application providers, and the communication providers.
Which vendor will lead the UC migration? Who knows!
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or .
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Drilling Down On UC Productivity
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
March 24, 2009
UC Productivity , People "Accessibility”, and the Death of “Dumb” Touch-Tone Telephones
The basic objective of business communications is to improve accessibility to both people and information. The Internet and the World Wide Web has already made tremendous inroads in providing “virtualized” search and access to information, so the remaining challenge is to maximize similar ease of access to people. That is the fundamental objective of unified communications (UC), whether it is “person-to-person” or (automated) “process-to-person.” Conversational voice telephony is not going to disappear from the UC picture, in fact it may increase significantly because it may become easier. However, how people will be initiating and responding to phone contacts will certainly be changing.
The birth pains of UC, however, are deeply entwined with the migration of legacy, voice-centric TDM telephony to converged IP-based telephony and the media flexibility of multi-modal “smart-phones.” Disruptive changes have started taking place at all layers of business communication technology and usage, ranging from wired and wireless network infrastructures to “cloud-based” communication applications to new forms of end point communication devices. As UC-based services extend more flexible communications access beyond the boundaries of location, organization, networks, and devices, they have started to threaten the legacy telephony technologies of both enterprise organizations and service providers.
Communication “Availability” vs. “Accessibility”
While presence-based “availability” has been a differentiating factor in supporting the productivity benefits of UC for “person-to-person” contacts, it should not be confused with contact “accessibility.” Being “accessible” doesn’t necessarily mean being “available” for a voice conversation, but the reverse is also true - being “available” doesn’t necessarily mean being “accessible.”
To have a real-time interaction with a person, it will be necessary for that person to be both “available” and “accessible.” On the other hand, it will be sufficient to be just “accessible” to communicate via all forms of messaging. As messaging activity increasingly dominates business and social contact activities, the need to maximize individual user “accessibility” via more flexible endpoint devices will become universal.
Maximizing People “Accessibility” With Mobile, Multi-modal Devices
What triggered this article is the acknowledgement in the industry press that personalized, multi-modal mobility and “smart phones” will take over business communications the same way it is taking over the consumer market. What that means is that the business telephone, as we have long known it, is going to change dramatically into a flexible, multimodal, computerized device that can accommodate more than voice conversations. Not only will such devices allow efficient visual access to information from web-based portals, but they will also allow telephony functions to integrate “contextually” and seamlessly with all forms of screen-based text messaging and business applications.
It is therefore necessary for enterprise organizations to “cut to the chase” and start planning and prioritizing how their existing telephony technologies must slowly change to maximize the operational business benefits of UC and how such changes will include prioritizing the different UC needs of individual “end users.” The flexibility of mobile or desktop “smart-phones” coupled with UC, can maximize individual end user accessibility and productivity, as well as associated business process performance. Depending upon the contact needs of specific end users, however, the UC ROI “bottom line” will be heavily dependent upon the replacement of “dumb,” voice-only telephones as a primary communication device wherever they are used!
The confusion for IT management that has long surrounded the definition of “unified communications” because of the convergence of its different technology components is now also hitting the definition of mobile “smart phones” (Read Matt Hamblen's post at: http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/09/03/16/Cell-phone--smartphone----whats-the-difference.html?source=gs)
See also what is now being labeled as “media phones” for the wired desktop. The software elements of “smart-phones” are like PCs and laptops, ranging from mobile operating systems to software clients to a variety of business and consumer applications that must support different user interface options and device form factors. All of this makes the choice of devices more personalized and complex, rather than a “one-size fits all” that an enterprise could supply in the past to employees.
What Does That Mean To Enterprise IT?
While individual end users and their job responsibilities will determine what endpoint devices they will carry with them for all their person-to-person communication needs, there will still be other enterprise responsibilities that IT will have to fulfill. These will include the need to cost-effectively support all business communication activities, including business “process-to-person” contacts and information access.
For openers, all forms of communications will generate traffic that needs to be supported by adequate broadband network capacity, both wired and wireless. Because of mobile access and contacts with customers or business partners, such connections will extend beyond the domain of enterprise controlled private networks. On the other hand, automated business process application contacts with end users will require appropriate information access security and integrations between communication applications, better known as Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP).
Given the dynamic flexibility of UC-based contacts, usage traffic will vary dynamically from the siloed email and telephone traffic of the past. This will make projections of UC traffic and private network needs difficult to specify in advance, but is especially important for estimating cost savings that can be derived from usage-based hosted UC services.
When it comes to supplying mobile endpoint communication devices, the enterprise will need to shift to supplying business client software, not hardware, for devices that will accommodate both personal/consumer needs and secure business process applications. The term “Dual Persona” has been used to describe this capability for a single device to manage all forms of contact (incoming and outgoing) for a single individual user. This should help support the challenge of “multitasking” between applications, between people relationships, and between job and personal responsibilities.
“Smart-phone” Flexibility and End User Productivity – UC-U = UC-I + UC-R
When it comes to measuring the “soft” user productivity ROI of UC, which looks at individual end user time saved because of ease and speed of communicating, the term “UC-U” has been created. This is differentiated from the business process ROI of “UC-B,” which looks at the total performance of a business process task in terms of elapsed time and quality, and is dependent to some extent on UC-U benefits that can be very dependent upon endpoint device UC flexibility that mobile and desktop “smart-phones” can provide.
But we really must look at UC-U from the two user roles in communications, the “initiator” and the “recipient/respondent” roles. Each role has its functional needs that must be supported by flexible application, network, and device capabilities to achieve end-to-end efficiency and effectiveness. So, when evaluating all the pieces in a UC solution or service, the productivity benefit for contact initiation (UC-I) should be evaluated separately from contact reception/response (UC-R). While most people will need both kinds of capabilities at different times, there will always be business processes where the value of one will be more important than the other. More significantly, it will be necessary to monitor communication activities to insure that end users exploit each type of capability properly to maximize both UC-U and UC-B.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
March 24, 2009
UC Productivity , People "Accessibility”, and the Death of “Dumb” Touch-Tone Telephones
The basic objective of business communications is to improve accessibility to both people and information. The Internet and the World Wide Web has already made tremendous inroads in providing “virtualized” search and access to information, so the remaining challenge is to maximize similar ease of access to people. That is the fundamental objective of unified communications (UC), whether it is “person-to-person” or (automated) “process-to-person.” Conversational voice telephony is not going to disappear from the UC picture, in fact it may increase significantly because it may become easier. However, how people will be initiating and responding to phone contacts will certainly be changing.
The birth pains of UC, however, are deeply entwined with the migration of legacy, voice-centric TDM telephony to converged IP-based telephony and the media flexibility of multi-modal “smart-phones.” Disruptive changes have started taking place at all layers of business communication technology and usage, ranging from wired and wireless network infrastructures to “cloud-based” communication applications to new forms of end point communication devices. As UC-based services extend more flexible communications access beyond the boundaries of location, organization, networks, and devices, they have started to threaten the legacy telephony technologies of both enterprise organizations and service providers.
Communication “Availability” vs. “Accessibility”
While presence-based “availability” has been a differentiating factor in supporting the productivity benefits of UC for “person-to-person” contacts, it should not be confused with contact “accessibility.” Being “accessible” doesn’t necessarily mean being “available” for a voice conversation, but the reverse is also true - being “available” doesn’t necessarily mean being “accessible.”
To have a real-time interaction with a person, it will be necessary for that person to be both “available” and “accessible.” On the other hand, it will be sufficient to be just “accessible” to communicate via all forms of messaging. As messaging activity increasingly dominates business and social contact activities, the need to maximize individual user “accessibility” via more flexible endpoint devices will become universal.
Maximizing People “Accessibility” With Mobile, Multi-modal Devices
What triggered this article is the acknowledgement in the industry press that personalized, multi-modal mobility and “smart phones” will take over business communications the same way it is taking over the consumer market. What that means is that the business telephone, as we have long known it, is going to change dramatically into a flexible, multimodal, computerized device that can accommodate more than voice conversations. Not only will such devices allow efficient visual access to information from web-based portals, but they will also allow telephony functions to integrate “contextually” and seamlessly with all forms of screen-based text messaging and business applications.
It is therefore necessary for enterprise organizations to “cut to the chase” and start planning and prioritizing how their existing telephony technologies must slowly change to maximize the operational business benefits of UC and how such changes will include prioritizing the different UC needs of individual “end users.” The flexibility of mobile or desktop “smart-phones” coupled with UC, can maximize individual end user accessibility and productivity, as well as associated business process performance. Depending upon the contact needs of specific end users, however, the UC ROI “bottom line” will be heavily dependent upon the replacement of “dumb,” voice-only telephones as a primary communication device wherever they are used!
The confusion for IT management that has long surrounded the definition of “unified communications” because of the convergence of its different technology components is now also hitting the definition of mobile “smart phones” (Read Matt Hamblen's post at: http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/09/03/16/Cell-phone--smartphone----whats-the-difference.html?source=gs)
See also what is now being labeled as “media phones” for the wired desktop. The software elements of “smart-phones” are like PCs and laptops, ranging from mobile operating systems to software clients to a variety of business and consumer applications that must support different user interface options and device form factors. All of this makes the choice of devices more personalized and complex, rather than a “one-size fits all” that an enterprise could supply in the past to employees.
What Does That Mean To Enterprise IT?
While individual end users and their job responsibilities will determine what endpoint devices they will carry with them for all their person-to-person communication needs, there will still be other enterprise responsibilities that IT will have to fulfill. These will include the need to cost-effectively support all business communication activities, including business “process-to-person” contacts and information access.
For openers, all forms of communications will generate traffic that needs to be supported by adequate broadband network capacity, both wired and wireless. Because of mobile access and contacts with customers or business partners, such connections will extend beyond the domain of enterprise controlled private networks. On the other hand, automated business process application contacts with end users will require appropriate information access security and integrations between communication applications, better known as Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP).
Given the dynamic flexibility of UC-based contacts, usage traffic will vary dynamically from the siloed email and telephone traffic of the past. This will make projections of UC traffic and private network needs difficult to specify in advance, but is especially important for estimating cost savings that can be derived from usage-based hosted UC services.
When it comes to supplying mobile endpoint communication devices, the enterprise will need to shift to supplying business client software, not hardware, for devices that will accommodate both personal/consumer needs and secure business process applications. The term “Dual Persona” has been used to describe this capability for a single device to manage all forms of contact (incoming and outgoing) for a single individual user. This should help support the challenge of “multitasking” between applications, between people relationships, and between job and personal responsibilities.
“Smart-phone” Flexibility and End User Productivity – UC-U = UC-I + UC-R
When it comes to measuring the “soft” user productivity ROI of UC, which looks at individual end user time saved because of ease and speed of communicating, the term “UC-U” has been created. This is differentiated from the business process ROI of “UC-B,” which looks at the total performance of a business process task in terms of elapsed time and quality, and is dependent to some extent on UC-U benefits that can be very dependent upon endpoint device UC flexibility that mobile and desktop “smart-phones” can provide.
But we really must look at UC-U from the two user roles in communications, the “initiator” and the “recipient/respondent” roles. Each role has its functional needs that must be supported by flexible application, network, and device capabilities to achieve end-to-end efficiency and effectiveness. So, when evaluating all the pieces in a UC solution or service, the productivity benefit for contact initiation (UC-I) should be evaluated separately from contact reception/response (UC-R). While most people will need both kinds of capabilities at different times, there will always be business processes where the value of one will be more important than the other. More significantly, it will be necessary to monitor communication activities to insure that end users exploit each type of capability properly to maximize both UC-U and UC-B.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Monday, March 02, 2009
End User Demand for Business UC? – It’s the Same for Any Size Business
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
As I have frequently pointed out, UC is really all about making timely and flexible contact with people, who are not always accessible or “available” in real time. Business contacts may be both traditional “person-to-person” contacts, as well as “process-to-person” contacts, where automated business application services proactively “notify” (deliver messages) to individual end users/subscribers about something that is important and time-sensitive specifically for them.
In either case, however, the ability of a recipient to be contacted more quickly because of mobile accessibility and/or a flexible choice of communication modalities, makes UC technology useful for both contact initiators and recipients, as well as for the performance of business processes that depend on people to take timely actions.
Up till now, there has been a primary focus by enterprise technology providers on UC infrastructure as a means of reducing support costs, TCO, etc., which is of particular interest to IT management, but not to individual end users or even to business management (LOB) in any size enterprise. While budgets and lower costs are important for management and implementation planning, they are not the real strategic objective for business operations. As I have often questioned, “If you got UC technology for free, what would you do with it?”
UC Surveys Starting To Look At Individual End User Needs
In the past year, there has been a realization that individual business users are really key beneficiaries of UC capabilities, but their communication needs and benefits are not identical. And it is not just about voice communications, either! That means UC implementation planning must be geared selectively to high-value needs of end users (“UC-U”), that, in turn, will also pay off most to the business ROI (“UC-B”). What should be recognized here is that if individual end user needs are not taken care of first, the business processes that depend on those users will suffer, because UC capabilities will not be adopted and exploited effectively.
From that perspective of end user needs as either a contact initiator or contact recipient in the performance of a business process, the size of an organization makes little difference in requirements for those person-to-person or process-to-person communication needs. However, the more individual end users that can significantly benefit from UC capabilities in doing their jobs, the greater the pay off for both the UC-U and UC-B aspects of UC investment ROI.
Siemens started looking at such end user UC needs, by asking them about common communication “pain points” that can be minimized or eliminated by UC technologies. It’s not that what such “pain points” will be a surprise, but rather to understand the relative impact on business process performance.
However, United Business Media did a similar study earlier last year, with somewhat different results, and CMP Media’s bMighty Publisher/Editor, Frederick Paul, compared the results in a bMighty article referenced in his blog. In addition, UC Strategies colleague, Marty Parker, also points out that the real challenge for business organizations is to help do something about those communication “pain point” problems.
Now that the spotlight is upon individual end users, regardless of where they work, it is clear that UC implementation has to help move traditional voice telephony into the converged domain of “virtual” and mobile IP communications, rather than the traditional wired, premise-based TDM networks. This change will also impact the carrier service providers, who have to let go of their “walled gardens” to support the mobile service application needs of both their subscribers (consumers) and business organizations. (More on that later.)
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at artr@ix.netcom.com or .
Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
As I have frequently pointed out, UC is really all about making timely and flexible contact with people, who are not always accessible or “available” in real time. Business contacts may be both traditional “person-to-person” contacts, as well as “process-to-person” contacts, where automated business application services proactively “notify” (deliver messages) to individual end users/subscribers about something that is important and time-sensitive specifically for them.
In either case, however, the ability of a recipient to be contacted more quickly because of mobile accessibility and/or a flexible choice of communication modalities, makes UC technology useful for both contact initiators and recipients, as well as for the performance of business processes that depend on people to take timely actions.
Up till now, there has been a primary focus by enterprise technology providers on UC infrastructure as a means of reducing support costs, TCO, etc., which is of particular interest to IT management, but not to individual end users or even to business management (LOB) in any size enterprise. While budgets and lower costs are important for management and implementation planning, they are not the real strategic objective for business operations. As I have often questioned, “If you got UC technology for free, what would you do with it?”
UC Surveys Starting To Look At Individual End User Needs
In the past year, there has been a realization that individual business users are really key beneficiaries of UC capabilities, but their communication needs and benefits are not identical. And it is not just about voice communications, either! That means UC implementation planning must be geared selectively to high-value needs of end users (“UC-U”), that, in turn, will also pay off most to the business ROI (“UC-B”). What should be recognized here is that if individual end user needs are not taken care of first, the business processes that depend on those users will suffer, because UC capabilities will not be adopted and exploited effectively.
From that perspective of end user needs as either a contact initiator or contact recipient in the performance of a business process, the size of an organization makes little difference in requirements for those person-to-person or process-to-person communication needs. However, the more individual end users that can significantly benefit from UC capabilities in doing their jobs, the greater the pay off for both the UC-U and UC-B aspects of UC investment ROI.
Siemens started looking at such end user UC needs, by asking them about common communication “pain points” that can be minimized or eliminated by UC technologies. It’s not that what such “pain points” will be a surprise, but rather to understand the relative impact on business process performance.
However, United Business Media did a similar study earlier last year, with somewhat different results, and CMP Media’s bMighty Publisher/Editor, Frederick Paul, compared the results in a bMighty article referenced in his blog. In addition, UC Strategies colleague, Marty Parker, also points out that the real challenge for business organizations is to help do something about those communication “pain point” problems.
Now that the spotlight is upon individual end users, regardless of where they work, it is clear that UC implementation has to help move traditional voice telephony into the converged domain of “virtual” and mobile IP communications, rather than the traditional wired, premise-based TDM networks. This change will also impact the carrier service providers, who have to let go of their “walled gardens” to support the mobile service application needs of both their subscribers (consumers) and business organizations. (More on that later.)
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at artr@ix.netcom.com or .
Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
New Response Service For Text Message Recipients
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
January 20, 2009
UM/UC Gets Another Boost From SpinVox’s “VoxLinks”
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
Messaging is an increasingly important component of unified communications (UC) for a number of practical reasons, including the fact that text messaging has become “real-time” through Instant Messaging and mobile SMS, but also because text messages are much more manageable, self-documenting, and resource-efficient than voice messages. Such benefits contribute to the goals of UC to minimize human latency in business communications through individual end user productivity (UC-U) and thereby also increase associated business process efficiencies (UC-B).
However, typing text message input has always been slow and error prone and the holy grail of business messaging has been to use the convenience and efficiency of voice for message input, but the efficiencies of text for message retrieval and management. The first step in this direction took place a couple of years ago when SpinVox, among others, offered a telephone answering service that allowed callers to leave traditional voice messages, but enabled the recipients to retrieve those messages in text form.
What Message Recipients Really Need
There are really two kinds of actions that message recipients have to take when they get notification of a new message:
1. Retrieve the message
2. Respond to the message
Both actions need flexibility to meet individual user needs for handling different kinds of messages and that’s where the power of unified messaging (UM) comes into play for UC. Recipients need to retrieve messages in any form that is convenient for them at the moment, especially when they are mobile, and they also need to respond/reply in any modality that is appropriate. If most people are like me, we respond immediately whenever possible, either to satisfy the time needs of other people as soon as possible or simply because we might forget about it.
Until recently, enterprise “unified messaging” technologies (UM) supported the capability for flexible message retrieval by primarily converting text messages to voice for notification and delivery by a voicemail system. Voice messages were also made a bit more manageable by using an email screen interface for retrieval, but the actual voice message retrieval and voice response had to be supported through a telephone and voicemail system.
SpinVox’s “VoxLinks” Cross-media Message Service For Recipients
SpinVox’s new service addresses the practical needs of the mobile user as a recipient to reply/respond to SMS text messages in voice. Expanding upon the success of it’s original voice-to-text-messaging service offered through wireless carriers, and more recently through enterprise providers like Avaya, VoxLinks provides any transcribed voice message that is delivered by SMS, with a “click-to-reply” voice option, as well as a “click-to-listen” option to hear the original voice message that was transcribed to the received text message. Now recipients can “Have their cake and eat it too!”
SpinVox is planning to bring speech recognition to messaging technologies to provide a variety of public services for mobile users. This should fit in nicely with UC service requirements for “click-to-call” and federated telephony presence management, as well as provide speech interfaces for mobile business applications. The latter should enable speech input to mesh efficiently with visual outputs for mobile devices. However, the proposed services will need to support regulatory compliance for business use and that is something that has not (yet) been publicized. So, stay tuned!
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
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