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.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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.
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