The unified communications wave has swept across several large
enterprises in the country. But CTOs/CIOs are still cagey about a number of
facts such as the extensive need for routers and issues related to
configuration. However, there is a sharp rise in the demand for unified
communications as enterprises are looking at thinning their spends in order to
enhance the bottom-line.
Billed as a mandatory item in enterprises' communication tools
set, the effective utilization of unified communications assists enterprises-both
large and medium scale-add value to an array of business processes. It also
substantially improves productivity and efficiency, and helps in gaining
tangible profits.
Has unified communications really simplified the issues faced by
enterprises? Has it offered what the enterprises had asked for? Let's explore.
Benefits Aplenty
Unified communications helps key people to become more efficient and
effective, regardless of where they are working, by providing universal access
to people and making enterprise communication tools accessible and more
transparent. Through unified communications, the users who could benefit the
most include highly mobile workers, those with frequent customer interaction and
those who need to collaborate with internal or external teams.
"Unified communications is at the heart of our solutions.
If I make a comparison between our expectations and actual realizations, I would
say we are happy with the solutions offered by vendors, though we are skeptical
about some issues," says Arindam Bose, head-IT, LG Electronics India.
LG Electronics, has a presence in consumer electronics, IT
products and GSM handsets businesses, and connects extensively with customers
and dealers. The number of customers and dealers is growing across the country
in a big way. LG has deployed unified communications and some of the benefits
the company has seen include assistance in conducting interviews systematically,
and reduction of complex issues such as those related to support, management,
billing. Financial benefits have been to the tune of 20-25%, and cost of
ownership has also reduced.
"It has not simplified |
-Alagu |
Godfrey Phillips, the second largest player in the Indian
cigarette industry with an annual turnover of over $265 mn, had deployed a WAN
in 2003 and installed a VoIP telephone system and linked its video conferencing
system to it as well.
"Deployment of unified communications for contact centers
is not very large in number yet but there are centers with email/voice and chat
catering to our customers in the US/UK. HTMT as an organization uses unified
communications across multiple platforms and geographies to ensure online
availability of information to enable decisions to interface with our customers.
We have a strong backbone across our offices to ensure high availability and
achieve the desired results for providing information online at all times,"
says C Subramanya, vice president (technologies), HTMT, a leading BPO.
Some Concerns
Enterprises are up in arms as there is growing pressure on improving
performance. Concerns have overtaken advantages, while a few enterprises say the
simplification aspect is miles away.
According to Alagu Balaraman, executive vice president (IT &
corporate development), Godfrey Phillips, "There were issues of
availability and congestion, leading to breaks in the voice. At the same time,
telephony costs were rapidly dropping, while WAN costs were not. There was doubt
on the financial viability of adopting VoIP. Capital costs were high due to
regulatory restrictions on linking with the same EPABX units used for telephony.
As a result, VoIP usage dropped significantly. Video conferencing was much older
and there were issues of quality of images, complexity of operation and, also,
breaks in connections. Meetings were often disrupted due to technical problems
and fall back to conference calling was common."
"The cost of data |
-N |
"Users do not have faith in the systems and use them only
under very special circumstances," he adds.
According to N Chandrasekaran, general manager-IT, Ashok
Leyland, "As per the government regulations you can't have voice over
Internet. We have employed voice over our private networks using a separate PBX
dedicated for voice within our locations, without mixing it with the public
voice network."
Ashok Leyland has been facing challenges too with respect to
costs. The cost of data connectivity can be justified only if the call traffic
is high between the locations. In the current context when the STD / ISD charges
on PSTN have come down drastically, it's far cheaper to use the regular
phones. "The extensive need for hardware with regard to routers and
configuration needed to establish dialing when we use IP voice, drive the users
to resort to PSTN instead of IP phones," says Chandrasekaran.
Integration of various platforms and cultures across centers are
the main challenges faced by HTMT. Unified forms of reports across platform and
made seamlessly available across media is an ongoing task. "Implementation
for our customers as a contact center practice is yet to get initialized and we
are receiving queries from a few customers on such services. Going forward on
this could be a trend in the contact centers and we are in constant discussions
with our technology partners to address the new challenges," says HTMT's
C Subramanya.
Some of the major concerns include dependence on one vendor,
which may be a negative thing, as turnaround time is not up to the mark. The
last mile cost can go up because of remote locations. Companies are now opting
for opting wireless solutions for this. Issues such as security, reliability and
ease of maintenance are critical in the case of unified communications.
"Unified communications |
-Arindam Bose, |
What is Expected
Any new communication tool has to be simple and intuitive to operate. It
needs to be highly efficient and reliable. Since communication is exploding, it
needs to be cost effective as well. Finally, it needs to integrate with the rest
of the world and cannot be an isolated network. With the deep penetration of
mobile phones and dramatic lowering of costs in mobile telephony, fixed units
have lost favor.
"Any device coming in now must be capable of working with
GSM and VoIP. Otherwise, I believe users will not switch over to this usage;
email and mobile phones today are doing a very good job. Unless something brings
them together, it will lead to more clutter than use," says Balaraman.
The most desired situation is to have a system whereby we are
able to make a call to any phone whether it is an IP phone or PSTN from any
desktop or laptop. The system should facilitate audio/video conferencing and
instant messaging, according to Chandrasekaran.
HTMT finds implementation and integration across platforms and
the customer relationship management software a challenge across the centers as
the same would have to be synchronized at all times. "Internally, we also
intend to migrate to an ERP. The challenges of implementation with a single
platform and then migrating towards unified communications center would remain a
challenge. This implementation being a back office function for HTMT, achieving
return on investment is an ongoing issue," adds Subramanya.
Another challenge faced by HTMT is the management of the user
community across levels, he adds. "User training and flexibility
expectations from the user community will continue to exist. The user/management
requirements are prioritized based on the business needs and efforts are on in
the right direction with executive committee decisions to ensure timely
implementations. The implementation of unified communications for our customers
would bring along with it completely diversified task lists that would also
include some of the enterprise challenges and the customers interface to the
existing process and tools they currently possess. Knowledge base integration to
the unified agent continues to be an ongoing effort," he says.
Worldwide |
Source: Radicati group |
According to Subramanya, in the current scenario, implementation
across enterprises and a template-based design with simplified data collection
points would ensure easy execution. The task of integration across business
verticals and solutions with openness in architecture to integrate with multiple
mediums of communication devices with industry standards would ensure
minimum/incremental investments on the new solutions. In this case, the standard
demand of user comfort for switching between devices across the enterprise,
which is a given requirement during IP-based implementations, will not be
compromised.
In a BPO, mobility across geographies and devices with common
user interface navigations for a contact center agent would offer greater
business benefits. The service providers would jump start providing such
solutions for their global customers that could also result in higher customer
satisfaction. Indian providers of these solutions should work with regulatory
bodies and ensure that the organizations/global service providers are removed
out of day-to-day challenges of integrating devices across centers. This is more
from a compliance perspective than from a technology functionality perspective.
A senior manager of a leading automobile enterprise sums it up
this way: "Simplification will happen when the regulations in the country
are relaxed and we get the right hardware and software from the vendors at rates
which are competitive and not opportunity based escalated costs as of now."
Global Market
Worldwide corporate unified communications revenue will increase from $559
mn in 2006, to $1,158 mn in 2010. The growth of the unified communications
market is driven by the need of employees to communicate more efficiently with
each other. There is also the desire to manage a number of communication devices
and applications in a cohesive manner, according to the Radicati Group.
"Implementation for our |
-C Subramanya, |
The potential for this market is phenomenal-with 18 mn
deployed on-premises unified communication mailboxes in 2006, this market is
slated to grow to around 47 mn deployed mailboxes by 2010. Geographically,
on-premises unified communication solutions have the highest number of
deployments in North America (47%), followed by Europe (37%), Radicati group
said in its report.
The potential in India is huge and hence global unified
communication vendors are looking at both large and medium enterprises with
their unique solutions. Certainly, the experience of some of the enterprises has
been positive. Now it is being time tested for contact centers for serving the
clients. This would also improve better utilization of resources, higher
customer satisfaction and ensure more personalized services for customers and
faster resolution with interconnection between multiple resources.
Becoming Intelligent
A recent IDC Asia Pacific survey revealed that more and more businesses
recognize that a lack of an effective, unified communications system is
detrimental to business performance. Almost two-thirds of managers surveyed
throughout the region admitted to missing an important business meeting,
customer enquiry or new business opportunity by not being able to call or email
someone. As industries get increasingly competitive and communications become a
key differentiating factor, more and more organizations are looking towards
intelligent communications to help transform their business. Intelligent
communications embeds communications applications into real-time business
operations, giving users access to hitherto unavailable personalized
capabilities. Its ability to offer a seamless user experience, allowing mobile
workers to work from anywhere and enhance customer service are key drivers and
benefits of the adoption.
Today's increasingly competitive global business environment
puts more pressure than ever on large enterprises, whether they cater to the
domestic market or overseas markets. In this connected, real-time world, the
productivity and efficiency of an enterprise depends on its ability to do
business with globally distributed customers, prospects, partners and employees.
There is still a hope of unified communications vendors being able to meet the
fresh needs of enterprises and solve their existing issues.
Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in