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Seeking a definition for 'unified communications'
I was struck by a comment on Monday's article on Cisco's pronouncement that the combined unified communications and collaboration market will be worth $34 billion. The commenter asked what I meant when I used the term "unified communications" in the story, as they had seen several conflicting takes on the term's meaning.
As I pondered my response, I realized how many disparate definitions of unified communications are floated by industry watchers and the companies selling the solutions. While I waded through corporate definitions and read comments from companies decrying the shortcomings of their competitors' "UC" solutions, I realized something more important, and much more obvious: The definition of unified communications is considerably less important than the actual deployments of these solutions and the productivity and connectivity gains they can deliver.
In our most recent reader survey, 75 percent of respondents said unified communications was the trend they were most interested in learning more about. So, to use another buzzword with an ambiguous meaning, I'd like to "crowd source" the FierceVoIP readership for your thoughts on your own UC deployment, or thoughts about potentially deploying one.
Microsoft has a decent, though very general, jumping-off point for the discussion on its "What is UC?" page: "UC offers customers choices in how their communications and collaboration software is delivered, managed and maintained by uniting existing communications systems and tools with the productivity tools people use every day, and delivering them across multiple convenient applications and devices."
While that's a nice theoretical explanation of the supposed benefits of UC deployments, I'm much more interested--and I'm guessing you are too--in the nuts and bolts of which solutions are delivering the best return on investment, how companies are realizing productivity gains from UC, and areas where additional technological development could improve UC offerings.
What communication pieces have to be bundled for a solution to be truly unified, for your business? What parts of your unified communications solution have been the most or least effective? If you're considering a unified communications deployment, which features are the most critical to your business operations? And, if your company sells or develops unified communications products, what is the next big value-add to your solution?
Does your ideal unified communications solution have a mobile piece? Do you need integrated video conferencing to bring travel costs down? Would one-number dialing save you accounts because potential customers could get a hold of you, no matter where you are?
All of these pieces fit under certain definitions of unified communications, but likely are irrelevant in others. I'd like to know which fit for you and your company, so please email me answers to any of these questions at pwylie@fiercemarkets.com. I'll compile the responses and seek out experts to discuss the results, which I'll present to you later this month in a feature on the present state of the unified communications and collaboration market. Because if we get a good sense of what UC&C actually means today, I think we'll all be better prepared to recognize where it's headed next.
Comments
Posted by Art Rosenberg | September 24, 2009 - 1:54pm
The flexibility of UC technology integrations provides greater "User Choice" in how they communicate. The benefit of greater flexibility of choice is:
1. Greater and faster accessibility to people, and, therefore,
2. Greater and faster availability of people for "real-time" contacts (calls, IM, conferencing, notifications, etc.
(That's why mobility is so important to UC!)
The business payoff from such flexibility is, as stated frequently, improved performance of business processes (faster, cheaper). Such benefits will be realized wherever people are required in the business process workflow, but the value will obviously vary depending on the process and the role of the people involved.
UC is not just about "person-to-person" contacts, but also about "process-to-person" notifications and immediate access to information and people (CEBP). In fact, minimizing the need for people to be in the real-time loop to deliver time-critical information to other people will not only minimize "human latency" in business process performance, but reduce costs significantly.
UC has to also look at communications flexibility differently from the perspective of a "contact initiator" and a "contact recipient/respondent." Each role can benefit independently from UC flexibility and allow maximum efficiencies for individual end users, particularly with the practical efficiencies of messaging.
While the need for real-time conferencing (face-to-face, voice, video)will always be an important form of business interaction, the truth of the matter is that you NEVER really want to have such real-time interactions, if you can help it, without proper preparation, i.e., reviewing and exchanging information (via messaging) first.
So, the bottom-line of UC is all about making contact with people as flexibly, efficiently, and effectively as possible, anytime, anywhere, and anyhow. Reducing costs is a payoff, but not the main one. The main benefit is to get a business process or task done as quickly as possible to speed up revenue generation, avoid or minimze potential losses due to delays and missed deadlines, and improve the performance of all end users.
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