IT Roadmap

Collaboration is the New Normal for Business

Dynamic collaboration across enterprise and inter-enterprise boundaries represents "the new normal." Organizations are now challenged to work closely with suppliers, partners and contractors to deliver their offerings in today's high velocity markets.

"Web 2.0 tools such as video portals, podcasts, blogs, wikis, and discussion forums are changing the way in which information is created, published, managed, and consumed," according to a recent report from Cisco. "Technology advances and the need to work outside of normal business hours and locations fosters an increasingly mobile and distributed workforce. A flood of new devices and applications is entering the corporate IT environment as employees elect to merge consumer-based tools with standardized communications."

As organizations grapple with global value chains, information overload, and more mobile workforces, they are challenged to embrace and integrate new collaboration capabilities.

"As the number of intra- and intercompany stakeholders increases, the number of collaborative tools and communication formats increases," states the report. "In other words, the scope of collaboration must be broadened. It must combine document- and text-centric collaboration — such as email messaging, instant messaging (IM), team workspaces, and conferencing — with voice, video, and context to fully support the needs of the business."

Cisco contends that enterprises will need to recognize several key principles as they implement collaboration technology and infrastructure in the coming years. Among them:

• An interoperable, open architecture: As collaboration increasingly occurs across organizations and with people on the move, it is no longer a given that IT can control the devices and applications used in collaborative sessions. Today’s environment requires an interoperable, open architecture that allows for any device or application to use a core set of collaborative services.


• Secure inter-company collaboration: Organizations will increasingly move from collaboration within functions to intra-company collaboration to inter-company collaboration. In this environment, securely enabling collaboration with partners, suppliers, and customers as if they were behind the firewall is fundamental.


• Flexible deployment models: IT requires the flexibility to adjust to a dynamically changing business and technology environment. Enterprise and IT architects do not make decisions in the context of on-premises versus on-demand, but seek to couple the robustness, security, and performance of the enterprise network with the openness and flexibility of collaboration through the cloud.

Strategic planners in IT need to ensure they construct a core foundation that supports a rapidly evolving set of applications — one that also optimizes the various media types that comprise today’s collaborative experience. They'll need an open architecture that secures collaboration and supports multiple approaches to deployment.

Is Your Network Ready to Enable the Virtual Office?

Teleworking is on the rise, creating new challenges and opportunities for enterprises committed to the promise of borderless networks.

Consider a few projections and estimates:

• Number of teleworkers by 2011: 112 million
• Percentage of employees that work outside the corporate HQ: 90%
• Average amount saved per year on fuel by employees who work one day at home: $500
• Average commercial real estate savings per year for a full time teleworker: $22,000 

Considering the challenges of the current down economy and the clear savings associated with telework, it seems likely that teleworking will become an attractive approach for more and more organizations in the coming years. It’s certainly attractive to workers seeking schedule flexibility and better work-life balance.  They want to save time and costs on commuting.

While there may have been concerns in the past about the ability of teleworkers to build trust with their colleagues and effectively collaborate, the maturing of technology over the years has addressed many of these concerns. Rich communication and collaboration capabilities – matched with convenience and cost savings – have dramatically shifted the equation in favor of telework.

The question is: What will it take to successfully implement, manage and secure robust networks and IT resources that will support the move to a virtual office environment?

 

One thing that’s clear is that teleworkers, full- and part-time home office workers, mobile contractors, and executives will expect the same rich array of network services – including data, voice, video and various applications – they could expect to access at a corporate office. 

But that won’t be enough. New telework solutions must also meet the requirements of IT. They must simplify the process of providing rich network services to remote locations.  Deployment and integration must be simple as well, making it easy to scale with the demands of the enterprise. Moreover, security must be uncompromising, ensuring traffic controls and identity management can be strictly enforced.

Finally, it’s critical to ensure the business objectives of the organization are addressed. Solutions must drive measurable productivity gains and cost reductions while facilitating greater agility.

Telework has been called a “quiet revolution,” but it’s clear it won’t remain quiet much longer.

Improve Customer Interactions with UC Plus Virtualization

Customers demand easy access to information—through self-service Web portals as well as from customer service representatives. Customer-focused organizations can improve customer interactions dramatically by integrating communications systems with customer information.  

Data center virtualization, in combination with unified communications systems, improves customer interactions, provides customer service agents with real-time access to up-to-date customer data, offers intuitive self-service options, and protects availability and security of valuable customer information.

Data center virtualization is the unified “back-end” for a Unified Communications platform. Virtualized data centers offer ubiquitous, always on access to critical customer information. The seamless integration of applications and data services within a virtualized IT infrastructure enhances any customer service or call center operation.

Take a look at 4 Advantages:

• Always On: Virtualized application services assure that customer service applications are always available to self-service customers or customer service agents. There is no need for expensive redundant data centers or failover operations, since the virtualized infrastructure is inherently redundant.


• Up-to-Date: Virtualized data services assure that customer information is always up-to-date and in sync regardless of access methods (e.g., web or CRM) or application instance.  Customers and service agents enjoy real-time customer information from any access point.


• Ubiquitous response:  Whether a customer is signing in from New Delhi or New York, virtualization enables them to be routed to the most efficient resource to meet their information needs.  Call-center agents are also routed to the most efficient processor within the virtualized infrastructure assuring optimum performance and response times regardless of locale or current application/information workloads.


• Reduced Cost: The cost of providing customer information application services is dramatically reduced, thanks to a reduction in CapEx and OpEx  costs  associated with the procurement, appointment and ongoing management of a virtualized IT infrastructure.

When combined with a Unified Communications platform, data center virtualization empowers customer call centers or self-service customer applications to deliver the information needed quickly, reliably and in real time, wherever it’s required.

Hands-on Use of UC Improves Customer Experience

You’ve heard us talk about the value of Unified Communications. It’s one thing for a systems integrator to tell you what’s possible and roll through statistics about customer achievements. It’s entirely another for a vendor to show you how they use it, what they’ve achieved and allow you to put “hands on” their system to see how it works for yourself.

There’s been a lot of interest in unified communications, a similar amount of confusion and some doubts as to what collaboration actually enables companies to achieve. Some people are under the misconception that unified communications is only for mid-to-large companies. We’d like to dispel that myth by sharing the real-world business results our 46-person office has achieved in short order.

Cisco recently featured boice.net in a success story to underscore the benefits our team has experienced from “walking our talk.” Take a look at a few examples of what’s possible for your company:

• Increased productivity. Scott Klink, data center architect, reports that the ability to identify available staff and get instant answers while designing a project has increased his personal productivity by 50%--plus he gets those designs to customers faster, speeding project implementations.


• Lower costs of sales/service. Keith Grieshaber, vice president of technology, says that because customers can dial one number to reach him anywhere, at any time, he’s able to service customers on demand. He can also get them the answers they need more quickly through using presence to locate and connect with the right resources, as needed.


• Better service. With the ability to forward voice mail, customer service reps and other staff can hear the urgency in the customer’s voice when an issue arises. Hearing the message directly, rather than as a request from the office, makes a huge impact on delivering the appropriate response to improve customer satisfaction.

These are only a few of the achievements we’ve seen within our company.

Download the success story [PDF] to learn more about how we reduced sales cycles by 50% and achieved 100% user adoption based on the ability for our employees to better manage the blurring of work and their personal lives.

Then, ask yourself this: Wouldn’t you prefer to buy from a vendor that has hands-on experience with getting stellar results by using the products and solutions they’re selling? Not to mention that, in this case, the solution will also be used in the provision of services to satisfy your company’s needs.

Social Media Paves the Way for Unified Communications

The communication landscape has dramatically changed with the widespread use of devices such as smart phones and iPads. Do you remember what it was like saying ‘I’m sorry I missed your call, I wasn’t home’? In the new normal that excuse doesn’t stand. Most people have cell phones and the caller may have a myriad of other options to contact you—including email, instant messaging, alternative phone numbers, etc. Add the adoption of social media to the equation and you’ll see how the way we think about communication, maintaining relationships, time and mobility has changed.

Social media has become an integrated part of daily life for many of us. We can see at anytime what our friends and colleagues are doing, check their whereabouts and have chat sessions via a webcam with people around the world we’ve never met in person.  During the infant phase some may have questioned the purpose and value of social media; who would waste their time on this? The reality, after six years, is that Facebook has 400 million active users, of which 50% log on every day! In March 2010, Facebook surpassed Google in traffic numbers for the first time in history (Nielson).

The benefits of this new communication culture reach far beyond the casual chats now available in our personal lives. The adoption of unified communication at work will be easier for people who are familiar with social media. Unified communications is based on the same concepts.

Take a look at some of the similarities between Social Media and Unified Communications:

Presence is similar to updating your status on Gchat, checking into Foursquare to let people know your current location and knowing which friends are available to chat on Facebook. Updating your status will let others know what response time they can expect from you and the way in which they prefer to be contacted at that time.

Presence can be tied to an individual, but also to a certain role within the company. Say a client has an urgent question for the sales department; instead of trying to call several people the client gets routed to a sales rep marked as available.

Instant Messaging with colleagues is similar to using Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and Facebook live chat. Because we know how to use those applications, adopting it in a business context is simplified.

Many companies have employees, partners and clients all over the country, as well as abroad. Using instant messaging allows for faster file sharing, real-time feedback and a more personal connection between parties.

Video conferencing is similar to using Gchat or Skype to talk to family and friends. Using video conferencing for customer and project team meetings brings virtual workgroups closer by sharing files via workspaces, videoconferencing puts faces to voices and live-streaming company trainings helps to keep all employees up to speed, regardless of location.

Streamlining business complexities through unified communication provides many benefits to businesses including shortening response time lines and making information available for employees whenever, wherever.

Connecting through internal messaging systems can result in faster service to clients and more effective collaboration toward the achievement of business objectives. Using (video) conference calls for direct collaboration between co-workers and clients that are not physically on the same site saves money, shortens time to decisions and reduces the human latency incurred by having your best executives on the road.

The use of social media has fostered the on-the-go mentality and mobility life-style. Social media users are no strangers to concepts such as presence, instant messaging and videoconferencing. Businesses can capitalize on this new skill set people have acquired through social media adoption when introducing unified communication to the enterprise.

Thanks to Nicolle van Rouwendaal, from our partner WebMedley, for working with us to create today's blog post. If you'd like to see samples of the UC work we've done with our customers, you'll find examples here.

The Coming Revolution in Interactions

A convergence of technologies is set to increase our capacity to interact by a factor of between two and five in the near future. This enhanced interactive capacity will create new ways to configure businesses, organize companies, and serve customers, and have profound effects on the structure, strategy, and competitive dynamics of industries.       -- McKinsey & Co.

Organizations have spent a considerable amount of time and money over the last decade focused on improving efficiencies, streamlining operations and driving out costs associated with manual processes. The question is whether all this automation has fully prepared our enterprises for the growing demands and expectations of today’s customers. 

IT organizations have delivered tremendous results. But the bar continues to reach new levels. It’s no longer enough to be efficient as lone enterprises. We are now moving into an era in which our ability to compete and perform revolves around our ability to effectively manage interactions across organizational and geographical boundaries

Globalization, specialization and technological change have made interactions increasingly pervasive in modern economies. Indeed, it’s estimated by McKinsey that 80% of all employment in the United States now involves participation in interactions as opposed to the extraction of raw materials or the production of finished goods.

Research indicates that sectors hiring in today’s difficult economy are seeking employees who tend to be engaged in complex interactions – ones who must exercise a high level of judgment and most likely are actively collaborating in teams.  “[T]he most complex type of interactions — those requiring employees to analyze information, grapple with ambiguity, and solve problems — make up the fastest-growing segment,” according to the firm.

Beyond the efficiencies associated with intra-enterprise automation, it’s now time to seize the opportunities associated with inter-enterprise collaboration and interaction. Collaboration technology will play a critical role in enhancing the quality and speed of analysis, decisions and actions. It will make it easier for individuals to engage in complex interactions to produce results.

As McKinsey puts it, “The use of technology to complement and enhance what talented decision makers do rather than to replace them calls for a very different kind of thinking about the organizational structures that best facilitate their work, the mix of skills companies need, hiring and developing talent, and the way technology supports high-value labor. Technology and organizational strategies are inextricably conjoined in this new world of performance improvement.”

Conferencing and Collaboration: 5 Examples of Business Impact

Companies are seeking to provide better service, reach new geographies, and develop new products at the same time they seek cost savings. Here are some examples of how online meeting and collaboration tools can meet the challenge:

1. Sales teams use web presentations during conferencing to better qualify leads before spending the time and resources to visit new clients.


2. Trainers increase reach and quality of training by changing the focus from arranging schedules and travel plans for a series of on-site classes to creating learning modules that can be accessed on demand and re-used.


3. HR departments help attract and retain talent through remote interview sessions, accessible training modules that help employees get on board quickly, and by providing a variety of opportunities and modes for feedback.


4. Engineers working from several different locations can’t meet their deadline if they take time out to travel to a joint meeting location. Collaboration services enable them to have ad hoc meetings in unified workspaces when they need to fix a design flaw and to provide regular updates during development.


5. IT departments deploy services more quickly, can re-use training information due to ease of updating, and can maintain a stable, secure environment using a Web-based server that doesn’t require additional software or knowledge by the user.

Many of these initiatives are successful because they remove restrictions of location and time. But they also work because they allow professionals to take their focus away from things like physical logistics and focus on core tasks.

Communication is the New Killer App

Communication technology can be a game-changing differentiator for companies. What makes this so is the way communications technology is applied to improve the techniques for exchanging information that drives business results. Rather than selecting technology first, companies must determine which capabilities are needed to improve business transactions and then apply technology as a means to deliver those abilities.

Some examples include:

• If your leaders are road warriors who need to connect into conference calls via their smart phones, making sure your video conferencing platform enables mobile connectivity should be on your list.


• When speeding time to market for new products is hindered by distributed teams, providing the capability of a unified workspace for project collaboration over changes to product design in real time will deliver a quantifiable return on investment—despite different locations or time zones.


• When customers ask your service reps for technical information beyond their expertise level, presence enables the rep access to a specialist to get the information needed to facilitate higher first-call resolution—not to mention increased satisfaction.

Once you’ve established your communications capability needs and backed that list into functionality requirements, you’ll want to seek some expertise to help you determine whether on premise, or off is the best choice. Phasing in the changes incrementally can also aid in driving user adoption by focusing on the people with the most need for the capabilities.

Additionally, the functionality should be implemented to work together, not as siloed tools. It’s also just as important to ensure that you’re prepared to evolve in parallel with the technologies, because they certainly will evolve—likely faster than you think.

Integrating communications capabilities with business applications and processes is what puts the “killer” in their application to achieve business objectives.