Unified Communications - Where's the killer App?

UC is one of those fuzzy buzz-phrases, but it’s slowly becoming a tangible reality. iStart looks at what it is, what it does, and where to find the ROI. By Johanna Bennett

Unified Communications is a slippery concept, because it’s actually a collection of technologies and applications. So, despite the lack of a simple “killer app”, it does deliver. It’s just that its value lies in the detail, which together offer an increasingly compelling communications suite.

However, make no mistake, such systems are worth investing in because they aid productivity and can boost customer service considerably.

While unified communications in most businesses remains something of a buzz-phrase, integrated packages are now available that deliver the end-to-end UC solution that can link up desktop and mobile phone calls, and messages, as well as send voicemails as emails. Then there’s instant messaging, desktop video- and webconferencing, with useful extras on the side. These can include, for example, a Q&A chat session running down the side of the screen, where webconference attendees can type in questions and comments, making the conference much more interactive and useful.

Fundamentally, UC is about being able to easily transition between voice calls, instant messages and video- and web-conferencing. It’s about merging these disparate modes of communications into one, hopefully, seamless service. The aim is to do away with the juggling of multiple devices, telephone numbers, messages and calls, which leads to missing crucial calls and messages; telephone tag being eliminated through ‘presence’ – the digital “Where I can be contacted right now” sign-post (see section below).

Cheaper UC
UC solutions are moving down the food chain, with cheaper but still very functional systems becoming available to smaller companies, especially when it comes to videoconferencing. In addition, both hard and soft ROI benefits can become evident quite quickly. For example, Canon’s video-conferencing specialist, Dave Gee, says one of the company’s largest clients wanted an international VC system to trim its huge travel bill.

“They walked into our Singapore office and said: ‘We spend US$110 million a year on travel, how much is videoconferencing going to cost?’ We said: ‘$1 million, and up and running in a month.’ A month after that it was fully paid up. Over time, it has cut 50 percent off their travel bill.”

Canon resells and implements the popular Tandberg videoconferencing system.

Solutions for smaller users are also appearing. They also promise the soft, but not to be sniffed at, ROI benefit of increased productivity. Agile, which resells and integrates the Avaya UC suite, has integrated Microsoft’s CRM software for small enterprises with Avaya’s SME IP platform.

Agile says this gives a 20-30 person organisation a professional sheen, with “click to call” integration into CRM also making for huge productivity gains.

Other useful aspects of this integration of the phone system with software include being able to launch a call from your computer by, say, clicking on a contact in Outlook.

Systems like Cisco’s UC500 system for small business make these deceptively simple processes possible. For example, a shop fit-out company recently installed just such a system. The result: the convergence of telephony and computing, along with the introduction of smartphones, meant a new auto-attendant function could route calls to the right person, transforming the company’s efficiency. And the payback? A 75 percent cut in admin costs.

Presence is everything
While unified communications has been defined as more of an approach than a single technology – it’s several integrated technologies together – one of its key aspects, and benefits, is ‘presence’. This is the ability for others to see, often via Microsoft Outlook, whether you’re available or not – whether you are at your desk, on the phone or unavailable, because you’re in a meeting. Companies can realise an ROI through presence alone, by the elimination of futile calls.

Staff collaboration is also encouraged, because people know that time invested in preparing for and making a phone call will be rewarded with an actual conversation.

A simple example of ‘presence’ is Google Talk, with its ‘available’, ‘idle’ and ‘offline’ buttons that lets users know if the people on their ‘talk’ or ‘buddy’ list are available for IM chat (instant messaging) – or, indeed, a call – or not.

Buttons can also be customised to include, for example, ones that say ‘busy’ or ‘back in an hour’. This really sums up ‘presence’: the ability to check if someone is available before you call them. Not surprisingly, it is a major UC selling point.

Agile marketing manager Simon Nicholson sees presence as being the compelling aspect of unified communications.

Nicholson sees the ability that Avaya gives the user to see the ‘presence’ of every person party to a particular email as being particularly useful.

One example of this in use is in contact centres, where, say, you call the local council and the contact centre agent at the other end of the phone can click on which building inspector is at his desk, for example. This does away with the endless waiting and telephone tag games that are so often a feature of these interactions.

“There’s nothing worse than when you ring a contact centre being told, ‘I’m putting you through’, and all you get is voicemail and they never call you back. If you are a contact centre manager one of the key things is ‘resolution at first call’, so this is a great way of improving this and improving customer satisfaction,” says Nicholson.

Presence also allows for more flexible work, as it can allow staff to work from home and still be accessible. It really comes into its own when staff are travelling, says Nicholson.

“If you’re going to a conference, you can do some work out of the hotel. Say, you’re overseas and it’s 7am where you are and 9am at home, you can get some work done because the guys are in the office there. You can see who is online, do your emails, make some calls; then you’re off to the conference.

It makes it easy.”

The link-up with smartphones also helps as it allows you have just one phone number and provides for dual ringing, says Nicholson. Should a customer call while you’re away from your desk, your mobile will ring at the same time, so you can take that call. Presence information can also now be viewed on smartphones.

“This means you can see who’s available in the office. If you need to call ‘Derek’, you know he’s at his desk, so it’s going to be worthwhile, because it won’t go straight to voicemail.”

Another neat little aspect of UC-on-the-mobile, which is becoming an increasingly important element of UC systems, is the ability to hit the on-screen call button when reading an email on your smartphone to call that person back, rather than having to dial the number.

This one-touch dialling, where you just click on an icon, is a useful aspect of UC on the desktop too.

For example, Canon’s Dave Gee talks about the value of being able to integrate Tandberg’s VC system with Microsoft’s Outlook and IBM’s LotusNotes, and use the calendars embedded in these to launch voice and video calls without having to dial them – of course that assumes that everyone will be on time for the meeting – some people might struggle with this.

Microsoft’s Anne Taylor, who as well as being responsible for Microsoft’s UC suite Office Communicator is a keen user of it, says that when using the instant messenger part of Communicator, she can convert an IM conversation into a phone call with a quick click, without dialing. Another neat little productivity aid.

Agile’s Nicholson thinks quick conference set-up, which is enabled by integrating Avaya into Microsoft Outlook, is a boon. “You just click the ‘create audio conference’ icon, select who you want to invite and an email inviting them is automatically sent out – so much easier than booking a room; you can do the same with a web conference.”

ROI: Hard & soft
Return on investment for unified communications comes in two forms: hard and soft. Perhaps the easiest ROI to track is the use of video-conferencing to replace air travel, as organisations seek to cut costs. Canon’s Gee says both companies and government are focused on this now. The million-dollar VC unit to halve the travel costs of a major company mentioned above is one example here.

But Gee also cites another, in NZ, customer with six staff apiece in Wellington and Auckland, which found it cheaper to install an internet-connected VC system costing $20,000 a-piece plus $500 month for support, which allows them to make unlimited calls.

He also cites the example of a company that sells tankerloads of peroxide into Australia and whose sales operation is “a sales lady in Melbourne who has a VC system connected up to her broadband connection at home and VCs back to the MD and sales director in Morrinsville.”

Gee’s personal dream is an SME VC system and he thinks we are slowly getting there as the cheapest VC system is now around $3,000.

Agile’s Simon Nicholson is more focused on enterprisesized companies. He thinks the soft ROI benefits around productivity that UC can provide are very important.

The biggest cost saving will be for those switching from a hosted to an in-house UC system, he says. “One of our customers achieved payback in just three months by integrating Avaya very, very well with Outlook; in particular, by using it to do away with two sets of numbers for staff, as well as being able to schedule conference calls easily.”

He emphasises savings in staff time and office space as being big ROI benefits. “Probably a person’s time is the most compelling thing now… it also opens up opportunities for hot-desking, as people can work from home more often.

“We find that UC definitely increases people’s productivity. Previously people were uncontactable when they were away or at home, and quite isolated too, but now you can do business with them; being online makes you a lot more productive,” says Nicholson.

For more information

Want to read more on Unified Communications? Check out this article - Sixteen Million calls a day and counting...

OR...Check out the Unified Communications Research Pavilion for exhibits, case studies, white papers and downloads from a range of Australia's leading UC vendors.