50 Years of Growth, Innovation and Leadership
Demystifying Unified Communications:
Best Practices for Maximum ROI
A Frost & Sullivan
White Paper
www.frost.com
Frost & Sullivan
Demystifying UC .............................................................................................
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UC is a Migration ............................................................................................
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Operational Efficiencies .................................................................................
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Business Enhancement and User Productivity ................................................
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Conclusion .......................................................................................................
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CONTENTS
Demystifying Unified Communications: Best Practices for Maximum ROI
DEMYSTIFYING UC
In the past five years there has been a tremendous amount of marketing buzz
around the concept of unified communications (UC). Most enterprise
communications solution and service providers have added their own spin to the
concept, adding to the noise in the market. As a result, many business decisionmakers and end-users are understandably confused about what UC is.
Put simply, UC is about integration: The objective of UC is to make it
easier for users to communicate from wherever needed, by the most
appropriate communications channel on any device, and aided by
contextual access to information.
UC is concerned with integration of communications software (voice, video and textbased) that can be accessed from a common interface or end point, and the integration
of communications applications with productivity and business software (e.g., desktop
office, e-mail, calendar, CRM, back office systems, etc.) to provide seamless access to
information and communications services from a common environment.
Comprehensive, fully integrated UC solutions must integrate the following capabilities:
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PC-based presence (online or offline);
telephony presence (on the phone or available for a call);
point-to-point voice calling and PBX call handling;
chat (i.e., instant messaging);
audio conferencing;
Web collaboration (application, file, and desktop sharing);
PC-based video;
find-me/follow-me capabilities (for call routing); and
unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail and fax).
UC solutions may optionally include: mobile clients; APIs for integration with other
applications; social networking capabilities; wikis/blogs; integration with room-based
video conferencing; contact center functionality; GPS or other location information;
and integration with business software (CRM, ERP, e-mail, calendar, desktop office).
UC IS A MIGRATION
Comprehensive UC solutions that incorporate all the foundational elements in the
UC stack are available from only a few major vendors. Widespread adoption is
constrained by the overall cost, complexity and the relatively small pool of users
that would absolutely require access to the full range of integrated voice, video and
rich text-based communications capabilities.
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It is common for customers to selectively implement functionality for specific
projects, job tasks or lines of business. Compared to a wholesale rollout of
comprehensive UC solutions, staged UC deployments can be more budget friendly,
help mitigate risk, and allow businesses to adjust their strategies and priorities
along the migration path. These characteristics make staged UC solutions more
prevalent today and will make them increasingly popular in the future.
A staged UC solution can either be purchased as a single-vendor stack of
components or as integrated components from vendors providing the best-ofbreed solution or the best fit to your organization’s particular needs. Most singlevendor stacks will have to be purchased and rolled out in a single deployment
exercise, increasing the complexity and disruption of implementing UC. The trade
off for a best-of-breed solution is that the pieces must easily and effectively
integrate tools, communications, and access points.
Without extraneous features and associated costs, staged UC solutions can provide
a wealth of integrated capabilities that effectively satisfy diverse user environments,
needs and preferences. For example, desktop access to unified messaging or
multimedia conferencing may be a priority for knowledge workers, yet the call
control platform supporting these applications may deliver only basic telephony and
voicemail features to other users in the same company.
The move to unified communications is an evolutionary transition for most
businesses. Customers typically embark on their UC journeys from either a
telephony-centric or IT-centric perspective. Either approach can leverage existing
vendor relationships, expertise and technology investments. For example, customers
may choose to use their existing PBX or e-mail platform as the anchor point with
which additional applications—such as IM/presence and conferencing—are
integrated according to their priorities and timelines. A phased, modular approach to
building UC solutions can eventually lead to full-blown, comprehensive UC
implementations that incorporate all of the elements in the UC applications stack.
OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES
Of the many value propositions for UC, the operational efficiencies it enables often
show the clearest ROI. Using a single network infrastructure for IP telephony,
conferencing and IM/presence offers inherent TCO benefits over separate,
dedicated voice and data infrastructure.
In many aspects, hosted services (often referred to as cloud services) are proving
to give businesses even greater operational efficiencies than Customer Premise
Equipment (CPE) UC solutions:
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Demystifying Unified Communications: Best Practices for Maximum ROI
• Hosted services allow businesses to outsource the complexity and expertise
needed to support sophisticated UC applications. Hosted options can provide
customers a path to UC without having to train or hire staff to support it.
• Hosted solutions greatly reduce the upfront investment needed to implement
UC, thereby mitigating risk.
• Hosted solutions reduce a customer’s facilities requirements (e.g., real estate,
power and insurance). These benefits are exemplified when redundancy
requirements are factored in.
• Rollout is faster, less expensive and less disruptive. Available APIs on standardsbased hosted platforms reduce the time and cost required for integration with
customer-owned components.
• Service costs are recurring and predictable. Customers do not have to account
for unexpected charges associated with maintenance fees or upgrades.
• Hosted services provide the flexible scalability to cost-effectively accommodate
seasonal or abrupt swings in usage.
BUSINESS ENHANCEMENT AND USER PRODUCTIVITY
Accelerate Decision-Making. UC features such as presence, instant messaging,
advanced mobility, multimedia conferencing, and personal call routing make it
easier for users to reach one another and share information, thereby reducing
latency and accelerating decision-making and business processes. The more
efficient and streamlined workflows can improve business agility, time-to-market,
accuracy and customer satisfaction.
Increase Individual Efficiency. UC improves user productivity by making
various communications tools more accessible and intuitive to use. UC enables
users to access several modes of communication from a unified client. From an
integrated directory that is accessed from a unified client, users can intuitively
launch voice, video or text-based communications sessions. Time savings for
individual users may not be impressive, but when employed across a large group, the
savings can accumulate—in some cases reaching the equivalent of several full-time
employee days per month.
But it is contextual communications that truly foster user productivity by
connecting users to relevant information and people at the right time. The ability to
prioritize interactions through rules-based call routing, to share content in real
time, and to access communications capabilities while working in business software
such as CRM lets users work smarter and be more productive.
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Effective from Any Location. User-centric UC solutions can provide access to a
consistent set of features from a range of devices. Making conferencing, telephony,
messaging and other UC applications available from a selection of devices can untether users from fixed locations. Users can go where they are needed and remain
fully connected to colleagues, customers and partners. Companies supporting
virtual workers are ideally positioned to attract and retain top talent, reduce travel
and real estate expenses, and remain less vulnerable to the negative impact of
political, social and environmental events.
What Customers Should Look for in UC Solutions
• IT managers should focus on the potential benefits that integrated
solutions can deliver.
• Businesses should embrace solutions that leverage existing technology
investments and expertise, and allow migration to UC at their own pace.
• Companies should select applications from the UC stack that can show
a clear ROI. For example, VoIP and unified conferencing are proven to
help rein in operational costs.
• Decision-makers should demand UC technologies that are based on open
standards to help future-proof their investments, protect against vendor
lock-in and expand customization opportunities for competitive advantage.
• Buyers should investigate hosted services as means to outsource complexity,
reduce capital expenses and mitigate the risks involved with ownership.
CONCLUSION
UC is capable of improving the way organizations do business, but positive results
require making the right choices for operations and for users. Attaining significant
ROI for most businesses means implementing solutions that reduce expenses such
as travel or training, or address specific business pain points such as information
sharing and collaboration with branch or remote office staff. To be successful, UC
solutions need to be implemented in a staged approach, with priority given to
applications that have the clearest ROI. For most businesses, realizing a reasonable
ROI becomes more realistic when they select solutions that protect and leverage
existing technology investments without increasing support cost or complexity. It is
becoming common that this is more effectively accomplished with well-integrated,
best-of-breed solutions than monolithic stacks of applications from a single vendor.
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