Transcript for Unified Communications Best Practices

Blair Pleasant: Hi everybody, this Blair Pleasant with UCStrategies and I am going to be kicking off today’s podcast with the UCStrategies experts. Today, we wanted to talk about the “Best Practices” that we recommend for enterprises developing their Unified Communications strategy, or those who are deploying and implementing UC in their organizations. So, each of the UCStrategies experts on the call today is going to discuss one or two best practices that they want to highlight and then we would like to hear from our readers and listeners to let us know which best practices you would like us to drill down into and spend more time discussing in future podcasts or articles. So, please let us know which ones you would like to hear more about.

I would like to start by talking about end-user training. To me, that’s really one of the most important things that really doesn’t get discussed and covered as much as I think it should. It is really important to provide the training tools so that the end users can take full advantage of what Unified Communications has to offer. Users really need the time to learn how to optimize the technology and how it can enhance their job functions and make them more productive. And even though a lot of these features and capabilities that UC provides are pretty intuitive and a lot of users can pick it up right away, there are things that will take a little bit more time and require a little bit more training. Also, there are a lot of capabilities and functions that UC provides and sometimes it can overwhelm users. So, one best practice is to provide initial training on some of the basic functionality and then do follow-up training on some of the additional capabilities. Otherwise, what ends up happening is that people use just one or two features and functions that they are most comfortable with, and they really don’t take advantage of and remember to use some of the others. So, initial training is important and then follow-up training is also important.

What a lot of companies do, is for the initial training—they may do it in person, if at all possible in a classroom-type setting and then the follow-up training will be more online, so that it can be available when the users are ready for it. Marty would you like to go next and talk about some of the best practices you see out there?

Marty Parker: Sure, Blair. Thank you very much for those three points about training. It's really important to get the value as you point out. The thing I would like to talk about, from a best practice, is right in the name of our team here: UCStrategies. Create a strategy...create a plan. Our consulting firm, UniComm Consulting has assisted in dozens of mid-size and very large enterprises in successfully formulating their Unified Communications strategies and converting those strategies into affordable, step-by-step roadmaps and implementation plans and budgets. And in almost every case, our clients have found new insights into the way that communications is used in their business processes and have then been able to select and apply just the right sequence of UC technologies to make a significant difference in their business operations. So, in almost all cases these roadmaps have been self-funding, based either on reductions in out-of-pocket costs or on improvements in the business outcomes, or both. In about half the cases, our clients also realized that they did not have to make a wholesale conversion of their PBX or their email platform in order to begin implementation of their UC roadmaps. They could start with the infrastructure they own.

Now this methodology was first presented and is still available as a two-day workshop, which I started delivering in 2006. It's a nine-step process, with forms and exercises, and the group explores the enterprise’s value change, to identify the communication-intensive processes, then digs into those processes to find the communication hotspots. Now, these hotspots are the places where things aren’t working very well and are examined to determine which ones can be eliminated or mitigated with these new UC technologies. From that you can define the new use cases—which are used for user training, Blair—specifying the new UC Solutions for the various groups of employees or partners or even external clients who participate in the relevant processes. These are then prioritized in sequence into a logical and affordable multi-year strategy, a roadmap, an implementation plan, and a budget. A lot of detail about this is posted on UCStrategies.com in the UC Resources section. I posted an article about this on the weekend (The UniComm Consulting Methodology for Successful UC Strategy and Planning), with a bunch of links to those resources. So, my answer is get a strategy...get a plan...build a roadmap and have a budget. I think Don wants to make some comments about how that works.

Don Van Doren: Thanks very much, Marty. Actually, I would like to focus a little bit about what happens if you don’t follow the recommendation that Marty and I have in UniComm Consulting. I think that the process that Marty just outlined is the one that we’ve seen to be most successful. And yet, we are fully aware of the fact that lots and lots of businesses are putting in UC capabilities, without going through those kinds of steps to really identify where the hotspots are, and where the communications opportunities are to embed UC capabilities within business processes. So what next – what happens if that’s the situation that you are in – that you already have a system in place, you have really been focusing on just individual communications being more effective. For example: letting people see somebody’s presence on a buddy list, or hovering over their name and clicking to communicate, or escalating an IM to a phone call to a web session or maybe setting up conference calls. Those kinds of things are great and they are often very significant in terms of improving what an individual can do. However, they often miss a lot of the real business process opportunities that Marty was talking about.

So, the question is...how do we get to those if you’ve already gone ahead and put these in place? Our suggestion is that if you just put in UC that way, and maybe part of a switch upgrade or a change in desktop capabilities, then take advantage now of the productivity benefit that people are getting and also use that as a way that people can get familiar with how some of these tools can work. But what’s really important is don’t stop there; rather, put in place some activities to proactively look for communication hotspots that can really signal opportunities for bottom line impact—the kind of approach that Marty was talking about. I think the way that we’ve seen to do this is after that familiarization step, go ahead and create some teams. These are usually not in IT, but often come out of the business units. People like business analysts or process analysts or business architects. People like that whose job it is often as part of their IT work to go out to the businesses and understand how tools and technology can be better used to get some of these capabilities in place. Work with those people and show them how to do the kinds of steps that Marty was alluding to.

Next, figure out how to capture and publicize successes throughout the organization. There are lots of innovative ways to use UC capabilities and I am sure we are going to hear more about them on this call. But, who knows, maybe even set up some contests to identify the biggest bottom line impact from integrating communications directly into business processes.

And finally, the other suggestion that I would make along these same lines is identify those people in each department or work group that sort of love the gadgets. You know, every department and team seems to have these kinds of people. Identify who they are, train them on the concepts of embedding UC within the processes so that they can start seeing opportunities within their own organizations. Pretty soon, they become the go-to evangelists in each group and will help answer questions that others have and really help identify what some of these new application opportunities can be.

So that’s just one of my suggestions. Maybe later I will come back with some others, if we have some time at the end. In the meantime, David Yedwab, what do you have to say about this one?

David Yedwab: Thanks Don, and I think yours and Marty’s summaries are sort of a great lead-in for mine. My idea is, where should we start? And I believe where we should start is in the vertical processes, the business processes that are germane to what it is that differentiates our business from all other businesses. What is it in our industry that’s critical and how can we go about improving those critical processes? If we are a drug manufacturer, how can we shorten the time? How can we use UC to shorten the time to get a new drug available to the public? If we are in government, how can we provide better services to our clientele, or specifically in the emergency response sides of government, how can we communicate across multiple devices, multiple responders, multiple issues?

Again, the important thing is to understand what makes your industry different from all other industries. What makes your business different from your competitor’s and where can we find advantage? And once we figure out where to find that advantage, engage with the business owners, engage with the process owners and map out a strategy to test some of the ideas, pilot some of the ideas, and see where we can really get results to make our hotel chain the most profitable hotel chain in the industry. Or to make our insurance company the highest return-on-investment of any insurance company that we’re competing with. Again, what are the key vertical issues that set us apart from everybody else that can really make a difference in our business. Because that’s really what we’re focusing on, not how do we make life easier for everybody, but how do we improve our business which is unique from the other businesses across all industries. And with that I will turn it over to Steve Leaden.

Steve Leaden: Thanks David. I have just two talking points, but to preface it the one thing that we’re definitely seeing in the market is a total drop in price point per user, for UC, especially if you are bundling it with any kind of latest voiceover IP replacement for TDM systems or voiceover IP upgrade to an older kind of IP technology that is available either within the same manufacturer or to a new manufacturer. So, with the bundling of these new licenses that are going on where you can get UC bundled with maybe a contact center license or a basic user license, I think the idea of UC now becoming totally mainstream is definitely here. That’s what we’re seeing and it's very cost effective.

So with that, we are counseling all of our customers, especially when they are doing any kind of voiceover or IP deployment to treat – if they are buying UC, which all of our customers within the last twenty-four months have been purchasing Unified Communications – the IM Chat – the presence – the audio conferencing – the cellphones, etc....unified messaging... They are all buying it and I think the one big reason is to David’s exact point – is that they want to use it as a way to differentiate their company from others, without a doubt. So, the one thing that we are finding though, is that if the UC deployed as the part of a voiceover IP kind of replacement project then it really loses its sense of differentiation as a project and therefore just does not have the same impact.

So, my first recommendation would be make sure that UC is treated as a totally separate project. We can make it less of a – we call it a Phase II or Phase III depending upon how we are doing rollouts with our customers, and to really take a holistic look at UC as it is relative to your environment. So, in other words if you’re currently not using softphones as a way for sales people to work remotely from home or remotely from across the country, how can you leverage that as part of increasing productivity – again to David’s point just a minute ago – relative to how you can increase productivity across the enterprise. Then the other piece along that line would be as well, again, how do you manage or how can you measure effectively the amount of real estate that you have to rent, as an example within your organization, if you are going to allow for mobile workers and therefore you can reduce the amount of square feet that you need at corporate headquarters or a branch office, because again you have mobile work force working with you. So, we find we have a customer that has a full 15% of their workforce working from home/working remotely and then they share desktops when they get to the office. So again, this is this kind of a holistic look, if you will, as to how UC can effectively again to Marty’s and to Don’s and David’s point just now and Blair’s as well, relative to training – how do you take this holistic look at your organization and how can you leverage UC to again, make a dramatic change in how your organization works.

So, to that I will hand the microphone so to speak over to Jay, Jay?

Jay Brandstadter: Thank you, Steve. Let me continue on the notion of taking the holistic look at what’s going on and I would like to introduce for those who don’t know it, the subject of Enterprise Architecture, of which UC is a component. But there are other components as well. If you are not familiar with Enterprise Architecture let me read you a brief definition from in this case a federal agency that is involved with it. The agency I am talking about here happens to be NIH – The National Institute of Health and they define Enterprise Architecture as a comprehensive framework used to manage and align an organization’s IT assets, people, operations and projects, with the operational characteristics. In other words, the Enterprise Architecture defines how information and information technology will support the business operation and provide benefits for the business. It's not technical. What it does speak to is the organization’s or enterprise’s core mission, the criticality in performing that mission and how each of these components is interrelated. In other words, how can IT and IT these days, as we all know includes telecommunications in all of it's varied forms – how can that be aligned with the business at hand or the organizational goals in the case of a government agency?

Enterprise Architecture is real, it's a particularly important initiative within the government and needless to say DOD and others are heavily involved. In the commercial space it's also very much of an initiative for some larger organizations. What this means to UC is UC is an element of Enterprise Architecture. It's not an end-all – you don’t go directly to UC, but it's part of the mix that Enterprise Architecture and aligning IT with the business and the business processes will bring out.

With that let me turn it over to Andy.

Andy Zmolek: That’s Jay. In every case where I have seen UC either succeed or not succeed, it really comes down to boot strapping cultural change in an organization. And whether you’ve got a formal plan for it – whether you’re coming from IT – whether you are coming from the line business – it really comes down to how determined you are to see that cultural change happen. In many cases, if your organization is struggling with say adopting formal tools, part of what needs to happen is a grass roots evolution where you take advantage of some of the free services that are out there...whether you’re talking about things like Skype or free conferencing or web conferencing or some of the open instant messaging things that are out there. In order to get a cultural change started, you’ve got to boot strap your way into it. Now obviously, most organizations are at some point going to come to a realization that using these free services isn’t as good for the company, as having dedicated services that can protect key aspects of what needs to be protected inside of a company – your intellectual property, trade secrets, and what not. Obviously, I wouldn’t suggest that you start out in trying to boot strap something, by using your most sensitive internal conversations on open services. But when you are talking about a cultural change you need to start somewhere and you need to think about it in terms of a boot strapping problem. Whether you are inside IT and trying to show the business or whether you’re in a line of business and trying to show IT – it's a boot strap in either direction and you’ve got to be able take advantage of those things that are out there, even if you don’t have the resources to implement a formal program. Or if you do, then it's just a matter of boot strapping cultural change into the organization using the tools that you’ve got.

With that, let me hand it over to Pam.

Pam Avila: Thanks Andy. I am going to go back to Don and Marty’s comments early on when they are talking about basically using a strategy and a methodology. And I am going to suggest that it's important whether it's a large enterprise or a small enterprise that they take a careful look at the integrator or dealer or VAR that they are going to be working with on their UC strategy. The selection is very important. Staying with your additional dealer or VAR could work very well, but then again it may not be appropriate. So, what you need to be looking at is an integrator or a dealer or a VAR that will approach your relationship from the perspective of understanding your specific business needs, rather than technology overall. They also need to be willing to work with and be supported by that methodology that you’re developing or if you haven’t developed your own methodology...work with a methodology that they may already have in place. It's also important that that integrator have a relationship within their own community or a number of relationships to be able to provide best-of-breed solutions and a breadth of technical expertise to get the UC solutions actually implemented.

So, on that note, I am going to turn it over to Dave Michels, who is going to speak about the specifics of the integrators.

Dave Michels: Thank you Pam. Along those lines really what I am seeing is that the role of the solution provider or the system integrator is really getting much broader along with the role of unified communications. And they are the primary support contact and that’s a little different than what we are used to. We are so used to buying a PBX for example and once we have the system implemented and working, when there’s issues and upgrades and what not, it's often common to work directly with the manufacturer. But the problem with that model is that the solution is much more broad and requires a support mechanism that you can’t get from the manufacturer. The kind of examples that I have been running into seems like SIP...there is a lot of variation in the way SIP is implemented and it can be anything from sending a caller ID that is not part of that carrier block, which some carriers don’t allow, to resolving noise issues, etc., etc. You can’t contact the manufacturer of the phone switch for that kind of support. This past week I have been running into an issue with video calling and URI dialing...URIs are like emails instead of phone numbers/addresses. The phone system in this case doesn’t actually support URI dialing, but the phones do. Well it's not working and is it the router, is it the phone, is it something that’s going on with the switches or the internet connection? These are things that you can’t call the phone manufacturer necessarily or the voice vendor. The quality-of-service issues, run through switches, VLANs, routers...throw in wireless and you have some other variables in there, the carriers themselves, and quality of service can become quite a project to tackle when there is problem. Cable and power are often--don’t the respect that they deserve until they break and are not working right. A lot of the POE solutions out there – the switches that are generally implemented don’t support POE on every port...well let me rephrase that. They support POE on every port, but not at the same time. That can be an interesting challenge sometimes as you deploy more and more POE and POE wireless devices and what not – 901 safety issues, software conflicts on the actual desktops. Lot’s of issues...and each vendor’s piece works fine, but the solution doesn’t, and that’s where you’ve really got to rely upon a good systems integrator and a broad skill set, which should be carefully evaluated at the get go. Thank you.

Blair Pleasant: Okay, great insights everybody. So, to our listeners and readers, please let us know what you’d us to drill down into and what you would like to hear more about in future podcasts or articles. We do want and encourage your feedback and input. And until next week, thanks everybody.