Enterprise convergence - Bringing next generation communications to life
21 Jun, 2007
Riding the wave of widespread uptake of IP technology at the backbone of business-critical networks, converged communications is fast establishing itself as a key issue on the boardroom agenda. Whereas last year largely saw companies investigating the business case, this year will see the decisions being made on how to best bring mobility and converged communications to life in the enterprise environment. With a visible impact across business processes and the all important ‘bottom line', organisations are new recognising the true pervasive impact of mobility and communications technology.
Executives worldwide are realising that, when talking of communications, it is no longer viable to differentiate between fixed-line and mobile, or even voice, data, broadcast or multimedia content. All kinds of services can now be delivered over a range of wireline and wireless networks, or even a patchwork of both with seamless handover enabling services always to be delivered in the most efficient, effective and economical way.
Business users are also increasingly influenced by communication innovation in their personal lives. People want to be able to decide the most convenient device for their current need and use. New, sophisticated mobile devices, laptops and converged services make people more willing to adopt mobile, always-on technologies, which benefits employers looking to extend office environments and leverage on mobility.
Conventional wisdom and traditional business models have found new definitions when dealing with mobility. This is compounded by the vast opportunities for IP-based technologies and a rampant phase of mergers, partnerships and consolidations in the telecoms industry that have further transformed the networking landscape and the innovations it has to offer. The most widely impacting of these innovations is the advancement of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC).
A user-centric approach to securing FMC success
By converging access across fixed, mobile and IP-based networks, users are able to select their choice of device for voice and data services, with voice, video, messaging and presence available in any single session. FMC makes all services available on any device from any location, with simple single identity reach. There is no need for users to adjust their habits, which is known to be a major hurdle for successful adoption of new technologies, or compromise on convenience.
With two-fifths of the UK's workforce now considered ‘mobile', employees are abandoning their desks and embracing a more nomadic way of working, connecting to voice and data networks everywhere from cafes and customer offices, to the comfort of their homes. Alongside this flexibility in working practices has come an increasing reliance on a wide range of devices as tools for communication.
However, despite proliferation of devices, users are essentially creatures of habit. They want a consistent look and feel across devices, along with seamless integration of enterprise applications and simple access to any services.
This evolution presents a challenge for enterprises. They want to get the most from their IT budgets and implement communications systems that will increase employee productivity, but they must also ensure that employees will actually use the technology. It is no good spending vast sums of money upgrading the network and deploying new mobile devices if employees won't use them.
Without a user-centric view, solutions will fail to gain user acceptance and enable true mobility. Studies have shown that users faced with the need to change behaviour to adopt a new device or service are highly likely to simply choose to live without it!
Cost control for communications spend
Communications costs - particularly mobile - are growing dramatically as a proportion of expenditure. Yet up to 80 per cent of enterprises do not know how much they spend in total on this aspect of their business operations.
According to research by Yankee Group, 40 per cent of today's enterprise telephony costs are attributed to mobile device usage - a figure that is set to rise with the persisting trend towards mobile and remote working. Even when within easy reach of a landline, many people pick up their mobile phone to make a call. Communications spend is soaring as a consequence and businesses increasingly need tools that help them to control costs and monitor usage. As with fixed and IP communications, businesses would benefit from centralised management tools that extend across all types of communication. But unlike fixed-line costs that are typically easy to track, mobile costs are generally not accurately known until the monthly phone bill arrives.
Without a firm handle on how much is being spent on mobile communications, companies lack visibility and control over in excess of two-thirds of their overall communications spend. If a similar lack of clarity existed in any other area of business expenditure, such as stock control or sales, the problem would have been prioritised and a solution quickly sought in today's operational and capital expenditure (OPEX and CAPEX) driven organisation. However, communications has so far slipped under the radar...until now.
FMC is more than integrating mobile phones with the PBX
Crossing industries, geographies, company size and culture, communication lies at the heart of every organisation. It dictates the means by which they are able to do business with customers, partners, suppliers and stakeholders, and even how workforces are able to (co-)operate.
Despite this influence at the very core of business life, few organisations can currently claim to have invested in an infrastructure designed to align communications with a set of defined business requirements - now and in the future. In most cases, organisations invested many years ago in networks that enable reliable voice communication and put little thought to it since. Having grown over the years, these networks are often now complicated and expensive to run. Some have extended towards voice over IP (VoIP) for a more sophisticated set of telephony services such as conferencing, transfers and call management. However only a very select group can boast an open standards-based and future-proof architecture that is strategically designed to support business processes and applications, and empower a truly mobile workforce. Open standards is a key enabling factor for moves to FMC, with the standardised Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology creating a simple and cost effective basis for compatibility across voice, video, messaging, other multimedia and business applications.
FMC requires more than just integrating mobile phones and devices with the existing PBX and, in reality, most existing communication systems are not prepared for this evolution. This can be for a number of reasons, whether because some requirements such as single identity simply cannot be achieved on existing technology, the platform is built on proprietary standards, development costs are prohibitively high, or management and configuration is too complex requiring changes in user behaviours.
However, these hurdles do not necessarily mean that the only option is to completely overhaul the existing communications infrastructure. New open standards solutions on the market can enable the benefits and opportunities of FMC for a wide range of businesses, using existing systems and without requiring forklift replacement of expensive PBX architectures.
Businesses need to face this challenge head on and reinvigorate the communications network to reinvent the enterprise around both mobility and enhanced user experience. A range of mobile technologies already exist in both work and personal life, and are delivering massive benefits to people and organisations worldwide. Without embracing and gaining control over the full remit of communications and expenditure on this aspect of the business - including mobile devices - enterprises will lose control over a significant and rising proportion of their operational costs. Falling behind in communications advances and failing to embrace FMC will leave businesses lagging behind in the future, just as if they had never replaced typewriters with computers within a modern office environment.
Reinventing the enterprise through converged communications
The path to adoption of mobile convergence stems from accommodating and building on existing user habits and needs when creating a common, open and secure architecture for all communication across the enterprise.
However, businesses striving for this level of convergence by extending the existing architecture to meet and integrate mobile services are also facing more fundamental infrastructure challenges. The limitations of managing networks, together with complex requirements for integration of multiple addresses and proprietary solutions into a centrally managed system, makes for a challenge that may seem insurmountable. It leaves many organisations struggling to progress with a difficult and costly migration to converged business communications.
Reinventing the existing systems infrastructure with new software-based technologies and business models, rather than replacing entire network architectures, provides a viable solution for achieving FMC. Integrating mobility at the core of the network enables organisations to gain control of communications, measure costs and truly empower the workforce with access to centralised applications and services at any time, through any device, wherever they are. It is proven to be a very worthwhile investment and one of increasing importance as businesses build their future around effective communication leveraging the new ‘virtual mobile workforce'.
To achieve true FMC, businesses must take this fresh approach on communications. By viewing technology as the enabler, not necessarily the solution, businesses can integrate with existing systems to achieve increased flexibility, centralised management and complete cost control. Most importantly, the user is at the heart of this evolution. Delivering these benefits, communications convergence can reinvent the enterprise, providing fast return on investment, with reduced cost of ownership up to 30 percent and up to 50 percent calling cost savings, and enabling companies to embrace mobility at its very core.
Lars-Michaël Paqvalén, CEO and co-founder of Telepo
For general enquiries: info@telepo.com