Navigating the Journey to Unified Communications:

Transcription

1 Navigating the Journey to Unified Communications: Key Considerations for Transitioning to Cloud UC A Frost & Sullivan White Paper Michael Brandenburg, Industry Analyst Unified Communications & Collaboration

2 frost.com Introduction... 3 Treating Unified Communications as a Journey... 4 The Solution: Comprehensive Services for the UC Journey... 4 Conclusions... 6 contents

3 Navigating the Journey to Unified Communications: Key Considerations for Transitioning to Cloud UC INTRODUCTION Unified communications (UC) consist of a broad applications and services tool set that facilitates more effective internal and external business communications and collaboration. From simple voice calling to highly interactive multimedia conferencing, UC tools accelerate decision making, improve collaboration, and enhance business user productivity. Yet, many telephony and UC solutions businesses have in place today were not deployed as a single cohesive communications architecture, but instead as a patchwork of disparate products and services loosely integrated together. Furthermore, there is a significant installed base of legacy PBXs at the end of their effective lifecycles that is preventing many businesses from migrating to more advanced next-generation communications solutions. An effective cloud UC service provider can help businesses change this scenario from a problem into an opportunity to evolve customer environments to support and benefit from modern UC applications and services. Software focus IP focus TRADITIONAL CONVERGED UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS Hardware focus Siloed Modular Unified Separate voice, video, data networks IP everywhere Point applications Distributed communications Integrated apps Communications-enabled business processes Multimodal collaboration Anywhere access Forward-looking organizations are replacing outdated communications systems with modern cloud UC services to realize key business benefits. Cloud-based unified communications services enable businesses to gain flexibility, reduce costs and risks associated with communications investments, and more effectively support remote branch-office and mobile workers. Mid-size and large businesses can more easily gain access to advanced functionality, along with a large pool of technology expertise, in spite of budget and IT staff constraints. Mid-market businesses are now able to boost productivity with communication and collaboration tools that have historically been affordable only to large enterprises with sizeable IT budgets and staffs. Large, distributed organizations can leverage cloud communications services to consolidate their infrastructure, reduce costs, more effectively manage vendor relationships, and offer a consistent feature set across the organization. Organizations of all sizes, especially those favoring operating expense (OPEX)-based technology investments, such as education and government organizations, can replace large upfront capital outlays with predictable monthly charges. To achieve the benefits of a consolidated, company-wide communications architecture, businesses must prepare for the UC journey, which that may take months or years to complete. This article outlines an approach that businesses should consider when transitioning to a truly unified communications and collaboration solution. It identifies the steps that both customers and UC providers should take to facilitate a smooth journey. 3

4 frost.com TREATING UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS AS A JOURNEY Deploying unified communications solutions presents a fundamentally different set of challenges compared to any other business application. Many businesses deploy a myriad of communications solutions and services, typically from multiple vendors. Per Frost & Sullivan research, over two-thirds of businesses currently manage a multi-vendor environment in their communications infrastructure. Multi-vendor environments often develop over time for a number of reasons. Adherence to so-called best-of-breed selection processes is a key factor leading to the deployment of disparate multi-vendor technologies. As organizational changes occur over time, new decision makers bring their own evaluation criteria and brand preferences into their vendor and product selections. Similarly, the normal course of business merger and acquisition activity often results in the addition of new sets of communications infrastructure. Regardless of the existing architecture, transitioning to a single platform or service will require detailed planning to deconstruct and rationalize the communications infrastructure to a common foundation. Before a business can begin the journey to unified communications, it must assess its current communications assets and capabilities. The business must also review its IT and broader business objectives for the future. Business and user needs, existing processes and technology, budgets and macro-economic factors can all have an impact on an organization s long-term plans, including where and how to deploy communications solutions. As such, developing a unified communications roadmap and transition plan is absolutely critical to ensure best results. The overarching goal should be to take advantage of UC capabilities quickly, while consciously managing the lifecycles of existing infrastructure and business processes. Unified communications typically have much longer lifecycles than other business applications. It is important that businesses align UC investments with the company s vision for the future and broader business objectives, such as business expansion into new markets, enabling more home-based or remote users, and leveraging communications and collaboration tools as a competitive advantage. THE SOLUTION: COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES FOR THE UC JOURNEY For many businesses, managing the myriad of existing communications solutions and services can be a difficult task, but an efficient transition to a consolidated set of UC capabilities is achievable with a structured, customized approach and careful planning. Service providers must recognize that unified communications is a mission-critical component of a customer s operations and that a one-size-fits-all approach is not effective. They must become their customers trusted partners and guides. The right cloud UC service provider supports customers on their unique UC journey every step of the way. Therefore, the evaluation of a longterm UC partner must encompass more than price and features. It should also include additional criteria focused on a transition strategy. Customer and service providers must agree upon a thoughtful migration strategy tailored for to the customer s specific business requirements. Such a transition strategy will need to encompass the following: Existing Communications Investments: Organizations need to collect a full inventory of existing communications platforms and have an understanding of where these platforms are within their depreciation lifecycles. Recent UC investments, for example, should be targeted for migration much later than fully depreciated solutions to ensure that customer investments are protected as long as possible. This inventory would also reveal any custom integrations that exist between business applications and communications platforms. These customizations will be need to replicatedbe replicated in the cloud UC environment. 4

5 Navigating the Journey to Unified Communications: Key Considerations for Transitioning to Cloud UC Legacy Capabilities: Legacy infrastructure, such as door bells, call boxes, fax, overhead paging systems, and wireless phones, that will need to remain and become integrated into the new solution, must be properly evaluated. End-User Needs: The transition to a consolidated UC solution allows businesses to decide which new capabilities to deploy in order to ensure user productivity and satisfaction. Considerations may include user age, skills, experience, expectations, preferences, location, and business roles to determine their suitability for specific communications applications and devices. Existing Network: As all IP-based UC applications are inherently reliant on the underlying network, an evaluation of a business s wide area or multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network and the bandwidth available to all locations must be performed to ensure reliable, high-quality services. Service providers supporting customers through the UC journey should be actively engaging customers in developing a transition strategy, either through their professional services teams or through pre-sales engineering engagements. The following service provider attributes are critical to ensure a smooth migration to the cloud: Flexibility: A service provider supporting customers on their UC journey should have a full range of UC services available to meet the customer s requirements. As every customer s deployment is unique, a onesize-fits-all services catalog will simply not suffice. Rather, a wide range of service options, enhanced by selfservice wweb portals, is a necessity for service providers. Furthermore, service providers must be prepared to offer temporary or transitional UC products and services in order to help customers migrate at their own pace. These transitional solutions, such as session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking services, which extend IP-based networking and UC capabilities to legacy PBXs, over -the -top (OTT) services and media gateways for legacy PBX integration, allow customers to take advantage of certain cloud UC capabilities, even while in the midst of their transition. Customer Service: To effectively support customers embarking on a UC journey, cloud UC providers must respond to issues and provide the support needed during the transition, including end-user training and a well-staffed help desk. These core elements training and efficient issue resolution are critical in improving end-user success, long-term adoption of communication and collaboration tools and, ultimately, customer satisfaction with cloud UC services. Responsive customer service is also essential to support unplanned transitions efficiently; even with a well-defined transition strategy and roadmap, situations may quickly develop that change the timing of a customer s roadmap. For example, a customer may experience hardware failure of a legacy platform or may need to set up an unplanned office, which would necessitate the deployment of new communications capabilities. In such instances, service providers must be capable of migrating users to a cloud UC solution with little warning and minimal disruption. Simplicity: A driving motivation for businesses to embark on a UC journey is to remove the complexity of their communication and collaboration tools from the user, administrator, and purchasing perspectives. Customers should seek cloud providers that offer a wide range of UC services, but can provide them in an easily digestible form. In particular, many UC deployments may require an ongoing mix of UC service offerings, resulting in a high level of complexity for service providers in their management and billing systems, services spanning multiple platforms, and partnerships with third-party vendors behind the scenes. All this complexity should always be completely transparent to the end customer. 5

6 frost.com Future Proofing: As we have learned from all legacy technology installations, evolution and advances will continue to impact communication and collaboration effectiveness. Businesses currently working to rationalize and simplify their business communications should also be prepared to enhance and optimize them in the future. Identifying service providers that offer complimentary capabilities (such as hosted contact center), network optimization (on-net or MPLS offerings), or inter-cloud connections (direct connections and integration with other cloud-based business applications) will enable customers to start their UC journey today, while developing a sustainable long-term UC strategy. CONCLUSIONS As business communications evolve from telephony features on basic PBXs to the rich, cloud-based unified communications solutions of today, the approach that businesses take to deploy these solutions must also evolve. While the productivity and collaboration benefits associated with UC are clear, decision makers must take a measured approach when migrating to cloud UC solutions and be ever mindful of existing infrastructure and the business processes tied to these legacy platforms. To aid customers on this UC journey, service providers must evolve their own approach, becoming trusted partners rather than just vendors offering generic services. A successful UC journey requires open discussion between the customer and service provider, as well as detailed planning and clear agreement on the best path forward. Businesses should seek service providers that can guide them through their UC journey. The right provider will: Help identify the existing communications infrastructure.; Build a roadmap for the near, medium and long terms.; Offer a range of services to support the transition and ensure the customer gains optimum benefits at all phases of the migration; and Proactively suggest new services to improve the customer experience. 6

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