Unified Comms experts talk about ROI, Google, govt and philosophy

Demonstrating potential ROI to clients was a common problem, said Gerard Florian, chief technology officer of Dimension Data,

“The ROI question is always an issue. How do you prove it? People will want to be risk averse, and will be wary of any ROI prospect that isn’t written in stone.”

Agreeing, Carol White, director of convergence at Telstra said ROI is the biggest hindrance to companies taking up UC.

“There are pockets were you can create ROI models. We have models for teleconference, for example, where we can prove the results of reduced travel and increased productivity.

“[But]it gets more difficult when you look at companies upgrading their telesystems because they’re outdated or broken – then you’ve got a compelling event for change. Without a compelling event, instead of hard ROI it becomes quite soft,” siad White.

Harold Melnick, senior product manager and UC specialist at Microsoft, said that this reticence affected Microsoft’s message to clients.

“Our message has always been: ‘VoIP as you are’, ‘don’t rip and replace’. It’s important to us to help companies justify the cost of investment.”

It's even more importatn as cost cutting spreads in the IT industry because of the economic downturn, the panel agreed.

“I think this is a perfect opportunity to see what are the drivers we can bring in terms of business value,” said Dinesh Divakar, director of enterprise solutions at Alcatel-Lucent. “Budgets are going to be slashed or flat, and [businesses] will have to look at ways of getting value from other buckets.”

In fact, IBM business unit executive Craig Campbell said that it had already seen increased business in the UC area.

“We’re a manufacturer of a UC application, and at the same time we’ve got the services branch available.

“A lot of our customers came across to IBM as part of the Logic acquisition in 2004. Since the acquisition we got a lot of new clients, but we’re taking our existing clients around the curve with UC.”

Microsoft’s product philosophy: it’s not bloatware, it’s a business productivity package

On the topic of product development, Melnick said Microsoft’s philosophy was different to other companies.

“Our research has shown time and time again that people will try out and adopt new tools if they’re introduced through existing software. So we prefer to make new tools available in existing environments, rather than creating new software to implement new tools.”

“We look at the tools that we deliver in the context of delivering value to the user. Our primary focus with the applications is to provide services at a cost-effective level.”

He gave the example of a productivity tool added to Microsoft Word that allowed users to see when the author of a document was online. This allowed collaboration between the author and other users, and removed human latency from the process, Melnick said.“The key here is that all the tools that we deliver are business productivity tools, and anything we add into it should be added seamlessly because the whole package contains business productivity tools based around the things that businesses need.”
Customers were taking up these new technologies in new and creative ways, said Melnick.

He cited the example of an Australian bank whose ICT officer used to travel 42 weeks a year to train local staff.

“He doesn’t have to travel anymore. Instead he hosts a weekly teleconference with 42 local managers at once. And because it’s a teleconference, it can be recorded in case anyone couldn’t attend.”

Governments and UC technology
Florian from Dimension Data said that governments had been early adopters of UC technology.

“In the health care vertical, we have some of our best case studies of implementing UC technology. While it varies from vertical to vertical, they are certainly not against it.”

But White from Telstra disagreed. “I see governments not going for UC technology because of DSD (Defence Signals Directorate) accreditation. We see that our government clients are staying on existing systems because they’re concerned about security.

“While I think some of their concerns are unreal, they are certainly being more cautious. We don’t see that kind of concern in areas like education, which can realise the immediate benefits of teleconferencing, but in our other large government clients, there has been some reluctance.”

Microsoft had a different perspective, said Melnick.

“We’re seeing a lot of uptake by state and federal governments in Australia. We’ve seen a fast take-up of teleconferencing and exchange. Part of that is because we have military-rated security built into our exchanges.

“The next step is voice, and the question is whether it’s a hybrid or full-voice deployment. We see customers who are looking at both solutions. It depends on the department, their level of engagement with other departments are particularly interested in federation.”

’Beware of new companies – including Google’

Melnick closed the panel with a cautionary warning for buyers: be wary of companies that are branching out into new areas -- and that includes Google.

“As we always remind our customers, make sure you work with providers, no matter who it is, that has proven experience in that area. Work with partners or application providers or people who have experience – and Microsoft has experience.

“I think it’s important to test whether the company can actually provide the services or whether you’re paying for the company to find their way in an unfamiliar market. I don’t mean to pick on Google, because a lot of companies don’t have experience. But Google is one of them.”

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