UC News from Gartner Symposium 2009UC News from Gartner Symposium 2009

The highlights reinforce our emphasis on the compelling need to create a Unified Communications strategy for your enterprise now.

The reports are coming back from our clients attending the Gartner Symposium ITXPO 2009 in Orlando during the week of October 19, 2009. The highlights reinforce our emphasis on the compelling need to create a Unified Communications strategy for your enterprise now. UniComm Consulting will host a webinar on November 19 to discuss the UC strategic planning topic and to suggest ways that enterprises can act on the Gartner Symposium recommendations (check for details at www.unicommconsulting.com).Here are three key UC-related highlights we have seen reported from the Gartner Symposium::

The "Unified Communications and Collaboration Scenario" (UCC) session was presented by Gartner's UC thought leader Bern Elliot with Jim Lundy. Bern and Jim described the multiple vendors who are competing for the future of communications both from the Communications spaces (telephony, voice mail, audio conferencing, wireless e-mail, video conferencing) and Collaboration spaces (Team workspaces, Wikis, Social software) converging into the UCC intersection space (E-mail, unified messaging, web conferencing, instant messaging, presence, and directory). Gartner describes five approaches to UC, in ways similar to the four approaches to UC that we describe in our UniComm Consulting engagements, at UCStrategies.com, and in VoiceCon and Interop sessions. Again, similar to our views, Gartner observes that, "Many enterprises will find that they must use a combination of the five approaches to develop a complete road map."

This session wrapped up with suggested "Next Monday" actions including:

* Inventory organization's UCC knowledge, products, partners, business owners, stakeholders and plans

* Identify areas that produce the best returns (such as increased sales, faster product development and higher customer satisfaction)

* Build communication "vision" to drive the business case

The Panel on "Using BPM (Business Process Management) to Survive, Thrive, and Capitalize in Turbulent Economy" mirrored our UniComm Consulting and UCStrategies.com vision of UC as, "Communications integrated to optimize business processes." The session pointed out that BPM is being emphasized, rather than slashed, by most businesses, since BPM actually provides the way out and path forward from the current business crisis situation by economizing resources and eliminating wasted steps. Many case studies were referenced to illustrate the theme; though not all were communications centric, the patterns are very consistent with the UniComm Consulting approach to analyzing high-profile and high value business processes to find and eliminate communication "Hot Spots."

Again, the session concluded with a call to immediate action, i.e. "tomorrow morning," including:

* Identify your most-valuable business processes.

* Select from that set the business processes necessary for survival and near-term growth.

* Zero in on target processes where constant change is an issue.

* Target one of these processes for your first (or next) BPM project.

A third session, "Case Studies from Communications Enabled Businesses," presented by Bob Hafner, also complemented our views on the importance of Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP--a term first introduced by Gartner). For the past two years, we have organized customer panels at VoiceCon Orlando and San Francisco on "Communications Enabled Applications" where customer telecom and IT executives have highlighted specific, innovative CEBP successes. We also really endorse the case study approach, as emphasized by our various articles and as found in the UCStrategies.com case study library. The presentation focused on three types of CEBP "Killer Applications" (which are three out of our usual list of five UC Apps areas with CEBP elements). Delightedly, the case studies were across the board, based on platforms from Send Word Now, BackFlip (twice), Microsoft (twice), Avaya, Cisco (twice), and NEC. This confirms the point we make in our VoiceCon Workshop, "UC Options: Who's Offering What?," that almost all communications platform suppliers are able to support CEBP initiatives.

This session also provided advice to the audience, including:

* Today: Update your communication strategy.

This is followed by recommendations for establishment of a business process communications center of excellence (CoE); then identification of the early CEBP candidates; followed by trials, roll-outs, learning and expansion.

As a summary point, we would like to emphasize the depth of information and the value provided by Gartner to their clients. Clearly, Gartner continues to deliver value to their clients. We believe that our work at UniComm Consulting and in the UC Resources section of UCStrategies.com are closely aligned with and supportive of Gartner's recommendations. Moreover, we have the tools and well-informed resources to help enterprise customers follow through on Gartner's recommendations. We invite your contact to discuss any of these points in more detail, and encourage you to join our webinar at 3:00 PM EST on November 19, 2009.The highlights reinforce our emphasis on the compelling need to create a Unified Communications strategy for your enterprise now.