Hosted/Managed UC Services: To Buy, or Not to BuyHosted/Managed UC Services: To Buy, or Not to Buy
Key issues include market readiness, the services ecosystem, demand forecasts, competitive structure, market share analysis and what to expect from a hosted or managed offering.
March 19, 2012
Key issues include market readiness, the services ecosystem, demand forecasts, competitive structure, market share analysis and what to expect from a hosted or managed offering.
My colleague Elka Popova will be presenting and moderating a panel discussion on hosted and managed UC services on 2:30 pm on Wednesday at Enterprise Connect. Joining her onstage will be representatives from NEC, 8X8, Mitel and Level 3 Communications, and the discussion will center around best practices for moving from a premises-based deployment to hosted and/or managed services, in full or in part depending on your organizational needs.
A recent Frost & Sullivan study of more than 200 C-level executives revealed that 25% of the companies use hosted services only or managed services only, while 15 percent use both types of service. Seventy-six percent of the companies that use hosted services plan to increase that usage in the coming 12 months; 59% of managed services users say the same thing.
In the session, Elka will address market readiness, the services ecosystem, demand forecasts, competitive structure, market share analysis and what to expect from a hosted or managed offering. She will get into a detailed analysis of how to know whether you are a good fit for such a deployment model, and the best steps to take to ensure you get a complete package when contracting for services.
She will also spend time on helping IT managers select the best provider for their specific needs. Here are some of her tips; to hear the rest of this data-rich and very detailed presentation, please join her in Osceola 1 on Wednesday afternoon!
Prioritize your objectives:
* Reduce cost or improve productivity?
* Will IM/chat improve user productivity?
* Is conferencing critical to your business?
* Which solutions and apps would you like to keep on the premises? Which ones are you looking to integrate with the hosted apps?
* What is your vision for IT staff?
* How critical is security for your business?
* How critical are availability, reliability and QoS for your business?
* How many sites/users are you looking to migrate and within what timeframe?
* What is your BCDR (business continuity/disaster recovery) strategy?
