UC Song & DanceUC Song & Dance

Opponents of UC don't believe that quantifiable benefits are attributable to it. To a small degree they are correct but to a significant extent they are missing the bigger picture.

Opponents of UC don’t believe that quantifiable benefits are attributable to UC. To a small degree they are correct but to a significant extent they are missing the bigger picture.

Management folks know of and heard about the old Western Electric studies conducted by W. Edwards Deming. Deming made observations about people and workflows. His work went on to include Statistical Quality Control (SPC) and of course his 14 Points for Management that is used for Total Quality Management (TQM), leadership circles and principles of running business today. Please review the 14 Points for Management.

Today, I believe there’s an overemphasis on ROI, immediacy and instant gratification. They reign in consumer circles and in executive management down through the ranks. I've said before and continue to have discussions with business owners in different verticals that the process of a company's workflow and behaviors are built around communications in any form. The effectiveness of communications is key to the success of the business.

My intention isn't to be preachy about why you should adopt UC. Still, naysayers want proof or some sense of understanding why UC should be a priority on their list of many IT projects. UC does sell itself and to do so requires at least an effort of demonstrating the features and capabilities of the solution. That's what we do as an Interconnect ever since I can remember. There is no trick or magic bullet in the process. Knowing your customer and understanding their needs, issues and how to apply a UC solution for them is necessary. Still, none of what we've done for our customers is rocket science. We use the free licenses onboard to demo UC and we've only focused our attention on four verticals for the past couple of years: Manufacturing, Health Care, Legal and Education. This isn't a limitation of UC, it’s simply our directed effort since we have customers in these verticals that we've identified as UC candidates.

The industries that we serve have common communications issues and needs. They all share in the need to collaborate and in providing service (internal and external). Their workflows and process of handling work are typical in that there’s always some disruption to the workflow or some hindrance or hold up in getting a key piece of information to continue or accomplish a task or project. When we've implemented UC in these environments, we’re not capturing hard dollar returns that we can show business owners but the users are readily using the tools and improving how they communicate and collaborate.

I recently discussed UC with David Powers, Vice President of Marketing over at Thinking Phone Networks. David presented me his company’s cloud-based UC solution. David said, "UC impacts the business process by removing latency in process, moving companies closer to the customer and tightening the teams within the organization." Again, those at odds with UC want some visible ROI and again, I'd point them to Deming's 14 Points of Management. David also told me that Thinking Phone Networks serves over 500 customers at 2,000 locations. But what was really interesting is when we talked about the impact of UC in an organization such as large distributed enterprises. David said, "The real ROI of unified communications comes from reducing human latency in business processes. Some examples might include the ability to speed an ordering process or more quickly resolve a customer billing issue by getting the right people involved at the right time. Each of these can lead to significant bottom line results for enterprises."

I recalled my former large enterprise days (not with a lot of fondness) and said to him, "Yeah--so send me a memo, right?" So within your organizations you may want to closely examine workflows and work processes to address how many memo or emails do you need to get something done? How many hoops do you need to jump through in your company to accomplish something? Managing inter-department relationships in a large enterprise can be taxing largely because of how management and reporting (staff) are established in organizations; and because UC breaks down barriers and promotes informal communications, a direct contribution to the formal processes within the organization occurs.

My suggestions are pretty basic and simple. For the incremental costs of UC licenses at least for our customers, UC isn't knocking down line items in the operations of a company, but it is providing value to management. This isn't to say that UC isn't providing a positive ROI either. In the SMB <200 stations market, it just isn't a concern that i've seen. now with large deployments, crunch your numbers because you will need to prove the business case. our main thrust is managing company communications technology and i don't mean sound cavalier i'm not downplaying roi for uc cases--just know expect or industry people downplay value cite either. dr. deming’s points are valid today it's important note what he later taught, that, "when organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time."