Collaboration soars amid death of the deskphone

While handsets are in terminal decline, Plantronics is doing well out of the shift to different modes of work. The company founded in 1961 to streamline clunky airline headsets is looking at thousands of headset replacements as people give up desk phones, says Graeme Gherbaz, Australia managing director.

“We love UC because of the opportunities it brings to our resellers and the higher level of attach as headsets become more important,” Gherbaz says.

“The timing is good as people’s PBXs are at the end of the cycle and business is changing from role-centric silos to a more collaborative environment.”

But while UC brings workers together in higher-performing teams, there’s also ‘communication chaos’ as end points vie for the user’s attention, he says. A Plantronics headset that works across the user’s PC and mobile phone and tells others when they’re busy smoothes these disruptions, he says.

And while the desk phone still has some life, Gherbaz says some big companies “have gone 100 percent softphone and headset”.

“There’s not a desk set to be seen,” he says. “Your laptop or tablet is becoming your primary communications tool.”

Plantronics is among companies  that are tipping their senior executives out of Mahogany Row. “Plantronics senior VPs don’t have an office. They sit with groups that they’re working with and people drift around and work in teams. It’s dramatically reduced premises costs.

“Today, work is truly what you do and not where you turn up. A lot of organisations are changing their business processes and saving office real estate by moving to activity-based working, having smaller open cubicles and people not having their own desk.”

Making UC pay

Jeff Whitton has seen his telephony reselling business grow rapidly as companies adopt UC. KNet, a solutions provider based in Sydney and Orange, lists key partnerships including Avotus call accounting software and most recently Cisco. 

CIOs want to understand the cost structures of these new ways of working, he says. “Now it’s on a single [internet] pipe, they have to [work out] who is using this the most so those areas are charged inside the business. Everyone wants to do that,” Whitton says. 

And while most organisations are “keeping the old boat anchors” of heritage PBXs “until they fall off the wall”, for mid-sized business especially, a hosted communications system they pay for as they go is attractive, he says.

“That’s a really saleable item. You can walk into an accounting firm and say, ‘How would you like to never have hardware or pay licences again? You just pay each month and have the latest and greatest.’ ”

Next: The gift of 'presence'