UC: a user-centric approach

For example, with the convergence of a range of communications applications onto the IP network, resellers need to ensure both the network capacity and storage systems are capable of dealing with increased demands on the network from applications such as VoIP, unified messaging and video/web conferencing.

And, businesses rolling out a UC solution must not only look at current network requirements but also be prepared for the growth in network traffic over a future period. As traffic increases and requirements on bandwidth and network capacity increase, resellers need to ensure the business is able to maintain appropriate levels of quality of service for all applications. This means not just understanding where the business is at today, but having insight into its medium- and long-term objectives, growth targets and future plans.

Failure to provide a consistent, well-supported UC user experience risks counteracting the many benefits that the platform can provide. To mitigate this risk the role of the reseller is central to providing insight into how the technology can be integrated to meet an organisation’s short-term and longer-term needs.

Merging technology with user needs

As a guide to addressing the different types of business requirements around UC from a workforce perspective, Alcatel-Lucent has taken an innovative approach, focusing its offerings squarely on the needs of users. The following five key “user profiles” have been developed to categorise the ways enterprise employees communicate:

• Executives, a group that includes senior managers, doctors and “C” level people, need a rich combination of telephony, messaging, collaborative tools, and mobility to support their intense level of communication. They also require access to these services at any time, in any place, and on any device.

• Mobile professionals include sales representatives, channel sales managers and customer support engineers. These users need to switch easily between their mobile and office environments without sacrificing quality of service or incurring extraordinary expense. Mobile professionals spend about 60 percent of their time outside the office.

• On-site roamers have duties that take them away from individual workstations but still need to be reachable. Roamers include security guards, duty nurses, production heads, hospital directors, and others who depend on mobile devices and applications in a campus environment.

• Office workers have little need for mobility, but benefit from unified messaging services and communication over multiple devices, such as PCs and phones. Administrative assistants, legal officers, accounting clerks and sales operations managers are examples.

• Team workers may also have low mobility needs, typically spending about 70 percent of their time at their desks, but they’re highly dependent on cross-functional communication and teamwork. Conferencing and multimedia collaboration services are often essential to these workers, who include design executives, marketing specialists, research managers and project managers.

Communication solutions targeted to various-sized enterprises and levels of usage intensity have been bundled according to specific user needs. The profiles can be ordered as a single item. This simplified go-to-market approach streamlines the ordering process for sales channels while ensuring customers can quickly implement solutions tailored to the requirements of their organisations.

Integrated applications for UC

Alcatel-Lucent envisions that an organisation’s performance will be linked to its ability to integrate core assets – people, network, processes and knowledge – with secure, always-on communications. In this model, every single interaction between employees, partners and customers becomes a business opportunity.

The reseller has a central role to play in communicating this message to businesses and ensuring they are able to effectively integrate a UC approach into their work practices, processes and systems.

Resellers can demonstrate how UC applications support a vision for the enterprise that optimises communications by setting access policies and permissions, aggregating and compiling messages into a single view, and providing multi-device access to information. The results are increased productivity, reduced business latency, breakdown of the business process silos that inhibit innovation, and an enhanced user experience.

The challenge for the reseller is to fully understand both the business drivers behind UC and understand how to integrate the solution into diverse businesses with different requirements and different types of users.

Doing this well means a chance to help organisations take advantage of UC tools to meet the evolving expectations of employees and customers, providing a compelling and competitive edge for future growth.