In order to make the right decisions quickly and efficiently, today's businesses must connect the right people to the right information at the right time.
But how is this possible in a world in which business processes are separate from the communications infrastructure that connects people and information?
In which separate, multiple domains exist: enterprise, carrier, wireless and wireline? And how can resellers help their customers to simplify business processes with speed, accuracy and agility while deriving more value from investments and improving overall productivity?
To answer these questions, allow me to share with you a quick history lesson as to how we got to this point in the first place.
In the beginning, all networks were separate. Business networks comprised disparate telephony, communications, messaging and conferencing silos.
Data networks were separate entities altogether; related to the voice networks by location, not function. Information and communications were well and truly segmented.
Then came the push for integration.
With the rapid expansion of the Internet, consumers wanted the same conveniences they had at home - instant messaging and presence, which were integrated into their email and social networks and we wanted these tools and functionality in our workplace.
The challenge and opportunity for telecommunication and software vendors was to re-think their deployment strategies embracing open standards and interoperability.
As the rate of integration picked up, so did the push for standardisation. Proprietary protocols so common in the segmented networks of old were discarded for newer, industry-wide standards such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol).
With standardisation came an explosion of choice - devices that were previously alien to each other began speaking the same language. Mobile workers armed with little more than a mobile phone could suddenly gain access to highly secure corporate networks using a secure tunnel across the public Internet.
It wasn't long before desktop software and hardware vendors realised the synergies between their products could essentially unify the last remaining 'islands' in the enterprise - the phone system and the desktop.
Unified Communications, a term coined by vendors to represent this unification of phone and desktop functionality, was the logical extension to the integrated voice and data network. No longer was communication limited to a handset - or even a softphone.
People working in office applications could literally click-to-call a contact from inside a word processor or spreadsheet, and even see at a glance if that person was available to talk, chat via IM, or receive an SMS.
But despite all the progress we've made, there was still a major disconnect between the new world of Unified Communications, and the technology built up over decades that powers today's core businesses processes.
There are many 'examples' of this core technology: banking transaction systems, flight schedule systems, hotel booking systems, location tracking systems, RFID, CRM, ERP.
Hopefully I'm starting to paint a bigger picture here: Unified Communications is all well and good but until we can leverage the full power of the massive information silos that run the global economy, we've only scratched the surface of its potential.
So go back to the questions I posed at the start of this column. How can we, as an industry, help our customers make the right decisions quickly and efficiently in a world in which business processes are separate from the communications infrastructure that connects people and information?
The answer is surprisingly simple: using SOA (service-oriented architecture) and web services. Using software.
In a hyperconnected world every device that can be connected will be connected, and every technology from personal appliances to business systems can and will include an application with built-in communications capabilities.
Using technologies such as SOA and web services we can create and deliver such communications-enabled applications (CEA) and business processes (CEBP), which turn the challenge of hyperconnectivity into an opportunity.
SOA is a business-driven concept which is based on an architecture that uses loosely coupled services and components to support the requirements of business processes and users.
SOA is implemented through web services, a suite of extremely pervasive and widely adopted technologies.
Using SOA and web services, your customers can integrate communications functions with business applications and processes, increasing agility, accuracy, speed and overall productivity, and achieve a higher return on investment.
Using an airline traveller's experience, the following scenario illustrates how a business, its marketing partners and the people it serves, can benefit from communications enablement through web services.
The example demonstrates how an airline's implementation of web services can improve its traveller itinerary management. In this case, web services bolster the efficiency of customer service, increase itinerary accuracy and enhance the traveller's overall satisfaction.
A flight arrives one hour later than scheduled. An airline employee logs into the flight system to update that information, which automatically triggers an electronic event sequence through web services.
As part of this sequence, all travellers who will be affected by the delay and have PDAs or other media-rich devices, will receive delay notifications via instant messaging (IM) along with updated gate information.
Additionally, people who have been designated as secondary contacts by the travellers will also receive notification about the flight delay.
The IM to the connecting travellers also contains a link to the airline's web portal; a click-to-connect link to the airline's booking department and a numbered voucher offering complimentary refreshments by a designated provider and a link to a map of the airport and airport services.
Using the first link, the traveller can learn more about the new itinerary. The next link enables the traveller to discuss car rental and hotel arrangements with a booking agent.
The voucher, which is numbered, once redeemed, provides demographic information about the traveller - which means the airline only sends information on relevant services to the traveller's PDA or other media-rich device.
This example illustrates how web services create new sources of revenues by enabling your customers to promote their services and core competencies and turn them into complementary business opportunities, such as mobile advertising and customer database generation.
What's more, all of the offerings of web services from this example - mobile advertising, location-based services, alert notification messaging, identity management and third-party call control - can be applied to other, varied business scenarios.
To make examples such as the one above work in the real world, we need to find the 'glue' that makes the two very different (and today, very separate) worlds of Unified Communications and core business processes stick together.
By leveraging web services, you can take real-time network capabilities, such as click-to-connect, instant messaging and presence, and make them available for integration with other IT applications.
This allows for the creation of communications-enabled applications and the integration of these applications into business processes.
If you take a closer look at the Unified Communications market today, only a handful of vendors are making moves in this direction, and fewer still have taken the next step of building a dedicated software development environment that facilitates the easy development of customised communications- enabled applications.
But herein lies the single biggest opportunity to bridge the major divide between communications and business processes, and to take the advances we've made in both spheres to the next level.
Because this is so new, few guidelines have been written about how best to find and use these tools in your own business, so I'll put a few out there as a suggested starting point.
First, make sure the approach you use works with network equipment (e.g.PBXs and soft switches) from different vendors.
This is a key requirement, because locking into a proprietary system negates almost all the benefits of being able to integrate different - often legacy - business processes.
Also ensure the approach is future-proof for next-generation network switches.
The solution you choose should 'sit' across the network infrastructure (enterprise and carrier) and interface with multiple vendors' call servers and applications servers (e.g. video), extracting and exposing communications capabilities into a web services environment.
There, these capabilities can be integrated with other IT applications/business processes for creating communications-enabled applications and business processes.
Another key component is Bandwidth on Demand, which treats a network infrastructure like a pool of resources that can be allocated on a just-in-time (JIT) or scheduled basis for time-critical applications.
This mechanism makes businesses more agile and improves productivity. For example, using Bandwidth on Demand, a financial services firm can automatically set up a multi-site international videoconference call based on changes in key stock prices.
The call is set up quickly and without human intervention.
This may or may not be the first time you've come across the concept of SOA and web services as the next frontier for Unified Communications, but chances are you have not solidified your strategies on how best to make use of it in your own business.
The channel play, in my opinion, is based purely on partnerships at this stage. Your role as a reseller is evolving from one that has reasonable influence on a customer's network purchase decisions, to one that has a significant - if not holistic - influence on these decisions. You are no longer a box mover, but a strategic advisor; no longer speaking to the shop floor but the board of directors.
Offer your customers the flexibility to purchase the end-to-end solution, as well as the ability to purchase only the components they need to develop their own communications-enabled applications.
Most importantly, don't panic. The learning curve is a steep one, and one that you will need the right support and resources in order to make the transition a success.
The resellers who are comfortable 'moving tin' will need to take a closer look at their business strategies if they are going to survive the next wave.
Those resellers who have already bought into the concept of software as a service need to ensure that they invest in the right vendors who provide the best platforms.
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