Unified Communications: A resellers primer

The arrival of UC two years ago received a lukewarm reception in the market. Companies already had large investments in existing infrastructure and early solutions lacked depth of functionality. Moving forward, 2008 has seen the technology begin to mature as an increasing number of organisations switch to UC to cut operating costs and improve business processes. While VoIP remains the dominant driver as traditional PABX telephony continues to decline, new technologies such as presence and unified messaging are gaining momentum.

Despite analyst enthusiasm, Matthew Johnston, product director APACJ, Quest Software said UC adoption rates remain lower than expected.

“We’re seeing initial deployments of instant messaging and pockets of UC technologies come together, but we haven’t seen anyone deploy, in my opinion yet, the full gamut and functionality that can be delivered by UC,” he said.

This presents a unique opportunity for the channel. The buzz surrounding UC presents resellers with an opportunity to help companies realise the competitive advantages offered by streamlining corporate communication processes. Besides obvious benefits such as saving on telecommunications costs, UC also offers new business abilities such as remote working and extending customer service beyond the contact centre. Add in increasing property prices, rising travel costs and Green pressures and the business case for investing in a converged communications platform suddenly becomes very compelling, according to Johnston.

“One of the biggest hard ROIs that can be achieved is actually reduction in travel costs,” he said. “Desktop-based video and voice conferencing reduces travel costs, increases user interaction and enables companies to further support their greener environmental statements.”

While several multinational companies have already realised the potential benefits in terms of cost savings, driving down the bottom line and delivering value back to shareholders, it is in the SME market where resellers willing to update their knowledge and skills will find a wealth of new business opportunities.

There are currently two main approaches to UC: infrastructure and software solutions. The first solution set is offered by telecommunication providers with a network infrastructure background such as Cisco, Nortel and Avaya. Their focus is on voice and video provision, with particular investment in quality of service, network bandwidth and mobility. The alternative is offered by software and desktop providers like Microsoft, IBM and Siemens who concentrate on presence, access and developing user-friendly desktop applications.

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