UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

Transcription

1 UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS DELIVERING ENTERPRISE PRODUCTIVITY, EFFICIENCY, AND BUSINESS VALUE By Debra Chin Senior Vice President Palmer Research

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary.... Page 3 Unified Communications Market Overview.. Page 3 Unified Communications Technology Trends Page 5 On Premise vs. Hosted Unified Communications Solutions.....Page 5 Best in Class Unified Communications Solutions: Microsoft Lync.... Page 7 Microsoft Lync : Powered by Arkadin...Page 8 Conclusion...Page 9 About Arkadin..Page 10 About Palmer Research/Debra Chin... Page 10 2

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Yankee Group defines the Anywhere Enterprise as globally integrated companies that are networked together and productively combine a variety of constituents such as employees, partners, suppliers and customers. The ability to gather and share information in real time is key to their success, but communicating and collaborating has become increasingly difficult as workers have become more virtual, working from multiple locations such as home, client sites, or branch offices, and are bringing a variety of devices into the workplace such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets to enable them to be more productive while they are mobile. In keeping with the IT Consumerization trend 1, workers expect to have access to easy to use communication tools (instant messaging, presence, social media, etc.) and business applications from their own devices. In response to today s changing work styles, enterprises have deployed a variety of tools such as telephony, , web conferencing, audio conferencing, video conferencing, presence and instant messaging to facilitate faster information sharing and streamlined decision making. Although attempting to address the need to expedite communication and foster collaboration, few of these solutions are linked together and as a result cause usability issues for workers and manageability issues for IT departments that detract from overall company productivity. Enterprises need a solution that allows their employees to collaborate more efficiently while lowering the overall cost of communications. Unified Communications (UC) is a set of communications and collaboration products that provide end users with a single interface and experience across multiple device and media types. Although UC holds great promise for enterprises as one of the few technology initiatives that can lower overall IT costs while adding business value, the UC market encompasses a broad range of products and services. Understanding the market trends, how to evaluate one solution vs. another, and the range of deployment options is critical to selecting the right UC solution for your organization. UC MARKET OVERVIEW Fundamental changes are taking place in the enterprise, driven by the growth of mobile and remote workers, IT consumerization, and the influx of personal devices into the business environment (see Figure 1). According to a study conducted by CompTIA 2 smartphones (64% agree) and tablets (44% agree) will play a major role in communications and collaboration strategy for businesses. Workers need to be able to communicate with their key constituents over a variety of devices and media, and companies need a more cost efficient way of supporting a more distributed workforce so the enterprise can become more responsive and agile in today s global economy. 1 IT consumerization is a term popularized by the Gartner Group in 2005 and refers to the blending of personal and business use of technology devices and applications. 2 CompTIA Unified Communications Trends Study 2011refers to the blending of personal and business use of technology devices and applications. 3

4 FIGURE 1: COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION WITH CO-WORKERS AND EXTERNAL CONTACTS Tablet 9% Smartphone 25% Laptop 66% Company 69% Employee 31% SOURCE: Wikipedia, June 2011 Survey What Kind of Mobile Devices Connect to Your Company s Network? What Percentage of Mobile Devices is owned by the Company vs. Employee? The use of fragmented or non-unified communications can create significant work disruptions and lower overall productivity. Due to a lack of integration among communications tools such as voice, audio/ video/web conferencing, presence and instant messaging, the use of these technologies is not optimized from a management or end user standpoint. Enabling workers to choose who to contact, when to interact, and the best mode of communication for sharing information removes human latency from business processes resulting in increased revenue and higher customer satisfaction. Unified communications (UC) is a technological architecture whereby communication tools are integrated so that both businesses and individuals can manage all their communications in one entity instead of separately 3.Consolidation of communication assets into a single platform for most communication requirements can significantly lower an organization s operational and support costs. The North American UCaaS market is forecast to grow by a 5 year CAGR of 43.6% to $3.1B by According to an InformationWeek survey, 36% of enterprises in North America have deployed and are using UC, an increase of 6% from Interest in UC remains high as 80% of companies acknowledge its value, and is even greater among medium and large-sized companies with a large percentage of workers that telecommute 6. Planned spending on UC deployments is strongest in large businesses, with nearly two thirds of companies with more than 500 employees indicating that their investment in UC technologies will grow faster than other IT expenditures within the next year 7. 3 Unified Communications What is It Communications.htm 4 Wainhouse Research, 2012 North American Unified Communication as a Service Market Sizing & 5 Year Forecast 5 InformationWeek 2012 Unified Communications Survey 6 CompTIA Unified Communications Market Trends Study Ibid 4

5 The top business drivers for deploying UC in the enterprise are improving employee collaboration and efficiency while the top application drivers from a technological standpoint are unified messaging and collaboration 8. UC TECHNOLOGY TRENDS Most UC products have largely been standalone tools loosely coupled together with inconsistent integration. Although there are still no UC platforms that meet all of an enterprise s communication and collaboration needs, many vendors have advanced their capabilities to offer a complete set of communications functions that interoperate in a seamless way with multiple deployment options. Gartner predicts that vendors with suites encompassing an increasingly broad range of functions will gain favor over bestof-breed providers with narrow functionality 9. This trend has been validated by a recent poll among business and technology executives who shifted their preference from bestin-class vendors to a single vendor with a broad product portfolio for UC requirements. FIGURE 4: PREFERRED METHOD FOR DEFINING UC REQUIREMENTS Best- in- class approach for each US applicaion Single vendor with broad UC porcolio 49% 55% 51% 45% SOURCE: InformationWeek 2012 and 2011Unified Communications Surveys Consolidating communication assets into a single platform for most communication requirements such as enterprise telephony, , voice, audio/video/web conferencing, and IM/Presence offers the following benefits: Operational costs savings Reduction in staff needed for admin/support of all communication systems Elimination of the management burden related to multiple, different license terms and maintenance/support agreements ON PREMISE VS. HOSTED UC SOLUTIONS In terms of deployment models, 65% of enterprises have on premise UC solutions but vendors are increasingly offering various options including private and public cloud models 10. Wainhouse Research projects the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaasS) market in North America will increase from $.5B in 2011 to $3.1B in 2016, representing a five year CAGR of 43.6%. Approximately 7 in 10 IT executives surveyed by CompTIA in 2012 said they would consider a cloud system for their next communications investment, up from 60% the prior year. Although the UCaaS market has been dominated by small and midsize companies that don t have the infrastructure or resources to deploy UC on premise, 45% of UCaaS 8 InformationWeek 2012 Unified Communications Survey 9 Gartner: Forecast: Enterprise Unified Communications Infrastructure, Worldwide: , July InformationWeek 2012 Unified Communications Survey 5

6 licenses are currently purchased by mid to large size companies. Enterprise demand for cloud-based communication systems is growing as it addresses many of the concerns raised by business and IT executives about UC. Figure 5 shows the benefits that companies expect to receive from UCaaS. FIGURE 5: EXPECTED BENEFITS OF CLOUD MODEL UC East of use/reduced complexity 64% Lower upfront costs Business coninuity/ Reliability 53% 57% SOURCE: CompTIA Unified Communications Trends Study 2011 Speed of implementaion 53% Features/CapabiliIes 47% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Hosted UC solutions have several major advantages over on-premise UC deployments: LOWER TCO a hosted UC solution has a low upfront investment, eliminates server maintenance costs, and requires minimal internal IT resources vs. on premise solutions. For mid-sized companies, replacing a traditional IP PBX with a hosted enterprise telephony solution can significantly reduce TCO by consolidating the communications infrastructure and lowering expenses related to devices, hardware, software, services, the network, and support/operations. For enterprises, the private cloud approach can be the least expensive approach to UC due to higher costs associated with deploying a fully featured enterprise-grade system and monthly fees for multitenant backend infrastructure charged by public cloud providers. BETTER DISASTER RECOVERY/RELIABILITY building redundancy into communications architecture can be very expensive. Hosted UC is a more costeffective way to build redundancy and can provide a level of reliability that an on premise solution cannot. Most UC service providers have more resources, higher levels of expertise, better systems, and faster response times than are available at a client site. RAPID SERVICE DEPLOYMENT/SCALABILITY premise based solutions can take months or years to roll out company-wide, and upgrades/feature enhancements can take just as long. With a hosted solution, deployment can take place in a week, upgrades are automatic, additional users can be added quickly and easily, and a new feature or service can be made available to all employees immediately---resulting in faster time to value and higher ROI. REMOTE WORKER ENABLEMENT/MOBILITY Delivering a service from the cloud 6

7 enables it to be more mobile. Cloud delivery is the most cost-effective, scalable method of untethering an application from an operating system. In addition, end users can have access to the same communications tools whether they are traveling, at customer locations, or working from home. BYOD SUPPORT -- since most hosted UC solutions use a browser to access the service, they are ideally suited for enabling collaboration and communications across multiple operating systems and devices. CENTRALIZED MANAGEMENT with a hosted UC solution, all of the administration tasks (setting up new users, applying patches, updating features, etc.) are centralized so they only have to be performed once, lowering support/admin costs and freeing up IT staff to handle more strategic projects. BEST IN CLASS UC SOLUTIONS: MICROSOFT LYNC The UC market is very broad and there are many vendors that claim to be full service solution providers. Understanding how to evaluate one solution vs. another is critically important to realizing the productivity savings, efficiency gains, and business value from deploying UC. Single vendor solutions can reduce the complexity, uncertainty, and cost of IT telephony operations and management while supporting new advances in employee productivity and greater business value. Jeffrey North, Principal Consultant, Forrester Consulting In the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, Gartner defines four criteria for UC product success and end user satisfaction. For the seventh consecutive year in a row, Gartner named Microsoft as a leader for UC based on its ability to execute and completeness of vision. Table 1 summarizes the Gartner criteria for UC success and how the Microsoft Lync solution fits that criteria. TABLE 1: GARTNER SUCCESS CRITERIA FOR UC COMPARED TO MICROSOFT LYNC GARTNER CRITERIA Broad Solution: Full set of UC capabilities Mobile Functionality: Full UC functionality on mobile devices across all platforms and operating systems Openness: Support for standards so enterprises for integration with partners, customers, business applications and third party providers Cloud Delivery: Enabling integration with on premise UC and hybrid UC services MICROSOFT LYNC Full suite of communications capabilities in a single, united platform that delivers voice, audio/visual, web conferencing, presence and IM. Delivers the same experience across all devices and platforms including Windows, MAC, ios, and Android. Mobile clients have access to VoIP features and videoconferencing with the same looking clients. Uses standard server hardware and fosters broad multi-vendor choice for end user devices, servers, network infrastructure and network services. Supports hybrid (private cloud) approach: security and resiliency of the on premise delivery model combined with the cost and IT labor savings of the cloud model. Microsoft Lync enables enterprise employees to connect and collaborate with key constituents more efficiently through a full suite of communications capabilities delivered via a single, unified platform. The unified nature of the system helps reduce costs through converged communications and facilitates rapid user adoption through ease of use. In addition, because Lync is broadly interoperable, it can fit into existing IT infrastructures for easier deployment and migration. 7

8 Lync can be delivered as an on premise solution or as a service via a secure global private cloud platform. Enterprises that choose to deploy Lync as a service experience the best of both worlds: the functionality of on premise and the high flexibility/low TCO associated with cloud-based delivery. Hosted Lync offers the following benefits to enterprises: On premise functionality in the cloud Fast and scalable international deployment with high ROI Low cost of ownership Security and reliability Predictable monthly spend Hosted IP telephony for savings on PBX equipment and maintenance Professional Services to assist throughout the deployment and beyond Lync delivers on the promise of unified communications with comprehensive enterpriselevel telephony capabilities integrated with rich presence, instant messaging, ad hoc collaboration and online meetings. Replacing traditional hardware based PBX systems with Lync s VoIP technology can help enterprises reduce initial and ongoing costs for devices, hardware, software network provisioning, implementation services, and support. MICROSOFT LYNC POWERED BY ARKADIN Although many enterprises use an audio conferencing service from a network service provider, deploying an audio conferencing solution within a UC suite can payback in less than a year 11. Microsoft Lync can be seamlessly integrated with Arkadin s premium global audio conferencing, enabling access to all communication and collaboration applications through a single easy to use interface. High quality Arkadin audio conferencing makes Lync scalable for large conference calls with local access from any location. Arkadin s unique hybrid audio capability enables internal VoIP users and external parties using PSTN telephony to meet in conference. The key business benefits for enterprises adding Arkadin audio conferencing for Microsoft Lync include: One click access instantly launches Arkadin audio conferencing from the Lync desktop interface Intercompany savings usage flexibility and cost optimization with hybrid audio conferencing (VoIP and PSTN) Crystal clear and reliable audio stable, high quality Arkadin audio conferencing for small and large scale conference calls Local live assistance dial 0 24x 7 for immediate, in-call assistance for users and guests Full Outlook Integration the Microsoft Outlook toolbar instantly pre-populates invitations with Arkadin audio conferencing details Professional Services all the expertise required at every stage from initial planning to ongoing management 11 Understanding the Total Cost of Unified Savings, Zeus Kerravala, Oct % of readers think Microsoft has the strongest product offering when it comes to a complete end-toend UC and collaboration solution SearchUnified Communications.com Reader Survey 8

9 CONCLUSION Communicating and collaborating has become increasingly difficult as the enterprise workforce has become more distributed and mobile. In addition, employees are using their own devices for business purposes and expect access to the same communications tools and business applications they have whether they are away or at the office. Enterprises need richer communications and collaboration functions so information and ideas can be shared more easily and decisions can be make more quickly. IT organizations have responded to this challenge by implementing a myriad of communications tools such as telephony systems, conferencing, collaboration, and . Despite these technology investments, employees still struggle to stay connected with colleagues, suppliers, partners, and customers while IT departments struggle with the burden of managing expensive standalone, multi-vendor solutions. Companies are turning to Unified Communications to tie all communications and collaborative capabilities together on an IP network that breaks down distance, time, and media barriers. UC has the power to change the way people work, streamline business processes, and increase corporate productivity at a lower cost than legacy communications systems. Enterprises that have been slow to adopt/fully deploy UC due to concerns about cost and ROI must look beyond soft savings such as productivity to focus on quantifiable benefits such as lowering the cost of corporate communications, creating new communications-enhanced business processes that streamline and/or automate tasks, and increasing revenue from better customer service and shorter sales cycles. Among the many UC solution providers, Gartner selected Microsoft for the seventh consecutive year as a leader in unified communications. Microsoft Lync provides a full suite of communications capabilities in a single, united platform that delivers enterprise telephony, voice, audio/visual, web conferencing, presence & IM through a single easy to use interface and can be deployed as an on-premise solution or as a service. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful, with a highly secure and reliable system that works with existing tools and systems for easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility, Microsoft Lync can be seamlessly integrated with Arkadin s premium global audio conferencing, enabling access to all communication and collaboration applications through a single easy to use interface. Companies that deploy an audio conferencing solution integrated into the UC suite see payback in less than a year. Zeus Kerravla, ZK Research 9

10 ABOUT ARKADIN Founded in 2001, Arkadin is one of the largest and fastest growing Collaboration Service Providers in the world. With a vision rooted in the belief that progress emerges from people s desire to share, Arkadin offers a complete range of remote audio, web and video conferencing and Unified Communications solutions. The services are delivered in the SaaS model for fast, scalable deployments and a high ROI. Its global network of 51 operating centers in 31 countries has dedicated local-language support teams to service its 37,000 customers. For more information please visit ABOUT PALMER RESEARCH/ DEBRA CHIN Palmer Research designs and executes custom market research studies focused on helping IT decision makers and high tech companies meet their business objectives. Founded in 2001, Palmer Research delivers the data and intelligence clients need to better understand market dynamics, customers, prospects, and partners. The company is located in Los Altos, CA. For more information, call (650) or go to Debra joined Palmer Research in 2006 as Senior Vice President. Her background includes over 15 years of experience in executive level marketing and research positions in the telecommunications, SaaS, and enterprise software industries. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BSE in Economics from the Wharton School of Business. 10