NEC Unified Communications NEC Corporation of America www.necam.com
Table of Contents So what is Unified Communications?...3 So what makes up a Unified Communications solution?...3 Is Unified Communications new?... 6 How do I get Unified Communications?...6 How to make Unified Communications successful...7 Unified Communications is business critical...7 What will the future hold?...8 Maintenance...8 The time is now...9 Why NEC?...9 NEC Corporation of America 2012 2
So what is Unified Communications? Unified Communications (UC) empowers you with the ultimate communications tool by converging and integrating all forms of communications, networks, systems and business applications on any device in any location, resulting in improved productivity and efficiency by enabling you to communicate effectively. But what does that mean? For you, it means communicating more effectively. Unified Communications: Empowers you to find the people you want to contact from rich, detailed directories Allows you to know where people are and take action based on the results Encompasses all forms of communication from voice, instant messaging, video and collaboration Automates your communications by intelligently utilizing your presence: forward your calls when away from the desk, inform callers you re in a meeting and notify them of your return Integrates into your business applications and processes and provides your organization new ways to function. Unified Communications will totally change the way you work! So what makes up a Unified Communications solution? Unified Communications can be broken down into a number of core features: You As silly as it sounds, it really is all about you. It is about empowering individual users to take control of their communications. By presenting user intuitive interfaces and automating mundane tasks, it allows users to concentrate on their day job. Unified Communications is one of the few technologies that is applicable across the entire organization. Everyone from senior executives to productivity workers can benefit from Unified Communications. NEC s view of Unified Communications - Multiple paths of communications centered around you. Identity Management Since it is all about you, it is most importantly about securely and reliably identifying you. User identification is imperative in creating a reliable communications system. This requires the integration and possible consolidation of a range of personnel data and authentication sources. The end benefit to your organization is a simplification in your employees personal data and the potential to move to a single point of data entry. Imagine the benefit of entering a new employee s details once and automatically enabling access to all of your crucial business applications. You can even program a desk phone, send a welcome e-mail or enable an employee s security card and sending a welcome email. With Unified Communications and the right partner anything is possible. Telephony NEC is the leader in telephony this is our core strength. We have been connecting people with traditional and IP phone systems since 1899. We pride ourselves on giving our customers migration paths forward wherever possible, and our Unified Communications offerings are no exception. Customers with traditional PBX s up to ten years old can take advantage of Unified Communications, either directly on their existing hardware or with minor upgrades to PBX capacity which other vendor can do that? NEC Corporation of America 2012 3
NEC s range of telephony spans the entire gamut: Traditional analogue phones for wall mounting and redundancy. Digital phones with displays and line keys for accessing enhanced telephony. IP phones offering everything you get on a Digital phone but with all the advantages of IP. SIP based phones (Extended or standards based). Soft phones for remote workers and road warriors. Large screen phones for running custom XML applications. Video phones, for point-to-point video communications. The combination of all of these answers allows us to change the way we work. Imagine you receive an email from a colleague, and you could tell instantly that the colleague is currently in a meeting and not back for two hours, would you do something different? Would you call another colleague who you know is at their desk or would your reply to the email? Presence enables you to make these types of decisions and helps you get your job done more quickly. Presence is great but it needs to be everywhere. Unified Communications allows you to: See presence information from your desktop. Inform callers that you are currently in a meeting and will return at a specified time. Automatically forward a call to your mobile if your spouse rings while you are in a meeting, but forward all other callers to your voice mail. Look up a contact and see the real-time status of colleagues. See the status of co-workers when you ring someone on the phone. Imagine seeing Out to lunch on the phone display, Back at 2:00 PM you will know exactly when to reach someone or expect a call back. Be notified when a customer you need to get in contact with is at their desk or when your colleague from across the globe signs in - it makes global communications so much easier. NEC has a phone for every purpose. Presence information presented in the right place at the right time will save you hours of wasted time by reducing voice mail tag and missed communications, which enables you to increase productivity and efficiency. Presence is a fundamental change in the way we communicate. It has been around for quite some time in the telephony world, with switchboard operators knowing if people are on the phone. However, presence information was really about the phone, not the person. The core concept of Unified Communications is about the person, so Presence provides rich information about you. Are you currently interacting with your PC, or are you away from your desk? Are you in a meeting and what time does the meeting end? Are you on a phone desk phone, mobile phone, wireless phone? Are you in a conference voice, video, application sharing? Instant Messaging Instant Messaging provides a new way for users to communicate. You can effectively hold multiple simultaneous conversations, and it provides a level of immediacy that email does not without being as obtrusive as a phone call. With an enterprise grade Instant Messaging system, all of your communications are secured and encrypted to protect your security. All messages can be logged for auditing and compliancy purposes. If you choose to federate with external parties, messages between organizations can also be encrypted end-to-end to ensure your privacy is never compromised. With the steady flow of generation Y s into most organizations, it is important to note that Instant Messaging is a common and familiar way to communicate, and will become a standard form of communication. Are you busy? Where is your computer? LAN segment, wireless LAN location? Where is your phone? Wireless location, nearest cell tower? NEC Corporation of America 2012 4
Instant messaging can be critical in your Contact Centers where many consumers are now opting for web chat to talk to operators. This can drastically increase the number of calls your operators can handle at the same time, and provide a familiar and reliable communications method to those who prefer to type rather than talk. Instant Messaging can also play an important part in your business applications. What if your back end systems could send an Instant Message to the most appropriate person, based on the user s status? Or, what if your users could Instant Message your back end systems to find out critical data without the need to start up a new application? For example, a user could send an instant message to flights, from a mobile device while walking through a concourse, simply providing a flight number, and your back end systems could reply with the arrival times, scheduled departure times and flight details. The final key to Instant Messaging is the need for access to it wherever you go. With clients on your desktop, messaging available from your desk phone, access via the web, and even clients for your mobile phones and PDA s, access to instant messaging from anywhere is now a reality. Conferencing and Collaboration The conferencing and collaboration market has matured greatly over the years, moving from expensive room-to-room video conferencing to streamlined, multiparty, web-based conferencing. There are many options available and each with its own benefits. The best conferencing and collaboration strategy is usually a combination of methods to achieve the best business benefit. Dedicated video phones (usually SIP based) can be used to provide desk-to-desk video conferencing. They can be a low cost option enabling quality video and audio. Soft-phone technology provides everything you would expect from a high quality business phone, but also incorporates a dedicated conferencing and collaboration solution, allowing users to perform point-to-point video conferencing with application sharing and instant messaging. Room-to-room solutions allow for high quality video for important board meetings. These solutions pride themselves on the highest quality audio and video and can be used to hold meetings with multiple parties across the globe. Web-based conferencing allows you to hold meetings with large numbers of participants all from within a standard web browser. These services can be either hosted externally or internally and allows you to hold scheduled or ad-hoc meetings, with high quality voice and application sharing. From room-based conferencing, to real-time communications with hundreds of attendees across the globe NEC knows conferencing and collaboration and has the solutions to fit your particular needs. Mobility Unified Communications is powerful, but needs to be mobile. You should be able to communicate from anywhere and through multiple devices. With current day Unified Communications solutions, you can now communicate with almost the same functionality you have at your desk from an internet café, in a hotel room or through your mobile phone/device. With NEC IP telephony, moving desks is simple. You can log your phone in anywhere and your entire telephony profile moves with you. If you take your laptop, then with a VPN solution, your complete communications solution is always available. From an internet café, most services are available from a web browser - unified messaging, instant messaging, and collaboration. With Unified Communications, you will feel more connected than ever. Unified Messaging Often Unified Messaging is used to describe voice mail that is delivered to an inbox, be it, Outlook, Notes, Group Wise, etc but there is so much more to Unified Messaging. So what are some of the key components that make up a Unified Messaging solution? Most offices have faxes scattered around, but with Unified Messaging you can have users fax directly from their PC s - even receive faxes straight into their inbox! Receiving your voice mail as an attachment in your inbox is one thing, but with Unified Messaging you gain control. You will not only be able to play that message in your email client, you can get it to play on your desk phone, or even get it to call you on another phone number and play the message. Play it at normal speed, faster or slower, you choose. Skip forward or back, then reply with a voicemail or email, or even forward the message on to others. Unified Messaging takes your current presence status and ensures your callers are up to date. I am sorry, Fred is not in the office, and will not be returning until 8:30am tomorrow not because you had to record it, but because the system knows where you are and speaks it. NEC Corporation of America 2012 5
Personalized greetings are powerful and with Unified Messaging you can play different messages based on the callers identity, or even control the call flow. A key customer is calling and you are in a meeting, forward to your mobile. A colleague calls while you are in a meeting, take a message. Interactive voice response provides you the flexibility of working when you just can t get a network connection. Call and actually talk to your Unified Messaging system. Ask for what is your next appointment, tell the system you are running 10 minutes late and have it email all attendees with your voice message attached, search your corporate directory, listen to your emails and send voice replies. Imagine doing all of that in a taxi heading to the airport. Unified Messaging has come a long way and it now provides a rich user interface without complex training and instructions. Devices So you ve now heard how great Unified Communications is, but to provide the best solution you also need high quality devices and end points to ensure you get the highest quality performance and portability. How do I get Unified Communications? One of the largest misconceptions around Unified Communications is that it is simply a product or a number of products, whereas it is a complex solution that needs to be tailored to your organization in order for you to get the best business benefits. This is where NEC excels. Not only do we have a wide range of Unified Communications Solutions to help your organization, we have a network of Authorized Associates trained to help you implement it. This is done by engaging you in a number of crucial steps. Scoping allows NEC s trained Business Analysts to understand your business drivers and find ways in which a Unified Communications solution can solve your critical business needs. Technical architects design a secure, robust solution that meets your requirements at a budget that you can afford. Laptops and desktops now carry dedicated, high quality audio devices capable of rivaling some home theatre systems. These devices now have enough processing power and audio / video capabilities to provide seamless Unified Messaging. NEC desk phone handsets provide the perfect audio device for high quality voice and reliable operations. In their IP variant, you get the same high quality device with the flexibility of mobility. Mobile devices are becoming more powerful with advanced features including 4G and wireless LAN. Soft phone technology means that dual mode handsets are here now and will only continue to get better. You can access most things you have on your desktop with very little loss in function. Is Unified Communications new? Unified Communications is a new name for a group of technologies that have been around in different combinations for quite some time. In the last few years these building blocks have evolved and a new name has emerged. Most importantly it doesn t mean that to access Unified Communications you don t have to throw away everything and start again in most cases you can leverage your existing communications infrastructure and enable some truly amazing ways to communicate. Any unique business requirements can be developed into a tailored solution, allowing you to customize your investment to gain the greatest business success. Trained installation staff will perform the implementation, providing you with a complete, working system including all relevant training everything you need to make the most of your Unified Communications system. All implementations are supported by NEC a global leader in telecommunications and our network of Authorized Associates, giving you access to trained support staff across North America. And throughout the entire process, NEC s Authorized Associates and project managers ensure your project is delivered on-time and on budget. NEC Corporation of America 2012 6
How to make Unified Communications successful Unified Communications is a wide range of solutions that can totally change the way people communicate. To ensure your Unified Communications deployment is successful we recommend you follow these simple steps. Identify your key components Determine the key components you want to deploy that will provide your business with key benefits. Do not implement everything at once. Identify your key users Identify a group of open users that will get the most business benefit from a trial. Pick people who work together but preferably do not sit together. Train Provide adequate training to the users and ensure they see and understand the benefits. Support these users throughout the trial. c Integrate Integrate the trial into standard business practices - this will make it easier for users to adopt. Back up the deployment with realistic but reasonable SLA s. Deploy business wide Deploy the solution organization-wide. Advertise the solution to your entire organization, selling them on the benefits and the way it will improve their business day. Your trial group will evangelize the solution and they will move quickly to get others they work with involved in the official release. Unified Communications will snowball quickly as the word gets out. Repeat Once a wave of Unified Communications is deployed, consider the next best component and continue through the process until your organization is truly unified. Unified Communications is business critical Once you begin to use Unified Communications, it will quickly move from a luxury to a main stream necessity. With this in mind, all deployments of UC should be considered business critical, so think about the way it will be deployed, supported and maintained. NEC has monitoring and maintenance solutions to ensure your entire Unified Communications solution is maintained and running at optimal performance. z NEC Corporation of America 2012 7
What will the future hold? No one can predict the future, but at NEC we are looking forward to ensure that solutions we provide to you today will work well into the future. Here are a few things that NEC sees in the world of Unified No one can predict the future, but at NEC we are looking forward to ensure that solutions we provide to you today Communications. will work well into the future. Here are a few things that NEC sees in the world of Unified Communications. Telephony Presence Instant Messaging Conferencing and Collaboration Mobility Unified Messaging Maint enanc e Unified Communi cations not only means better communi cations, in a lot of cases it means reduced maintenance. With advanced maintenance tools and savings in a single point of entry, a properly designed and implemented Unified Communications solution should save your company time and money in administration. Maintenance The time is now There has never been a better time to implement Unified Communications and all of the benefits that your organization can achieve. Lower cost of ownership Reduced administration Improved processes Reduction in communications costs Reduction in voice mail tag Why NEC? Phones will become increasingly intelligent. Soft-phones will become more user-accepted and become available on more devices. Users will consolidate on the number of devices they need. Presence information will become richer allowing you to know a person s location and status on multiple devices, in multiple applications. This information will be used more and more to control business processes. Presence will extend to all facets of home and business life, phones, cars, trucks, rooms, not just traditional IT devices all unified to provide integrated business benefit. Business Applications will respond with IM. IM will incorporate voice integration to allow for hands-free IM. Federation will become more widely used. Federation will become an expectation, with companies making it mandatory to federate if you want to do business. Business transactions will be performed over IM. Multi-party conferencing across the web will become more common, relieving the need for travel. Bandwidth costs reduction means higher quality video and audio. Application sharing will become seamless - available on any device, 4G phones, conference rooms, web, and car consoles. Virtualization will continue at its current rapid pace. Access will be available everywhere with seamless handover of profiles. Everything available on any device with little compromise. Unified Messaging will approach voice mails high enterprise penetration. UM will improve productivity by utilizing downtime during travel. UM becomes your off-line voice center providing access to emails, presence, messaging, and business applications. Users will expect a single UM for all devices, desk phone, home phone, and mobile phone. Unified Communications not only means better communications, in a lot of cases it means reduced maintenance. With advanced maintenance tools and savings in a single point of entry, a properly designed and implemented Unified Communications solution should save your company time and money in administration. NEC Corporation of America 2012 8
The time is now There has never been a better time to implement Unified Communications and all of the benefits that your organization can achieve. Lower cost of ownership Reduced administration Improved processes Reduction in communications costs Reduction in voice mail tag Why NEC? NEC started as a communications company in 1899, and since then has been building highly reliable, quality, scalable communications systems. We believe five nines of reliability is the standard and we aim at making all forms of Unified Communications as reliable. While your voice server will always be reliable, Unified Communications relies on varying forms of communications all with inherent levels of reliability and scalability. To achieve a truly reliable solution, NEC has a trained staff who will help you design, test and configure your networks, operating systems and infrastructure to ensure you get the most out of Unified Communications. NEC believes in protecting your investment and the majority of Unified Communication features are available on Traditional PBX systems it is not just for VoIP. For further information, contact your NEC Authorized Associate, or visit our website at www.necam.com. Corporate Headquarters (Japan) NEC Corporation www.nec.com Oceania (Australia) NEC Australia Pty Ltd www.nec.com.au North America (USA & Canada) NEC Corporation of America www.necam.com Asia NEC Corporation www.nec.com Europe (EMEA) NEC Philips Unified Solutions www.nec-philips.com About NEC Corporation of America Headquartered in Irving, Texas, NEC Corporation of America is a leading provider of innovative IT, network and communications products and solutions for service carriers, Fortune 1000 and SMB businesses across multiple vertical industries, including Healthcare, Government, Education and Hospitality. NEC Corporation of America delivers one of the industry s broadest portfolios of technology solutions and professional services, including unified communications, wireless, voice and data, managed services, server and storage infrastructure, optical network systems, microwave radio communications and biometric security. NEC Corporation of America is a whollyowned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, a global technology leader with operations in 30 countries and more than $42 billion in revenues. For more information, please visit www.necam.com. WP11007 v.5.1012 2012 NEC Corporation. All rights reserved. NEC, NEC logo, and UNIVERGE are trademarks or registered trademarks of NEC Corporation that may be registered in Japan and other jurisdictions. All trademarks identified with or are registered trademarks or trademarks respectively. Models may vary for each country. Please refer to your local NEC representatives for further details.