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Session Code #438Building an Effective UC StrategyJoe Seghatoleslami, Mike TaylorStrategic Products & Services

Learning Objectives• Discuss current UC best practices, the need for

Line of Business buy-in, and the building blocks of an effective UC infrastructure.

• Enable users to develop an effective UC strategy that will ensure ongoing success.

WHAT IS UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS?

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What is UC&C?

• Integration of disparate, potentially multi-vendor, communications media– IM and Presence– Voice– Video– Document sharing– Conferencing – audio, video, web

• The goal: drive productivity and business agility

IP Telephony &

PresenceVideo

Conferencing

Audio and WebConferencingMobility

OnlineCollaboration

Chat / Instant Messaging

UnifiedMessaging

UC Applications

“Communications integrated to optimize business processes” –Marty Parker, UC Strategies

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What’s the Point?

The virtual workforce requires the right tools:

– CTrip: 9% productivity increase; happier, healthier agents

– Aetna: $78M in real estate savings– Cisco: $195M/year in productivity increases

(1993)

Sources: “Does Working from Home Work?”. Bloom et al. Stanford University.

“In telecommuting debate, Aetna sticks by big at-home workforce”. Reuters. “Location, Location, Location”. New York Times.

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What’s the Point?

De-risk yourself from your younger workforce:

– Used to modern consumer tools– Don’t be a time portal– Be in control of:

• Bandwidth• Security*• Compliance

* http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/think-your-skype-messages-get-end-to-end-encryption-think-again/

THE PROBLEM WITH UC

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The Problem with UC

Risks and Challenges

• Adoption: Just because you build it … they may not come

• Too many technologies• IT requires a major cultural

change as traditional silos must be merged

Pan Am

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What if I own “UC”?

Major communications vendors have all switched to a three-tier licensing structure to sell their UC stack.

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What if I own “UC”?

• Remember the goal: drive productivity and business agility– Without a business case, “what if?” is really “so

what?”– If it does not drive efficiencies or reduce risk in

your business, it is a poor investment no matter what the cost.

• Investments should be prioritized based on business value.

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The Problem with UC

• First, you must define it within the context of your business.– Business requirements

• How will this initiative actually improve results/performance?– User requirements

• Workflows and inefficiencies– Technical requirements

• Security• Network• Compliance

• Have you mapped your definition to specific goals?• Have you defined and analyzed existing gaps?

HOW TO DEVELOP A UC STRATEGY

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How to Develop a Strategy

Align with business goals and end user requirements1. Identify stakeholders, business processes and user needs for UC2. Define UC within the context of your business.

‒ Specific business goals‒ Functional requirements

3. Assess your current environment4. Design a “clean sheet” reference architecture which meets your core

business and end user needs.5. Perform a gap analysis between your current and target state6. Define the projects required to fill in the gaps and prioritize based on

value‒ Remember there is value to risk mitigation in addition to reducing costs or

increasing productivity.‒ Define detailed training and rollout plans.

7. Implement, analyze, optimize.

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Identify Stakeholders

• UC will embed communications into work flows and should change the way people do business– Solicit input up-front to increase support and user adoption when

deployed

• Stakeholder Groups:– Line of Business– IT - Network– IT - Applications– IT - Security

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Is This Your Organization?

LOBMarketing

Leadership

LOBCustomer

Experience

ITApplications

ITSecurity

ITNetworkTelecom

LOBProduct

Management

User Groups

Aligned Incentives Build Bridges

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Identify User Needs

Group Collaborate With How Need

Executives Board Members Email, Video Way for outside users to join video session

Sales Customers Voice, Mobile phones, Email

Ability to spontaneously share desktop to conduct presentations or resolve a billing issues

Design Internal and Suppliers IM, Email Ability to review SOWs and Price Quotes

Legal Customers Email Share documents to speed up redline process

Think like a user.

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Taking Use Cases to the Next Level

• Use cases should be able to be tied back to specific goals.– Improve productivity: • Add IM/P and escalation• Click-to-dial from CRM• Provide advanced mobile services

– Decrease time-to-market: • Video collaboration for product engineering• Document collaboration for sales

– Improve communication with suppliers: • Federate IM/P

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Assess Current Infrastructure

• Understand corporate policies– Compliance: PCI/HIPAA/etc. – Archiving, eDiscovery– Data security– BYOD

• Assess infrastructure readiness (short term, mid term, long term)

– Applications– Network: LAN/WAN/Wi-Fi– Network access control– Mobile Device Management (MDM)– Edge support VPN/Edge servers/SBC

• Identify gaps and remediation plan– Document visually and in writing—read from the same page.

Speed the process and increase the chance of success by finding a Partner with experience in Voice,

Video and Collaboration Applications.

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Go Beyond Technical Diagrams

Instant Messaging

Microsoft Lync 2013

Audio Conferencin

g

Cisco WebEx

AT&T

Video

Polycom

Microsoft Lync 2013

Email

Microsoft Exchange

2010

Unified Messaging

Avaya Aura

Messaging + Mutare

Microsoft Exchange

2010

Voice

Avaya Aura 6.3

Cisco UCM

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Gap Analysis Should Drive Projects

Gap Technical Recommendation Business Benefit Priority Budget

No current method for desktop and room-based

video users to communicate

Deploy Acano for peer-to-peer and virtual meeting room

scenarios

Maximize investment in current communications; better productivity;

less user complaints/tickets1 2014

No IM solution for mobile devices/users

Deploy Lync 2013 Mobile client to corporate provided iOS and

Android devicesIncreased connectedness and

collaboration for mobile employees 2 2014

Investment overlaps for audio conferencing

Consolidate on to a single hosted audio conferencing

providerDecrease spend; provide common set

of tools 3 2015

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Implement, Analyze, Optimize

• Training and proper communication are crucial at this phase

• Measure or fail• Create a positive feedback loop

between users, LOBs, and IT to drive optimization

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On-Going Support

• Ongoing support should always be considered when building a UC Strategy– It is important to have support agreements and SLAs in

place prior to roll out regardless if the support is internal or external

– Lengthy outages and poor user support will kill adoption faster than anything else and will take considerable time to recover from

• Some things to considered:– Hard costs of manufacturer maintenance– Cost for MACs– Cost to service a support ticket vs. volume of tickets.

CONCLUSION

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Conclusion

• Proper planning ensures success• Having an outside partner can speed up the

deployment and reduce risk• Include users up-front so your solution meets their

needs to ensure adoption• Do an honest assessment of your current

infrastructure• Have User Adoption and Ongoing Support plans in

place prior to going live

QUESTIONS?

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Thank You for AttendingPlease remember to complete your

evaluation of this session in the CONVERGE2014 mobile app.