Why UC Projects Fail(And what to do about it)

The Softchoice Difference

Why Culture Eats UC Strategies for Lunch

Erika Van Noort

Agenda

• The changing role of IT

• UC Study: The Impact of Communications Tools on Employees

• Where UC and Collaboration projects go wrong

• Best Practices for your own UC initiative

• Scoring your organization

UC in your organization today

How many of you have rolled out some type of UC

in your organization?

• Do people call to say “UC has helped me in ways I could not have imagined”?

• Can you measure the ROI in terms the business and finance can relate to?

• If you sent a survey – where 5 means ‘a home run’ – would you score 5’s?

Is this your organization?

I am guessing you can relate….

Our Study

We surveyed 250 IT leaders and 750 employees to determine the

impact of Collaboration roll-outs on communication habits, preferences,

and workplace satisfaction.

What we learned:

• People still like ‘Face-to-Face’ meetings

• Lots of communications tools have been rolled out

• People only use half the tools’ communication features

• Many don’t know how to use the tools available

• Usage and adoption is often an afterthought

• Most are not consulted in advance of the roll-out

• Many are just frustrated with the tool(s)

• Insert study slide – Finding #8 –

Communication Breakdown

Where to start?

How do you ensure the success of a UC and/or collaboration

investment?

• Knowing what you have today

• Determining the problem you are trying to solve!

• Keeping an open mind

• Putting a plan in place to move forward

• Involving the right people

• Creating a vision for your collaboration success

The way forward

• Creating a vision

• Defining success

• Understanding what the business really needs

• Knowing who the stakeholders really are

• Ensuring usage and adoption

• Measuring success

Creating a Vision

Transformative initiatives are often not linked to the larger

company mission and vision. Many programs are rolled out

without a clearly defined vision of their own.

The way forward:

• Determine the problem you are trying to solve

• Knowing what collaboration truly means to the business

• Don’t assume

Vision Consult

13

Defining Success

Most organizations don’t take the time to articulate what success

will look like at the end of an initiative.

The way forward:

• How will you measure success in 18 months time?

• Boiling it down to 3-5 “objective” measures

• Setting a benchmark for those measures today

Understanding the business needs

Because most initiatives are under tight time lines, the

business is not consulted on what they need, how they would

use it and which elements they would prioritize.

The way forward:

• Seek input from the business – not just an IT person

• Understand what the business truly needs

• Educate the business on what they may not know to ask

Knowing your stakeholders

When we hear the term “stakeholder” many of us think of the

senior leaders in the organization. The real stakeholders are

the people who will be the most affected by a new technology.

The way forward:

• List all the roles that will be impacted by the investment

• Bring your stakeholders together – listen to them

• Get them to articulate success for their roles

Ensuring Usage and Adoption

The success of transformative initiatives is dependent on how

well they move the business forward. Ironically, training is seen

as the way to educate employees on the value of the new

investment.

The way forward:

• Determine what training is required

• Ask about usage and adoption programs from your

vendor/partner

• Partner internally to build your own usage and adoption plan

by role

• Insert – study slide Finding #4 – When IT

Implements a new Communications tool

Measuring Success

Most organizations struggle to demonstrate success beyond,

“we rolled it out on-time and on-budget”. Many leaders

wonder why they don’t see the savings they expected.

The way forward:

• Have IT involved 3-6 months beyond roll-out

• Schedule meetings post roll-out

• Identify gaps

• Communicate success and adoption

A refresher

• Start with creating a vision

• Define what success looks like

• Listen to what the business really needs

• Determine who the stakeholders really are

• Insisting on a usage and adoption program

• Continually measure your success

So if you are here!

Let’s get you There…

How would your organization score today?

We have articulated what collaboration success looks like

The business and IT have partnered to agree on priorities

We know who all the stakeholders are that will measure success

We have a usage and adoption plan - not just training

I feel confident that we will show true ROI from our UC investments

Helping our clients leverage their existing technology investments and maximizing the

return on new technology investments

Thank You

Let’s Talk TechSteve Mcdonald

Agenda

• Softchoice Internal UC Journey

• Cisco UC and MS Lync: Choice = Opportunity

• Step 1.5 of the 5 Steps: Choosing Technology

We want UC… A Softchoice Story

IT to the rescue!

• Network/Telephony Team Said Cisco Voice/Video

• Implemented in IT

• Tested with IT

• Good Quality

• Line of Sight to Cost Reduction

• Deployed

• Success!!

The Good – 12 Months

• Radically Reduced Voice Costs

• Eliminated Dedicated Circuits Across the Country

• Delivered Ext Dialing Across 30 Branch Offices

• Eliminated Legacy PBX Architecture

• Migrated Voice and Video Management to IT

The Reality of Lacking Vision

We NAILED…

• Voicemail Integration

• Video Conferencing Between Key Offices

• 1 Year Success Criteria

– Implement and Cut Lines/Overhead

We Missed…

• Rapidly evolving feature sets

• User demand for advanced collaboration

• Opportunity to collaborate with partners and customers

• Elimination of 3rd Party Teleconferencing

The End User UC Holy Wars

Unified Communications Technology Stack

Content Sharing

Video

Voice

Presence

Messaging

The Reigning Ruler of Voice

2009 2013

Best of Breed

2010 2013

Comparing the MS Lync and Cisco UC Portfolios

Capability Matrix

Basic Telephony X X

Desktop Phones X* X

PC Clients X X

Mobile Clients X X

Audio Conferencing X X

Contact Center X X

IM/Presence X X

Web Conferencing X X

Federation Services X X

Outlook Integration X X

Peer-to-Peer Video X X

Multipoint Video X* X

Room System Integration X* X

Achieving Full Capabilities

How do we decide… The Organizational View

Cisco Desired Features Microsoft

Large Microsoft Support

Team

Extensive Cisco Network

Investment

Lync IM and Presence

Deployed

Call Center

Limited IT Support Staff

How do we decide… The Functional View

Cisco Required Features Microsoft

HD Video – Rooms and

Computers

Microsoft Application

Integration

Multi-site Redundancy

SaaS Integration

Video Considerations

Deployment Complexity

Step 1.5

• User Types

• Current Tools

• Primary Needs

Profile your users

• Deployed

• Licensed

• Support

Profile your investments

• Apply to Vision

• Apply to Business Process

Prioritize features

• Deploy a proof of concept

• Engage Non-IT Users

Test your options

How can Softchoice help?

Customer

Satisfaction

Excellence

Keystone by the Numbers

Summing Up

Recap

How would your organization score today?

We have articulated what collaboration success looks like

The business and IT have partnered to agree on priorities

We know who all the stakeholders are that will measure success

We have a usage and adoption plan - not just training

I feel confident that we will show true ROI from our UC investments

Vision Consulting Services

Thank you