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COMMS VISION 10-12 NOVEMBER GLENEAGLES PREVIEW BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
John Massey
I believe the balance has changed over
the last 18 months
customers to develop and adapt their systems, for them to make that buying decision more quickly.”
Gauging success One critical area of debate over the last 12 months is the question of how customers measure the success of unified communications. Or more importantly, what are they looking for in the first place? Before the financial crisis, the key selling points were productivity and, to a lesser extent the environmental benefits. But after the crash hard savings was the only card worth playing. “I believe the balance has changed over the last 18 months,” says John Massey, Managing Director of Actimax. “From service and customer driven requirements to cost driven requirements. This has been caused by the recession.”
Not all interviewees are convinced that the bottom line is all that matters,
however. “All IT and telecoms buyers are looking for value for money and to reduce costs, says Clark, “But more importantly, they are looking at increased efficiencies and the direct RoI benefits from unified comms utilising feature sets such as desktop soft phones, fixed to mobile convergence, video, audio and data conferencing, unified messaging and advanced collaboration services.”
The lines between collaborating with internal teams and engaging customers more effectively are also being blurred, as tools like instant messaging and social media are finding themselves deployed across the board. There’s a real danger that the comms industry will lose the role of leadership when it comes to these issues too.
Langley noted: “While some partners have grasped the importance of these new ways of working
most have not. Generation Y are the workforce of the future and have grown up communicating through mobile devices and social networking, therefore business communication providers have to ensure that they can deliver these tools in a business class and secure way to get the best from their employees, while also protecting their business.”
While there’ll be lots of head scratching and heated debate about the future at the Comms Vision convention, however, there’s also cause to celebrate success. The story of business transformation driving ICT sales is not a new one, and its taking hold in all sectors of the market. Langley, for example, told us about
increased demand for videoconferencing systems from the housing association customers on South West Communications’ books. “One of our clients recently demonstrated a six month RoI based upon an initial £60K investment,” he commented. “Through the deployment of a three site unified communications videoconferencing solution.”
Match making At the other end of the scale, such solutions work for businesses with very few employees. “It is dependent on the type of company rather than the size,” added Massey. “Unified comms is relevant to people that have lots of remote workers or need to collaborate, this
There’s a danger that the comms industry will lose the role of leadership
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is where this particularly helps businesses.”
The important point is to get the people that matter on board. If resellers can convince the IT heads or office managers of the benefits of a system, they can be sure that those benefits will manifest themselves across the whole company.
Graham Brooks, Sales Director at ABSNet, explains the importance of the top down approach. “I can think of one major customer of ours where the CIO adopted unified communications including video to home,” he commented. “As soon as he did that, everyone else did it. Some of our most innovative projects spin out of the passion of one or two key people who are involved with them. If they can see the benefits and own the project, they take on the responsibility for spreading that vision across their organisation.”
Gleneagles Hotel
10th, 11th & 12th November 2010
www.commsvision.com
COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2010 51
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