Enterprise Communications Featured Article

Unified communications and collaboration (UCC) is one of the fastest-growing segments of the enterprise IP communications landscape, and cloud-based offerings in particular are growing in popularity as companies look to streamline costs and management. That said, different types of employees need different types of UC functionality, and IT managers, business owners and channel partners should weigh the mix of these types within an organization before selecting a solution.

Marty Parker (News - Alert), principal and co-founder of UniComm Consulting, laid out seven different profiles in a recent opinion piece in InformationWeek, as a guide for matching specific workflows and business processes of users to the functionality of the communications system.

“These profiles let you change the question from, ‘What enterprise communications products should we buy?’ to ‘What do we need?’” he wrote. “They help you break up your communication system into manageable pieces. You no longer have to implement one communications solution all at once. You can approach communications as a set of solutions that can be implemented in increments.”

Mobile field sales and service workers are the first—and in some ways the most important—profile that Parker lays out. The typical on-the-go worker uses his or her phone for everything: unlimited voice calls, sure, but more often it’s texting, mail, messaging, contacts lists and calendaring.

“The trend with this profile is to connect calls through a software app on the smartphone, such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync and IBM Connections, rather than through the PBX, “Parker advised. “If the user is called on the corporate telephone number, the call can be routed to the mobile phone by directory-enabled gateways, rather than requiring an expensive PBX (News - Alert) extension.”

The second profile is that of collaboration teams. These groups work in R&D, marketing, design and creative services, legislation, policy-making, professional services and so on, and typically have the need to access content management systems and document-sharing applications, in addition to the ability to, say, escalate a voice call to video, do Web conferencing and the like.

The collaboration profile mentioned above is closely related to another, more vertical phenomenon: production teams. These are care teams in a healthcare setting, teams of educators, lawyers and paralegals, and other work teams like restaurant cooks, he explained. These groups typically are hierarchical, have one or more vertical-specific applications, and have very specific workflow functions per member that need embedded communications.

Parker also discusses other vertical requirements: Retail workers for instance typically share workspace and apps, and have little need for advanced UCC functionality. Contact center agents are an obvious profile unto themselves, and provide one of the best cases for UCC rollouts as companies streamline the various “touchpoints” of customers into customer service, be it calls, texts, online, mobile apps and the like.

Then there is the profile which comprises the true lifeblood of any organization: administrative support employees and what Parker calls “information processors.”

“Typically they do their jobs in one or more primary software applications. By embedding communications functions into those applications, communications can occur directly from the screen, simplifying the workflow and tracking transactions from start to finish,” Parker explained. That means that UC plug-ins and the life become critical.

At the opposite end of the pay scale are the executives and C-suite denizens, who Parker noted have similarities to collaboration teams and administration/information processing workers.

“Corporate staffers can be on-site or mobile, and often need to share information,” he said. “Some executives require a personalized form of collaboration and negotiation, so this usage profile usually includes high-definition desktop and meeting room video communication.”

Together, the seven profiles can help guide UCC investments.

“You can plan and facilitate the delivery of those improvements using specific usage profiles optimized for the improved business processes and workflows associated with each profile,” he explained. “These applications of UCC technologies can then help your company lower costs, move faster and differentiate itself from the competition.”