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Research and Markets: Unified Communications and Collaboration: Laying
the Foundations for Business Process Flexibility and Innovation
(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
RDATE:10102008
Dublin - Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/73a7a9/unified_communicat)
has announced the addition of the "Unified Communications and
Collaboration: Laying the Foundations for Business Process Flexibility
and Innovation" report to their offering.
Business Issues
Business challenges continue to include the requirement for better
flexibility, greater mobility, and to continuously improve business
processes. In addition, organisations are always on the lookout for
ways to reduce costs to keep ahead of the competition. The new breed of
communications and collaboration technologies presents an opportunity
for companies to realise these objectives. Many organisations are
moving from traditional hierarchies based on command and control, to
looser structures utilising collaboration and team work.
There is a fundamental shift from one-to-one to many-tomany
communication. The integration with the Internet, the increasing
mobility of employees, and the move towards virtual organisations,
alongside the requirement to always improve profitability and customer
service, means that enterprises must embrace the adaptability that
services-based communications can provide.
There are a number of challenges that remain whilst enabling the
requirement for providing flexible working for a diverse user
community, including the home worker and road warrior . One of these
challenges is to secure the extended environment that most IT managers
now need to support. There are many instances of successful attacks and
loss of data, which includes finance companies and government agencies.
The issue of security must be adequately addressed when contemplating
utilising an IP-based environment. Whilst the introduction of voice and
video on to the network presents new security worries, it does not,
however, add any new vulnerability that did not previously exist.
Another challenge is providing an opportunity for the interaction of
disparate employees and organisations. However, this inter- and
intra-company interaction brought about through collaboration is not
without its risks loss of corporate intellectual property and
commercially sensitive information, for example. But generally
speaking, fostering innovation and a product formed through the
collaborative efforts of several minds is likely to be inherently more
valuable than the thoughts of a lone individual. Like cogs in a
machine, bringing together the right people, at the right time, in the
right way is what good management is all about, and in the current
working environment this is difficult to achieve without
collaborative-working tools. Effective management is a key capability
in the unified environment where policies must drive availability, and
visibility moves from individual point solutions to being system wide,
along with the shift from fixed asset administration to dynamic asset
utilisation. A cornerstone for the provision of multi-modal channels is
the ability to deliver intelligent central performance management,
enabling efficient use of the available resources. The accessibility of
end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) supporting data, voice, and
multimedia, is an important first step in the evolution towards an
automated solution.
The reach and range of business processes continues to increase as
organisations extend and expand their interactions with partners,
suppliers, and customers; and so the need to integrate geographically
dispersed teams into complex business processes presents something of a
challenge for the IT manager. Fax, e-mail, pager, SMS, Web
conferencing, video conferencing, and conventional teleconferencing are
all in use today, yet many business processes are still hampered by
ineffective collaboration. Organisations must therefore re-examine
their corporate communication and collaboration strategies in order to
better support business activities and objectives.
Technology Issues
Organisations are beginning to expand outside the traditional
boundaries found in the past. The extended enterprise now requires a
common IP-based infrastructure to capitalise on information mobility
and the need to be more flexible. There is a requirement for greater
location independence, with remote working becoming more popular and
many employees no longer remaining in one place for any great length of
time. In order for this flexibility and changes in work practices to be
catered for it is becoming apparent that the existing separate silo ed
infrastructures are no longer the answer.
The need for new and enhanced service provision to support business
requirements must drive infrastructure and technology deployment. A
services-based approach is best suited to this environment to insulate
developers and users from the complexity of the infrastructure, and to
ease the integration of the different systems and communication
mechanisms. There should be a move towards the provision of common
integrated communication services, which are ideal for catering for a
complex and distributed environment. Web services can also be utilised
to mobilise information to all stakeholders.
Moving away from proprietary solutions for voice and data to a
horizontal communications architecture will enable the communications
environment to be broken down into separate layers, making use of
industry standards to integrate the hardware, common services, and
administration elements. This componentisation and services-based
approach increases flexibility, enabling services to be developed
independent of the equipment. Using IP-based components instead of
vendordependent solutions improves scalability, along with driving down
infrastructure costs with price/performance optimisation.
Key Topics Covered:
Section 1: Management Summary
Section 2: Introduction
Section 3: Business Strategies
Section 4: Planning and Implementation
Section 5: Unified Communications Architecture
Section 6: Unified Collaboration Systems
Section 7: Case Studies
Section 8: Market Analysis
Section 9: Vendor Profiles
Section 10: Glossary
Companies Mentioned:
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Avaya Inc.
- Cisco Systems, Inc.
- Ericsson, Inc.
- Eurodata Systems
- HP
- IBM Corporation
- Interactive Intelligence, Inc.
- Microsoft Corporation
- Mitel Networks Corporation
- NEC Unified Solutions, Inc.
- Nortel Networks Corporation
- Novell, Inc.
- ShoreTel, Inc.
- Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEC) GmbH & Co. KG
- TeleWare plc
- Vocera Communications Inc.
For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/73a7a9/unified_communicat
Source: Butler Group
CONTACT: Laura Wood, Senior Manager, Research and Markets
Fax: +1 646 607 1907 (US)
Fax: +353 1 481 1716 (Rest of World)
e-mail: press@researchandmarkets.com
((M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information
provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties.
Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at
http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to
info@m2.com)).
Copyright ? 2008 M2 Communications Ltd.
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