By Hal Clark

Simplifying the creation and execution of business automation processes is at the heart of IT systems migration to a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The personality of business transactions with a specific enterprise is enhanced through the use of voice and video interaction —– but full exploitation of these personal connections cannot be achieved using today’s telephony systems. Enterprise communication platforms, architected from the ground up around SIP, operate as applications within the IT infrastructure used today to execute data-oriented process automation. SIP connects interactive voice and video elements serving business transactions in a defined process to diverse applications and user devices. Deploying a SIP-based enterprise communication platform today allows for use of existing telephone system investment while enabling process transactions to fully exploit communications for new business opportunities unencumbered by current limitations.

Personal Connections Capture Customers
Throughout history, exchanges of services and products for negotiated value have been conducted person-to-person. In spite of revolutions in communications technologies, personal interaction remains significant in the development and maintenance of strong relationships in our social culture. Businesses can exploit voice and video interaction for stronger customer relationships that differentiate their enterprise from their competitors. Much marketing effectiveness has been achieved by the appearance of Web interfaces to automate business transactions at the convenience of the customer. However, convenience is only one dimension in attracting a sales transaction. The customer is not always attracted to this “self-help” paradigm and will ultimately be alienated by the isolation or lack of a personal connection to the business. “Personal touch” is one more method in the business arsenal to capture as many customer transactions as possible, whether these more enterprise employees producing or delivering products as well as being accessible to customers online. In the retail example, more staff could work in a store location and also have the experience to assist customers by phone when not assisting customers on the floor. An additional benefit is that more employees have experience with customer issues to apply in product development or delivery – another way to improve enterprise value. This nirvana of business productivity is difficult to achieve with existing communication solutions: specifically phone and video conferencing systems. While data application environments have advanced significantly in both user-interface and process-flow automation, voice and video communications remain locked in a separate environment through continuing use of historical PBX and conferencing systems that evolved with no concept of future transaction or financial considerations. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) went part of the way by connecting telephone and computer environments for better coordination of transactions – better “personal touch,” but neither customer satisfaction nor business productivity were optimized. In fact, these complex, expensive implementations are proprietary and require extensive work to implement and maintain as business processes change.

Migration
Simultaneously attracting customers and achieving financial operating objectives require a synergistic combination of voice, video, and data applications into an automated transaction process flow using a unified environment. The advanced development of data application platforms and operation management systems suggests this environment as the place to add voice and video interaction elements to business transaction automation. New and emerging Web technologies can simplify the definition of automated processes. Building blocks for data application interfaces include an extensible “http” protocol and “XML” information format that enable a fast, customized creation of “Web Services.” SIP is conceptually equivalent and focused on enabling similar “Services” for person-to-person voice and video conversations. With these common family attributes, why not combine them in a common services automation environment?

A SIP enterprise communication platform is exactly what is required to accomplish this optimized operating environment. Taken from the perspective of a “Web” service, the SIP enterprise communication platform is implemented as a software application of voice and video services that resides in the same operating environment as “data” applications and uses intercommunications more native to the “data” application. For instance, a process can invoke a connection between a customer and a “knowledge resource” using a “Web Service” interface. The SIP enterprise communication platform manages the specific requirements of the voice and video connection in conjunction with the “data” application. Both “Services” operate concurrently in a coordinated manner to conduct the single transaction. Once the process application determines that human intervention is required to proceed with the business transaction, locating an appropriate “knowledge resource” is the next decision. In the retail example mentioned earlier, a SIP enterprise communication platform can be extended to understand the “knowledge base” of users on the system as well as making the connection to a user that is not occupied by other tasks. Take the case of a customer trying to determine color matching during an online purchase of pants and jacket. Items viewed by the customer during the session, along with supporting queries, identify an area of interest that can be mapped to the employees that can assist the customer’s decision. Further examination of the knowledge group determines who is at work in a store location and not occupied by another customer. The SIP enterprise communication platform makes the connection directly between the employee and the customer wherever they are located. This personal interaction quickly determines the additional information needed to successfully complete the order. Available resources were used to facilitate the customer order without requiring a separate contact center. Note that while knowledge resources can be reached via existing PBXs, complications arise for environments in which employees do not stay at the same desk all the time or are not dedicated to “contact center” seats. Finding the appropriate person to respond to customer issues requires association of skills to individuals in the “resource” pool along with their location and availability. A SIP enterprise communication platform determines the “availability” of individuals through their “presence” on the system along with skills inventories and call policies rather than the ‘line’-based definitions used by legacy PBX systems and call centers. Different “phone” sets may also be used by employees depending on whether they are at a desk, in transit, or out of the office. Indeed, an employee may sit at different desks as they proceed through their work activities. With an end-user, identity-oriented perspective of the communications environment, the SIP enterprise communication platform enables mobility across a range of “phone” set types based on the “presence” of the user in the system. Implementing a SIP enterprise communication platform provides backwards compatibility with installed legacy equipment with the native ability to interface directly with alternate userinterfaces as the communications environment migrates to newer applications. A SIP enterprise communication platform enables you to move towards future operations productivity with improved customer loyalty but without requiring replacement of installed communications equipment in the initial phases of migration.

Service Elements
Today’s data application and telephony systems cannot accomplish the goal of a unified business-process environment for flexible operating scenarios. The guiding principle of process implementation embodied in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) treats applications interacting with users as services, including voice and video communications. Implementing functions that find users and manage communication sessions as services in an SOA environment removes a requirement for each application to provide the specialized functions needed to communicate directly with a customer. While the application interface implementing a verbal communication session may be similar to the data interfaces used for the “Web” presentation, the functions necessary to locate users and manage the media requirements can be reused by many applications. A SIP enterprise communication platform supports mobile availability of users and flexible interworking with processes defined in the SOA that are so important to future productivity. Essential elements for business process also include stored voice and video for applications like voice mail, unified messaging, autoattendant and automated voice-response systems. A SIP enterprise communication platform orchestrates resources — implementing these functions more globally and flexibly than legacy systems and making them available in a more intelligent manner to SOA-defined processes. A customer will not be dumped into a voice mail dungeon and left there unless they agree that is what they want. And not to be left unnoticed, the SIP enterprise communication platform is also serving simple service requests, known popularly as “telephone calls.” The lower-level applications use the same resources used by an SOA process definition, and vice-versa, the SOA depends on the same functions of presence and connection-management provided by the SIP enterprise communication platform to make the important connections with customers.

Conclusion
As enterprises seek competitive differentiation, Service Oriented Architectures and Web Services enable flexible packaging of service elements to drive a vision of business personality for each enterprise. Personal connections with customers need to be natively integrated into these processes to yield increasing loyalty, and employees need to be used productively to increase business value. Both customers and employees are increasingly mobile in terms of their location and the types of devices they use to communicate at different times. Implementing a SIP enterprise communication platform early in the evolution to SOA enables backwards compatibility to installed systems — with a smooth migration to future applications with powerful customer attraction.