Enterprise UC: Changing Communications, One Business Process at a Time

I recently spoke with a customer in the retail industry about how his company could apply new methods to improve business processes. As a director of customer care, he had interesting insight into what processes could be “fixed”. For example, when the product inventory in his warehouse falls below a certain level, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system should automatically look at the presence of people in the enterprise who can resolve the issue. The system should then automatically initiate a call, send an email or deliver an instant message to notify the appropriate people in manufacturing and shipping. Then, the system could automatically inform the appropriate sales person or sales manager and also simultaneously contact the customer with the change in status.

This is a perfect example of Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP), the third step along the unified communications (UC) journey. In my previous two columns, I mentioned the four destinations of the UC journey — and that there are different benefits associated with the different phases of implementation: 1) Individual Productivity; 2) Workgroup Productivity; 3) Communications-Enabled Business Processes; 4) Enterprise Transformation.

The CEBP stage, also known as Enterprise UC, involves embedding UC capabilities into business processes that extend across functional groups throughout an enterprise. This may require some cultural changes to adapt to the modifications in processes. Companies should carefully consider their desired benefits as part of the planning process, and ensure they have achieved a certain level of “maturity” (translation: people should be using it) in the use of presence before moving to this next step. Adoption activities should be included in the overall plan, with appropriate training, incentives, metrics and cultural expectations defined for each role. Example: to avoid any one person being “overloaded” or contacted too much in an ad hoc manner, it may be necessary to assign coverage periods for different people in a department so that someone is available at all appropriate times, without affecting an employee’s “day job”.

Identifying communications “hot spots” in processes, planning the implementation and ensuring user adoption can open up a world of very tangible business benefits. Enterprise UC can increase, sales, enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, improve vendor relationships, and reduce errors, waste and costs. And, maybe make a certain customer care director’s life a bit easier. IT

Mike Sheridan (News - Alert) is Senior Vice President, Strategy and Marketing, Aspect (www.aspect.com).

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