Next generation communications

Andrew McDougall eases the anxiety and trepidation around making the switch to unified communications (UC).

“It is estimated that in 2010 the worldwide UC marketplace will be worth around €4.5 billion”
-Andrew McDougall

BM. For the uninitiated could you explain what exactly UC is?
Andrew McDougall. UC is not a product but an intelligent and time efficient use of technologies to enable ways of working that improve customer service, reduce transaction costs and deliver flexible working. It is estimated that in 2010 the worldwide UC market place will be worth around €4.5 billion. Employees and organisations have many means of communicating with each other, with customers, partners and suppliers: From office phone, office voicemail, email, mobile phone, mobile voice mail, instant messaging, text messaging and the internet, all inconsistent with one another and all with differing costs.

This array of communication choices are making it increasingly difficult for businesses to manage the overload and with more and more workers going 'virtual' working from home, travelling or from other remote locations it is becoming harder to find the best way of reaching them. Companies need a way of pulling all these disparate communications streams together to become a unified entity. UC incorporates a variety of methods you can deploy as part of a UC strategy to help you work more intelligently and efficiently, driving costs savings through technical efficiency, allowing your business to improve customer service, make faster decisions and locate relevant resources quickly and efficiently

It delivers, via a single interface, a comprehensive range of communications services and associated information designed to reduce the delays and frustrations of communication between individual employees, the extended virtual organisation and external customers. Empowering staff by freeing them from a complexity of technology, allows them to concentrate on why they are communicating. By giving people the flexibility to work from, the office, remotely or on the move, and providing them with the ability to work dynamically and collaboratively, effectively sharing the same information as their office colleagues, organisations can maximise their skills and enhance both employee and customer satisfaction.

BM. Do organisations need to invest in new technology?
Andrew McDougall. UC does not necessarily involve major investment in new technology. Almost all vendor UC offerings incorporate a variety of methods to integrate with existing voice technology (TDM and VoIP). Depending on which services are already deployed in the existing infrastructure it is obviously the case that some additional investment will be required to support the new user tool and additional contact media (video, instant messaging and so on).

When investigating UC for your business you need to consider the ongoing cost of ownership for any vendor solution and not just the immediate outlay, which may appear low cost from a software licence perspective only. It is also paramount that you have a plan that addresses real business needs both now and as far as possible into the future so that whatever you buy is aligned to that plan.

BM. But will it involve a completely different way of working?
Andrew McDougall. It doesn't have to but either through orchestrated change programmes or with the passage of time people's work habits will evolve to utilise the new ways of working made possible by UC. UC is definitely aligned more easily within organisations that have already accepted an information sharing and collaboration culture and so the challenge for the organisation, is to steer such change into patterns that reflect desired behaviours and away from undesirable ones. 

BM. How have you helped organisations looking to make the switch to UC?
Andrew McDougall. Vodafone's Unified Communications Group has helped Cambridgeshire County Council to transform its working environment by providing its employees with fast, simple, 'always on', access communications. Alan Shields, Technical Architect, Cambridgeshire County Council said: "Our vision is that staff work flexibly, balancing work life pressures and the needs of the community - satisfying these and their own requirements. Upon project completion the council will benefit from a truly unified communications solutions, providing over 5000 government employees with a platform to effectively communicate, share and interact together from anywhere at anytime, enabling new forms of flexible working and significantly improving the quality of public services offered."

Andrew McDougall is Head of Vodafone's Unified Communications Group. He was previously CEO of Central Telecom, acquired by Vodafone in December 2008 to become the Unified Communications Group. Under McDougall's leadership Central became one of the UK's largest and most successful independent telecoms companies with specific expertise in IP telephony, voice, managed services and UC.