Survey Reveals Plenty of Opportunity in the UK Unified Communications Marketplace

March 22, 2011 - PRLog -- A survey by UK business technology publication Computing has found that only one-third of medium-to-large UK organisations are using unified communications (UC), with voice and data carried on the same network. This is a surprisingly low figure considering the technology is 15 years old – almost as old as the commercial use of the Internet itself. Clearly, in the UC marketplace there are plenty of opportunities for expansion.

The email survey of 150 UK IT professionals with responsibility for their organisations’ networks and telecommunications systems was carried out in association with UC vendor Shoretel.

The most common reason for maintaining separate voice and data systems is a lack of perceived need for UC. This could be a reflection of several different factors: a lack of perceived need to explore more flexible working practices; a reluctance to commit to a large-scale investment, one that possibly requires a network upgrade too; a traditional voice PBX that has some years of service left in it; or simply a business culture that reacts to events rather than looking to the future when it comes to technology.

Capital cost is another factor. In a difficult economic climate, large-scale ICT investments are always going to struggle to find favour, especially where the financial benefits will be enjoyed in the long term.

"Firms are looking for a clear return on investment", said John Leonard of Computing Research. "There is a need for heads of IT to be able to demonstrate that the solution really will produce the savings and benefits promised".

But calculating the TCO is more easily said than done. The cost of the UC technology itself is only part of the story. There is also the support, maintenance and training to pay for. Set against these costs are the potential savings, not just in the cost of calls but in a multitude of other efficiencies: the use of video could save a fortune on travelling to business meetings and enabling access to the network via a variety of devices could lead to a more flexible workforce, in turn driving further business efficiencies.

Judging by the survey, most companies dodge these tricky cost-benefit calculations by considering the cost of UC installation as a pure technology deal, with many balancing the costs of UC technology purely against those of traditional phone systems - negating the networking aspect. This is likely to seriously undervalue UC.

Upgrading the network is also an issue for many organisations: UC solutions require a robust network, particularly when it comes to delivering video across an enterprise. In many organisations the infrastructure will not be up to the task.

Despite these difficulties, more than 40% of non-users are looking to switch to UC within a couple of years, and more than 30% of the rest will change at some point. Some of the latter are waiting for the cost of their in-house PBX equipment to be written off.

"The low take-up of unified comms is rather surprising given that the technology has now been around for some years and has surmounted its initial teething problems where voice quality was questionable and networks were not robust enough to cope", said Leonard.

"These days, there is no over-riding technical reason as to why companies should not adopt unified communications – but plainly there are serious barriers, namely cost and culture. TCO needs to be calculated by drawing up a detailed list of all costs and estimating the potential cost savings. Meanwhile many firms need to check which way the wind is blowing. Current trends point towards more mobile working, and the flexibility and increased functionality enabled by UC could offer a distinct competitive advantage".

Download the report (PDF) http://www.ithound.com/abstract/network-ready-ip-telephon...

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