Four Key Challenges Today

Every organization faces a number of challenges in this competitive marketplace. Making the right choice in the UCC space is no different. Here are four key challenge areas and some ideas that may assist in making the right choice for most organizations.

The Flood of Information

I remember years ago attending a major telecom trade show. All the players were there, the trade show floor was busy and new product announcements were abundant. During the three day show there were over 5,000 announcements of varying degrees. Some were major overhauls of product and platforms; some were old products with new faces, others were minor in nature, but all made with some expectation that they would be important enough to have some attention for the intended market. The challenge? What's important to my organization and what's the potential impact, if any?

Like most other attendees there, the information presented ends up being filtered. And that's part of the flood of information challenge. Executives and managers need to be able to clearly define the organizations long term vision so that the information gathering can get through the flood of information and determine what's relevant.

The sources are many, but a good place for anyone looking for new, relevant information is right here on the UC Strategy site. It could be a member of the Vendor Community, or perhaps it's an article from the UC Strategy Experts team. It's a starting point to get through the flood of information that is available.

Differing Definitions

Imagine a leadership team discussing various strategies when someone suggests, "We're going to The Cloud". Some may think that they've missed out on the latest opening of a new restaurant in the area while some would think, "What's going to the cloud?" The term "cloud" can mean many things, just as some of the other terms like UCC, Bifurcation, (thanks for that Jon Arnold), Federation, Social Tracking and Optimized.

Some of these terms may mean different things to different people it all depends on who is doing the talking or perhaps the listening. What's appropriate is to determine a common set of definitions so there's clarity rather than confusion.

Hype vs. Reality

In 1993, I was at attending a training session, where the presenter was almost beside themselves talking about the development of a web site and the impact that this was going to have on our organization. Well, they were right. The reality has more than lived up to the hype and then some. Although, if I knew then what I know now...

Currently WebRTC is making its rounds, just as VoIP did a numbers of years ago and a number of other trends that have come and gone. The challenge here is what is hype vs reality? WebRTC has the potential to be a game changer and some would argue that is already is. The enterprise organization needs to be able to look at any new opportunity and make a determination - hype or reality.

Moving Forward

Most would be very familiar with the term analysis paralysis...waiting to deliver one more report on yet another idea that was first introduced no one remembers how long ago. The enthusiasm has long since evaporated, no one really cares and with any luck, it gets shelved along with the stack of other ideas that failed to see the light of day. Some companies seem to have a corporate culture that stifles moving forward.

Making the commitment to move forward takes vision, commitment and the willingness to sometimes take risks.

Dealing with these challenges could be addressed perhaps with the following:

• Have a summary of the main trends in the UC marketplace and discuss on a regular basis with the leadership team how these trends may impact the business
• Plan, implement and manage the expectations of any proposed UC rollout
• What's the business driver? This is sometimes the biggest single item that never really gets explored properly. A number of organizations implement solutions that were generated in a silo without the benefit of discussing the UC opportunity with other team members
• Understand the cost factor...completely. Not just the purchase price but the true price to plan, implement and manage

This list is nowhere near being comprehensive, but is intended as a starting point. Recognize the challenge and make it work for your organization