Migrating Gracefully to UC in 2014 - One Step At A Time
I think everyone recognizes that the future of business communications is becoming more mobile, multi-modal, IP based, and integrated with business process applications. The major challenges for every organization, large or small, for starting to move forward towards that future are many, but there are two basic planning steps always required. Step 1, understanding how and where the benefits of using the new communications technology will best apply to the various operational needs and priorities of the individual business. Step 2, planning a minimally disruptive and cost effective migration from their current communication technologies. There are also other steps involved, e.g., secure access for BYOD devices, managing and maintaining UC-enabled apps, training end users to use converged communication facilities effectively, etc., but those will be other steps.
Step 1 is important because it lays the groundwork for justifying the move to new communications technology, identifying different end user needs, and will also affect planning for changes to current business process applications (CEBP). Because UC has become more complex and most organizations don't have internal expertise with the new technologies, it has become most practical to utilize objective professional consultants, familiar with particular vertical market needs, to help define requirements for Step 1.
However, Step 2 must also be started in synch after Step 1. This may be done on a priority basis, for specific business processes and all involved types of end users. With flexibility of Internet connectivity and mobile devices, the old requirements of location-based technologies and CPE don't really apply. This allows for a more graceful migration implementation based on specific business processes and the specific end users that will be involved with those customized applications.
What is Needed for Step 2
The change to IP digital communications will basically impact how the legacy wired, premised-based, PSTN-connected telephony system will be subsumed by wired and wireless cloud-based Internet connectivity services, and how Communications Enabled Business Process applications will replace person-to-person contact activities. Such change will obviously be an evolutionary one, so most organizations will face the old syndrome of "one foot on land (CPE, PSTN) and the other in the canoe (cloud services, WebRTC)." So, it will be important to use technology that is flexible enough to connect the old with new.
While I usually like to focus on what the end users will need and want from communication user interfaces, there is no question that infrastructure and connectivity that end users don't see, are equally important for implementation planning. Patton Electronics is a well-established technology provider, particularly in Europe, but less well known in the U.S., that is focused on providing the technology to connect all the "old" with all the "new" business communications technologies required by both organizations and communication service providers that must migrate to the UC future. As every organization starts their migration towards IP Telephony as part of UC enablement, they will need the kind of connectivity flexibility that Patton's SmartNode platform, cloud services, and integration services with Microsoft Lync and IBM Sametime can offer.
At this point in Step 2, traditional VARs, SIs, and Channel Partners, perhaps referred by the Consultants that helped do Step 1, can be called upon to do the heavy lifting integrations for connectivity and UC interoperability. This is where the flexibility experience of Patton's connectivity offerings can come into play to make things work more easily and quickly for getting to the next steps of implementation.
Tags
Start YourCustomized Search
SOLUTION AREA
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
- 8x8 (7) Apply 8x8 filter
- Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (1) Apply Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise filter
- AudioCodes (2) Apply AudioCodes filter
- Avaya (11) Apply Avaya filter
- Cisco (14) Apply Cisco filter
- (-) Remove Five9 filter Five9
- Fuze (3) Apply Fuze filter
- Genesys (10) Apply Genesys filter
- Logitech (1) Apply Logitech filter
- Lumen (2) Apply Lumen filter
- Microsoft (10) Apply Microsoft filter
- Mitel (10) Apply Mitel filter
- NEC (1) Apply NEC filter
- RingCentral (10) Apply RingCentral filter
- Slack (1) Apply Slack filter
- Unify (1) Apply Unify filter
- Vonage Business (9) Apply Vonage Business filter
- Zoom (7) Apply Zoom filter
- Aspect (2) Apply Aspect filter
- CaféX (1) Apply CaféX filter
- CallTower (2) Apply CallTower filter
- Inference Solutions (2) Apply Inference Solutions filter
- IntelePeer (1) Apply IntelePeer filter
- Lifesize (1) Apply Lifesize filter
- Star2Star (1) Apply Star2Star filter
- StarLeaf (1) Apply StarLeaf filter
- Verint (5) Apply Verint filter
- 3CX (1) Apply 3CX filter
- Bandwidth (1) Apply Bandwidth filter
- Calabrio (1) Apply Calabrio filter
- Logmein (2) Apply Logmein filter
- Ooma (1) Apply Ooma filter
- TrueConf (1) Apply TrueConf filter
- UJET (4) Apply UJET filter
CONTENT TYPE
- BC Expert Insights Market (6) Apply BC Expert Insights Market filter
- BC Expert Insights Objective - Vendor Neutral (0)
- BC Expert Insights Planning (0)
- BC Expert Insights Solution (1) Apply BC Expert Insights Solution filter
- BC Expert Insights Vendor (5) Apply BC Expert Insights Vendor filter
- BC Expert Insights Vendor Solution (10) Apply BC Expert Insights Vendor Solution filter
- BC Expert Roundtable (7) Apply BC Expert Roundtable filter
- Bcs Webinar (0)
- Bcs Webinar Registration (0)
- Best Practice (0)
- Buyer Guide (0)
- Case Study (0)
- Executive Interview (3) Apply Executive Interview filter
- Expert Roundtable (8) Apply Expert Roundtable filter
- Guest Contributions (0)
- Multimedia (1) Apply Multimedia filter
- News Analysis (26) Apply News Analysis filter
- Newsfeed Article (1) Apply Newsfeed Article filter
- Newsfeed Article (0)
- Thought Leadership (0)
- Vendor Collateral (0)
- Vendor Resource Best Practices (0)
- Vendor Resource Buyers Guides (0)
- Vendor Resource Multimedia Content (0)
- Vendor Resource White Paper (0)
- Webinar (1) Apply Webinar filter
- Webinars (0)
- White Paper (1) Apply White Paper filter
MORE FILTERS
INDUSTRY
- Banking And Investment (0)
- Education (0)
- Energy And Utilities (0)
- Finance (0)
- Government (0)
- Healthcare (0)
- Hospitality (0)
- Insurance (0)
- Manufacturing (0)
- Media/Publishing (0)
- None (0)
- Professional Services (0)
- Retail & Distribution (0)
- Technology (5) Apply Technology filter
- Transportation (0)
Comments
There are currently no comments on this article.
You must be a registered user to make comments