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 Recessionary environment powers UC adoption
With travel budgets being slashed drastically, most Indian organizations have accelerated their adoption of UC technologies. “The economic crisis has had a positive impact on the adoption of UC tools. The requirements of organizations in the current economic situation and the features that UC tools offer, namely reducing costs while simultaneously improving productivity, mirror each other. UC can be integrated with critical business processes and business applications which can result in faster service delivery to customers,” says Sivarama Krishnan, Executive Director, Performance Improvement, PricewaterhouseCoopers. Krishnan says that UC tools have become popular, as it has allowed organizations to expand operations without incurring additional expenditure on infrastructure. Organizations have also been able to cut down on the telephony and conferencing costs by replacing the dial-in services with IP based capabilities.
As most UC solution deployments yield a fast ROI, Indian enterprises have started adopting UC tools on a fast scale. Says Michael Yu, Director, Network Solutions Group, TSG, APJ, HP, “Unified communications solutions yield cost savings that can enable investment in areas that significantly change business processes to achieve better productivity and customer satisfaction. For example, savings from travel expenses through unified communications can now be invested in Telepresence solutions, which can, in turn, be used for customer meetings, and new product introductions to drive further cost savings.” In essence, a trickle of adoption has now turned into a flood—as a couple of travel trips saved by deploying UC tools, can more than adequately compensate for the investments made in purchasing these UC tools.
 As more Indian organizations go global, UC tools are fast becoming crucial in connecting effectively with the parent organization. “The combination of mobility solutions and applications enhanced with UC-based communication capabilities is diminishing the need for in-person meetings. Visual collaboration technologies are being viewed as business enablers in this tough economic scenario, as a tool for business continuity and for managing a dispersed workforce, customers, and partners,” says Anshul Dhingra, Senior Marketing Manager - India & SAARC, Polycom.
Most organizations today have distributed workforces scattered across the globe. While earlier collaboration between these teams was a challenging task, today UC tools ensure that every employee is just a click away. “The unified interface means that employees can access information no matter where this is held, at any time, on any device, thereby allowing the mobile workforce to have continued access to information, whether individuals are at home, onsite or at work,” opines Sunanda Das, MD, Cable & Wireless India.
| UC Industry Impact |
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COMPANY
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USAGE
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| Telemedicine |
Remote populations can benefit from mobile clinics that use a wireless broadband
connection to deliver expert advice from doctors located anywhere in the world |
| Customer Interaction |
UC tools provide the knowledge worker with tools such as the ‘presence’ indicator, which help in quickly identifying which domain expert is available to efficiently complete the call |
| Project Collaboration |
Using UC, geographically dispersed teams can conduct web-based meetings, share desktops and collaborate for presentations |
| Education |
The availability of good teachers in remote villages is always a big challenge. UC tools can fill this vacuum, by having one subject matter expert or teacher in one location, and simulating live virtual classrooms in hundreds of other locations |
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UC also brings in the much needed agility and flexibility that are imperative for any company to succeed in an extremely competitive environment. “One of the challenges businesses face today is the flexible alignment of resources to support projects. Presence capabilities in many UC solutions will provide an exciting opportunity for team members to be assigned to projects based on their availability,” says Sudhir Narang, MD, British Telecom India. Narang says that by analyzing information related to presence, organizations can drive greater efficiencies and higher utilization of resource pools.
To encourage SMBs to adopt UC solutions, vendors are trying out innovative strategies. For example, Nortel has launched a UC solution created using open source technologies. Says Dhananjay Ganjoo, Vice President Enterprise, Nortel, Asia, “The Software Communication Server (SCS), is targeted at small and medium businesses, and allows enterprises to deploy a full-fledged UC solution by buying standard industry shelf hardware and handsets.” Ganjoo says that this open source solution will be apt for enterprises who do not want to be locked into proprietary hardware, and want to build custom communication solutions that address their specific business requirements. Ganjoo claims that this product is being widely accepted in the market since no additional hardware or application centric licenses are required.
Facilitating creation of virtual teams >>
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