Making the case for IP telephony

By Rodney Weidemann for Gartner

Johannesburg, 27 Oct 2003

Attendees at last week`s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2003, which ran from 19 to 24 October in Florida in the US, were warned by Gartner analysts that enterprises should not convert to an IP telephony environment simply for the sake of IP.

"Organisations have stopped asking why they should implement IP telephony and are now focusing on when to implement," says Jeff Snyder, research VP for Gartner.

"When considering when to implement IP telephony, enterprises should look for tangible benefits beyond simple cost savings, by understanding the needs of the business units and identifying how improved communications can benefit overall business operations."

He says that once those business benefits become measurable, there is no reason not to begin a migration to IP.

Until 2005, virtually all IP telephony projects will be justified on cost savings alone, because few enterprises will be able to translate new IP telephony capabilities into genuine business value, according to the Gartner analysts.

Up until now, the business case for most new IP telephony systems has focused on cost savings or the end-of-life of current systems, meaning that most enterprises implementing IP telephony have simply performed one-for-one replacements, from equipment and functional perspectives.

However, Snyder says IP telephony systems have far greater capabilities and can dramatically change the way business communications take place.

"When determining when to purchase the basic infrastructure, enterprises should only do so when it fits into infrastructure plans, but should not let that timing dictate the actual conversion to IP telephony," says Snyder.

"Only after an organisation is prepared to make the change, for solid business reasons, should it begin the conversion process.

"Because it may be difficult to anticipate exactly when budgets or processes will call for conversion, enterprises should not invest in any new products or architectures that cannot support an upgrade to IP."