By 2015, between 34% and 42% of large enterprises will seriously consider procuring unified communications and collaboration (UCC) applications as a premise-based, but managed, service. While businesses should not ignore cloud options - particularly as more become available for large enterprises - they should also be looking for a services partner to manage their evolving UCC assets and investments.
This is one of the findings of the Dimension Data 2013 Global UCC Study. Earlier this year, Dimension Data commissioned research firm Ovum to conduct a global survey of the unified communications and collaboration market in the USA, Australia, Asia, Europe and South Africa. Over 1 320 enterprise ICT decision-makers and 1 390 employees in a broad spectrum of industry verticals in 18 countries were interviewed.
Gavin Hill, Technical Director: Solutions, Dimension Data South Africa, says UCC uptake in South Africa is ahead of the global curve, with further investment imminent. "Overall, the South African large enterprises we spoke to are ahead of the global trend when it comes to UCC investment. Our results show that 91% of large South African firms have a strategic plan in place to evaluate and implement at least some UCC applications in the medium term, similar to firms elsewhere. These results point to a relatively aggressive approach when it comes to UCC and its constituent technologies. South African enterprises have typical uptake rates higher than their global peers in key new areas such as personal video, social software, team workspaces and UC clients on smartphones/tablets (mobile UC), and report a sustained interest in maintaining or extending that investment."
South African employees bring their own smart devices to work, and generally, employers in the region support this. "Our research shows that more than 74% of South African employees who own smartphones and tablets bring these to work and use them for work. When asked about BYOD, almost one third of South African enterprises indicated support for any employee-owned smartphones and tablets, with 53% indicating support for those which have arrived in the organisation with official vetting. However, almost a third of respondents indicated they had no plans to support 'any device' BYOD at all, with almost a quarter planning no official BYOD policy."
Managed services is set to become a much more popular delivery method for UCC in South Africa. "Currently, about half of UCC deployments are premise-based and managed internally, typically ranging up to 60% for some UCC applications. The fact that South African enterprises are willing to consider managed models (either premise-based, public or private cloud) in over three quarters of cases for future investment indicates that South African decision-makers will expect their UCC providers to offer a robust array of managed options.
"Premise-based managed UCC is already adopted globally and is almost as pervasive as premise-based internally managed implementations. The fact that enterprises have opted for managed services in the past, across a broad range of UCC applications, indicates they understand these areas are complex and that they often do not have the in-house expertise (or budget) to support UCC evolution on their own," Hill adds.
"Nevertheless, despite the existence of cloud solutions for a number of years, enterprises are opting to take a cautious approach to cloud adoption, with premise-based accounting for 88% of IP-PBX systems and 83% of audio-conferencing bridges. In fact, our research revealed that only 20% of enterprises plan to seriously consider cloud for UCC deployments in the next 24 months, and across all UCC applications, less than 30% of companies will seriously consider traditional premise-based unmanaged deployments. What's most interesting is that between 21% and 36% of UCC applications are currently premise-based, but managed by a third party, and there is very keen interest expanding that model."
He points out that, in line with an expressed preference for managed UCC, those IT decision-makers polled also said they prefer to pay for UCC investment as an amortised expense over a set number of contract months or years, which is the current system typically used in managed services contracts. "This result is reassuring, when one considers that the next wave of UCC investment will be dependent on translating such investment into increased business agility, while containing TCO," he says.
According to Hill, CIOs often cite the need to base investment in new technologies and services on finding cost savings, either elsewhere or within the scope of the project itself. "Organisations should ensure their suppliers are able to identify targets for such savings, and that they offer the tools that enable this, such as telecoms expense management (TEM), voice over WAN, and contract and operator management. Taking UCC under management and ensuring suppliers commit to cost reductions over the period of the managed services contract can also free up valuable funds for strategic investment."
Other key findings of the Dimension Data 2013 Global UCC Study include: enterprises view UCC strategically, and have budgets to invest; the BYOD challenge should be approached as part of an overall enterprise mobility strategy; standard UC, mobile UC clients and social collaboration are key; and business process and agility play as much of a role as cost.
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