Unified messaging`s role in migration from traditional messaging to unified communications

Unified messaging (UM) is the pivotal piece in the migration to unified communications (UC).

It allows companies to manage voicemail, faxes, e-mail and video from a single inbox using a single set of management controls, while offering immediate and tangible benefits such as increased productivity, improved customer responsiveness and a greater return on existing telephony and messaging investments.

This paper examines the role of UM in the migration toward UC and discusses the importance of business continuity, versatility and innovation in the successful deployment of critical applications.

In the early 1980s, voicemail was introduced to the corporate world and quickly became a widely used communication tool. At that time, the predominant voicemail technology was proprietary in nature, with limited ability to migrate to newer technology or integrate with business systems other than the PBX.

The 1990s saw the introduction of the Internet, and with it, e-mail. The intuitive e-mail interface surpassed voicemail in terms of popularity and quickly became the de facto standard in business communication.

Today, both voicemail and e-mail remain mission-critical to business communication. Added to the mix of communication tools are VOIP, mobility, collaboration, content management and customer interaction applications.

Many companies are also faced with the challenge of what to do with aging and obsolete voicemail systems. The challenge for companies today is finding innovative solutions to unify the increasingly complex mix of business communication tools and technology.

Not only has messaging technology evolved over the last 25 years, so has the way in which companies work and utilise these applications. Companies in the face of rapid growth - and those wanting to attract top talent to the organisation - often find their employees dispersed across town, across the country, or across the globe. Additionally, today`s workforce is more mobile than ever before.

According to IDC, the US mobile worker population will reach 113 million in 2009 - growing nearly 3% per year for the next three years. (1)

This increase in mobility has also raised the expectations of responsiveness. Missed calls and missed messages often result in lost business opportunities. And in today`s competitive marketplace, missed messages communicate an image of complacency or even incompetence. Companies must deploy versatile and flexible applications to respond to an increasingly mobile and dispersed work environment.

Following the natural disasters and terrorist attacks of the recent past, companies are making business continuity plans a priority. According to a recent survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan, business continuity was ranked as one of the top five business priorities of enterprise decision makers. (2)

However, business continuity should not be confused with disaster recovery. Disaster recovery implies the need to "recover" from a significant disaster that has halted business operations. Disaster recovery focuses mainly on restoring internal operations.

Business continuity focuses mainly on customers and employees and the ability to support and communicate with these individuals as if business was operating as usual (even when it`s not). UC lies at the heart of a company`s ability to ensure business continuity.

UC has been defined differently by different suppliers offering discrete parts of the overall solution. One leading industry analyst has defined UC as: "Products that enhance enterprise productivity by enabling and facilitating the user`s management of enterprise communication systems and the integration of these systems with business processes."

Despite differing definitions, experts agree that UC is rarely delivered by a single supplier. While UC offers the ultimate solution for streamlined communication, many deployment barriers exist. According to a recent Frost and Sullivan survey of enterprise decision-makers, the top barriers for deploying UC were cited as upfront costs, security concerns, interoperability concerns and the sunk costs into existing technology. (3)

UM is an ideal "stepping stone" on a company`s path to UC. It is the best example of a practical application, offering the benefits of increased productivity and improved responsiveness, while addressing many of the primary concerns of UC.

UM offers a relatively low cost of entry into UC. Today`s leading suppliers of UM offer cost-effective points of entry with "UM-capable" platforms. These systems allow companies to deploy UM in a phased approach, beginning with voice messaging and moving toward a gradual migration to full UM. Not only does this approach simplify the migration process, it avoids any disruption to business continuity that an abrupt cutover might cause.

Additionally, many voice messaging systems today were purchased or upgraded prior to the market hysteria fuelled by Y2K, and many of these systems have reached their full depreciated value. Companies looking to replace these systems should look for platforms that are versatile, flexible and enable a gradual migration from voice messaging, to UM, and ultimately to UC.

UM also leverages the knowledge and expertise that exists within the company today: the data messaging and network expertise of the IT staff and the telephony knowledge and know-how of the telecoms staff. Leading UM platforms today are built on existing network and messaging systems, requiring minimal training or knowledge for the IT staff to administer.

Additionally, because these systems connect directly to traditional PBX and key systems, as well as IP PBX systems, UM offers an opportunity to leverage the knowledge of the telecoms staff, and extend the ROI of the company`s telephony investments.

Because UM applications "unify" all messages within the e-mail client, little or no user training is required. Users simply use the intuitive e-mail interface with which they are already familiar to manage all message types - voice, fax, video, and of course, e-mail.

According to several major studies, more than 85% of organisations are familiar with UM and UC, yet only 22% have deployed these applications. So why hasn`t UM been more successful? The primary reason is the lack of ROI. Before the significant growth in the mobile workforce, the return on investment for UM was difficult to quantify. Today, however, the tangible time and money savings as a result of increased productivity for the mobile worker are real.

Technical complexities have also hindered deployment. In the past, some UM suppliers made deploying UM difficult due to lack of integration with disparate networks, e-mail servers and telephone systems.

Because many suppliers manufacture telephone systems as their primary offering, the UM applications from these suppliers are built to work specifically with those telephone systems. For any organisation with multiple PBX, IP PBX, or key systems in place - or with plans to migrate or upgrade their telephony equipment - choosing a UM solution that is independent of the telephone system is imperative.

Early UM applications lacked integration at the system level, increasing system administration time and requiring the management and maintenance of multiple user directories. And lack of adequate compression technology and network bandwidth made companies fearful of moving large, multimedia messages across the network.

One of the biggest barriers to the widespread deployment of UM has been user training. Many companies invested heavily in early, proprietary voicemail systems that have been in operation for decades. For companies with large user populations, the cost of retraining those users on a new telephone user interface is simply too costly.

Over the last decade, UM technology has evolved and work environments have changed, both of which address many of the key issues which prohibited its widespread deployment. The increasingly mobile work environment makes it easy to justify the ROI of UM.

New applications, such as video messaging and "Find Me Follow Me" presence management, justify the ROI for the mobile worker - and in-office employees who communicate with their mobile co-workers - even further.

System level integration with e-mail servers, user directories, message stores, and network environments simplifies the job of the system administrator and leverages the expertise already existing within the organisation. And independent suppliers of UM - those suppliers who do not develop applications for a single telephone system - ensure the UM application purchased today will seamlessly integrate within the existing and future telephony environment.

Finally, leading UM suppliers have addressed the user training obstacle head-on with innovative technology that emulates the telephone user interface of the voicemail systems already in place. And products with advanced capabilities in this area also address the real-world environments of companies using multiple, disparate voice messaging systems and allow individual users to choose the telephone user interface of their choice.

(1) IDC "Worldwide Mobile Worker Population Forecast and Analysis 2005 - 2009 (IDC #34124)" (October, 2005)
(2) Frost & Sullivan Survey, 2007
(3) Frost & Sullivan Survey, 2007

By Wernher Lotter, sales director, Centravoice, a division of the Centratel Group of Companies