As economic conditions continue to decline, companies with offices across the country - afar as the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal - are looking for ways to improve their business outcomes while reducing costs and encouraging environmental sustainability.
To help meet these goals, many of these companies are turning to new software-based collaboration tools like Microsoft's Unified Communication (UC) technologies.
Galdon Data, a Microsoft Unified Communications specialist company, has announced that an increasing number of businesses throughout the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, who are already using these capabilities, have achieved measurable improvements in their corporate performance, including increased business efficiencies, total cost savings, and environmental footprint reductions.
Microsoft's UC technologies use the power of software to deliver complete communications - messaging, voice, fax, conferencing, calendaring, and video - within the applications and devices that people use every day.
“Today, the communications world is split in two - between the things you do on the telephone and the things you do on the computer - both are mission critical, says Galdon Data director Garry Ackerman. “Both require people to cross geographic and time boundaries and both require people to connect anytime, anywhere and seamlessly. Universal access to technology has empowered people to work more efficiently and effectively, on their own and with each other. Mobile and geographically distributed companies require access to information, regardless of location.”
Galdon Data was selected by Microsoft to be one of a very limited number of members of the Unified Communications (UC) Voice Partner Program (VPP) worldwide, and the first in southern Africa to achieve this status. This distinction solidifies Galdon Data's expertise in Microsoft's UC solutions, including Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communication server 2007 R2.
“Integrating the experiences you associate with the telephone, including phone calls, voice mail and conferencing into the work you do on a computer, namely documents, spreadsheets, instant messaging, e-mail, calendars, and application access and sharing, has the power to fundamentally change the way the world works,” he explains.
Organisations, now more than ever, are faced with portfolio balancing of office costs, increasing productivity for mobile and globally distributed people, and ensuring that corporate initiatives are environmentally sustainable. These initiatives and measures reduce capital costs, cut travel time and expense, boost retention, protect the environment, and free up more time for productive work.
Employees can now work from anywhere, from home, satellite offices, hotel spaces, coffee shops, anywhere they can find an Internet connection - enabling productivity with technology. New technologies such as Microsoft's Unified Communications enables secure information access and facilitates effective collaboration among distributed employees - e-mail, instant messaging, voice communications, calendaring, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing are unified on a single platform. This empowers workers to be productive anywhere, anytime.
Ackerman says once conferencing is installed on the users' desktops, usage will likely expand dramatically. “As this occurs, travel costs will drop. This can generate major time and expense savings both for long trips such as air travel and for the many short trips to a nearby building or customer location. And, of course, business can proceed much more rapidly and meetings can be shorter and more efficient, supported by easy information sharing.”
It is also possible to use the presence and IM functions of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to see which persons are not available for a call, thus avoiding a wasted call and voice message, or to communicate with internal and external users via IM to avoid telephone calls entirely.
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 includes an excellent voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) functionality accessible through Office Communicator. Wherever Office Communications Server 2007 R2 VOIP calls are made between offices countrywide instead of calling on the public telephone network, a cost savings will accrue. Since Office Communications Server 2007 R2 enables users to “click to call” another user after checking that user's presence status or sending a quick IM, this should be a popular application with good ROI potential.
Early adopters of this technology are already reporting as much as a 50% reduction in costs for national and international calls, especially between their home office and their national and international locations where the cost is still significant.
Galdon Data can provide a comprehensive ROI calculation model, it is designed to provide enterprises with a simple but accurate way to calculate the ROI from Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 implementations. The model flexibly accommodates a variety of business situations. In general, users will work their way through the formatted tabbed worksheets, answering questions about their enterprise's operation, and providing estimates of usage and financial data. The model will then calculate ROI factors, including payback period and Internal Rate of Return (IRR).
Ackerman encourages potential customers to use this model to assist management in defining and then realising the full economic value of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
Galdon Data is hosting a series of roundtables to demonstrate how Microsoft Unified Communications has the ability to fundamentally change the way that businesses work and help drive operational costs down - in and out of the office.
For more information, contact Galdon Data on (011) 805-4420 or e-mail sales@galdon.co.za.
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