A new report from BT has found converged networking services deliver higher levels of customer satisfaction that traditional network IT services.
The research, conducted by Coleman Parkes, found over 40 per cent of UK organisations with a converged network are more satisfied with their managed services partners than they were prior to their investment in the technology and attributes this to better network performance and reliability.
Only six per cent of organisations are less satisfied with their service partners since adopting convergence.
David Stark, vice president of convergent services within BT's Global Services division told IT PRO the report looked at the trend towards adopting convergent networking technologies that support both voice and data communications, which previously required separate infrastructures.
"Two years ago you could've asked different people what convergence meant and got many different answers," he said. "Now these technologies are coming together and working in a way that offers ease of use, interoperability and efficiency that is reflected in the high satisfaction levels revealed by the report."
He said cost effectiveness was the prime driver of the improved satisfaction levels, with 70 per cent of respondents highlighting this as the main reason for improved satisfaction levels. In addition, he said the maturity of these services had made them easier to manage than legacy network infrastructures.
It also found that while all 250 mid to large-sized organisations questioned had started to adopt some kind of voice and data convergence, 64 per cent had begun using simple voice over internet protocol (VoIP) systems, with 43 per cent sending voice over their local area network (LAN) and 36 per cent sending voice over their wide area network (WAN). Only 13 per cent of respondents had adopted a fully converged voice and data network.
Meanwhile, break-fix maintenance and managed WANs tended to be the services most commonly sourced from a third-party service provider, at 50 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.
A smaller number of organisations rely on hosted IP telephony (37 per cent), while 25 per cent outsource the management of their LAN. And over a quarter (26 per cent) rely on an external supplier to provide services to assure business continuity.
The BT Convergence Services Report examines the experiences of UK medium and large-sized organisations from the finance, manufacturing and construction, government and retail industries in employing third-party service partners to support their converged networks.
