According to recent research findings, enterprise usage of Unified Communications (UC) across Europe is lagging behind demand. Increasingly we are seeing that more businesses are rolling out policies for employees to work remotely and more flexibly and, as such, enterprises are beginning to realise that the IT infrastructure they currently have in place is no longer agile enough to meet this demand. The latest mobility technologies such as UC are providing a solution to this issue.
Despite understanding the benefits of the technology, almost one in five companies said they are still not using their service provider to gain access to this mature technology. In the UK, only 28 percent of companies felt ready to roll out UC at present. The most prepared European countries were the Netherlands and Belgium, with readiness of 40 and 37 percent respectively.
Once UC was implemented, however, Easynet research revealed that 60 percent of organisations surveyed have seen improved business efficiency, whilst 45 percent experienced improved business agility as a result of implementing UC.
As such, the demand for these benefits is there but currently just over half of European organisations are not able to run UC across their enterprises. So what can service providers (SPs) do to accelerate time to market and help organisations implement the UC solutions their customers are looking for?
Here are my top five tips:
1. Address your customers’ pain-points
SPs should map their target customers’ business challenges against the UC value proposition, emphasising direct business benefits alongside the technology features and functionality. By using their partner’s experience, data points and expertise, SPs will be best-placed to directly address the pain-points their customers face each day, allowing them to best position their solutions within the marketplace.
2. Identify the in-house ‘UC champion’
Addressing the pain-points is just the first step, however. SPs must then identify the UC ‘champion’ within their target enterprises, ensuring that internal figure flies the flag for UC and steps forward to manage that relationship with their provider. Many SPs are reluctant to provide services without that internal lead.
3. Integration is key
Taking the time to plan the implementation of UC is a crucial part of the SP’s role. In particular, understanding how UC services can be integrated with existing enterprise tools – such as Outlook and Salesforce – and making sure these business-centric applications are enabled to perform for the organisation will play an important part of making sure the rollout of the UC technology is successful.
4. Test and fine-tune
SPs must test their go-to-market propositions with existing customers – fine-tuning any areas that can be improved and ensure the journey is as quick and painless as possible for future deployments. By spending time to refine and customise the solution today, SPs will ensure they have a truly competitive offering to take to new markets tomorrow.
5. Work with expert partners
Finally, it’s important that SPs are realistic about user expectations when developing hosted services for customer organisations. By partnering with vendors who are experts in the field, SPs can support their customer with tailored UC knowledge and services. Offer a solution that goes beyond its implementation, providing tailored consultancy and dependable support.
By following these five steps, service providers will be in a better position to catch up with enterprise demand for UC technology. By having access to the right knowledge and support, service provides can accelerate time to market and ultimately get more UC solutions through the doors of enterprises.
Mike Wilkinson is VP market offers, BroadSoft
