This is one of my favorite topics, and it's a theme I'm exploring lately in a series of posts for the UCStrategies portal. I think the end-user experience - EUE - means different things to different people - just like UC, and that's where I see a lot of challenges. I also think delivering a good EUE is much harder to do than it looks, and I see this as an area that might not get enough attention when deploying UC.
Enough - that's the hook. For the rest, you're invited to read my post, and from there my previous post that launched this series. The current post is running now on the UCStrategies portal, and here's the link. Enjoy!
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Business Value of Mobility for Collaboration
I’m continuing the mobility theme here for my series of posts to support the CIO Collaboration Network. My last post served as an introduction to my role in this program, and to explain that while Avaya is the sponsor, I won’t be writing about them, or any other vendor for that matter. These posts are just thought leadership about trends I’m seeing in the collaboration space.
This month my focus is on mobility, and each post looks at a specific aspect of that topic. Last week’s post addressed some issues around the impact of consumerization, and now I’m going to shift over to the business value of mobility.
In terms of improving our ability to collaborate, the business value that mobility brings should be obvious. Fair enough, but let’s look beyond that, since business value can mean many things. The financial impact is the logical starting point, but this is actually a bit complicated. In most businesses, the financial challenge around mobility is managing costs. Unlike fixed telephony, where IP is bringing costs down, mobility costs can easily spiral out of control, especially for global travelers.
Of course, with smartphones and tablets, mobility costs have two main components – voice and data. Until 4G and LTE become the norm, telephony costs will remain high with mobility, and we just have to accept that as a fact of business life. Data costs are driven by bandwidth consumption rather than minutes and connectivity, and deliver a wider range of collaboration capabilities. Enterprises have more leverage here to negotiate volume deals with carriers, and for the most part, bandwidth costs are coming down. As such, the cost of supporting mobility is not that straightforward to calculate, let alone manage.
To get a more complete picture, you also need to factor in various other costs to support mobility as well as extend PBX-based features/functions to those devices. I’m thinking here about network-related costs to address things like FMC integration, data backup, storage, security, privacy, bandwidth prioritization, etc. Conversely, the associated costs here can be offset by BYOD, whereby employees are bearing the cost to acquire these devices. This will likely become a fluid area, as enterprises evolve policies around the cost and ownership of smartphones and tablets. There is much more to consider here, but this will suffice for purposes of my post.
Cost is one side of the business value equation, and however you define what’s being spent on mobility, the “value” is all relative to the benefits that accrue in return. I would need many posts to explore all the benefits that mobility brings to collaboration, and for now, I’ll just cite a couple to illustrate the scope of what’s possible. First would be the immediate benefits, and then there are the longer-term results to consider.
The initial benefits are more evident for smaller scale forms of collaboration, either for 1-to-1 situations or addressing imminent needs. In these cases, voice-based collaboration will usually get the job done, and the business value of mobility comes from basic things like higher availability, accessibility and responsiveness. The underlying benefit comes from the fact that employees are increasingly not tethered to their desks, and mobility allows them to be equally productive away from the office.
I view the longer term benefits as having far greater business value to enterprises. By longer term, I mean the normalization of mobility as a productive work mode. Collaboration aside, mobility has many other benefits for the enterprise, especially for remote or even outsourced employees. In this broader context, the key to collaboration is the ability to replicate all the desktop tools using a mobile device.
We’re not there yet, but as operators upgrade to 4G and LTE, and as mobile applications mature, employees will go well beyond voice to collaborate. Full-featured, multimodal UC will soon become mobile-ready, and help make full use of what smartphones and tablets can offer in a business environment. That’s a much richer form of business value than voice alone, and no matter how you measure it, the price will be worth it.
This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya.
This month my focus is on mobility, and each post looks at a specific aspect of that topic. Last week’s post addressed some issues around the impact of consumerization, and now I’m going to shift over to the business value of mobility.
In terms of improving our ability to collaborate, the business value that mobility brings should be obvious. Fair enough, but let’s look beyond that, since business value can mean many things. The financial impact is the logical starting point, but this is actually a bit complicated. In most businesses, the financial challenge around mobility is managing costs. Unlike fixed telephony, where IP is bringing costs down, mobility costs can easily spiral out of control, especially for global travelers.
Of course, with smartphones and tablets, mobility costs have two main components – voice and data. Until 4G and LTE become the norm, telephony costs will remain high with mobility, and we just have to accept that as a fact of business life. Data costs are driven by bandwidth consumption rather than minutes and connectivity, and deliver a wider range of collaboration capabilities. Enterprises have more leverage here to negotiate volume deals with carriers, and for the most part, bandwidth costs are coming down. As such, the cost of supporting mobility is not that straightforward to calculate, let alone manage.
To get a more complete picture, you also need to factor in various other costs to support mobility as well as extend PBX-based features/functions to those devices. I’m thinking here about network-related costs to address things like FMC integration, data backup, storage, security, privacy, bandwidth prioritization, etc. Conversely, the associated costs here can be offset by BYOD, whereby employees are bearing the cost to acquire these devices. This will likely become a fluid area, as enterprises evolve policies around the cost and ownership of smartphones and tablets. There is much more to consider here, but this will suffice for purposes of my post.
Cost is one side of the business value equation, and however you define what’s being spent on mobility, the “value” is all relative to the benefits that accrue in return. I would need many posts to explore all the benefits that mobility brings to collaboration, and for now, I’ll just cite a couple to illustrate the scope of what’s possible. First would be the immediate benefits, and then there are the longer-term results to consider.
The initial benefits are more evident for smaller scale forms of collaboration, either for 1-to-1 situations or addressing imminent needs. In these cases, voice-based collaboration will usually get the job done, and the business value of mobility comes from basic things like higher availability, accessibility and responsiveness. The underlying benefit comes from the fact that employees are increasingly not tethered to their desks, and mobility allows them to be equally productive away from the office.
I view the longer term benefits as having far greater business value to enterprises. By longer term, I mean the normalization of mobility as a productive work mode. Collaboration aside, mobility has many other benefits for the enterprise, especially for remote or even outsourced employees. In this broader context, the key to collaboration is the ability to replicate all the desktop tools using a mobile device.
We’re not there yet, but as operators upgrade to 4G and LTE, and as mobile applications mature, employees will go well beyond voice to collaborate. Full-featured, multimodal UC will soon become mobile-ready, and help make full use of what smartphones and tablets can offer in a business environment. That’s a much richer form of business value than voice alone, and no matter how you measure it, the price will be worth it.
This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Ontario IT Buyers Forum - Toronto and Ottawa - Up, Up and Away
Earlier this week I posted about a mini road show I was about to go on, with events in Toronto and Ottawa. Well, am back now, and I'd say it was pretty successful all around. This was the 2012 IT Buyers Forum, sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, with some help from the Export Development Corporation and Invest Ottawa.
It's a good example of a government program designed to support local tech companies and bring international buyers to their doorstep. So, in both cities, there was a group of representatives from five countries - China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and Turkey. The speakers were from various operators, private companies and industry groups, and all told, we got a solid overview of what's happening in those markets in terms of carrier deployments, tech adoption and the growing role of IT.
On the local side, there was a wide range of Ontario-based vendors who would love to do business in these markets, and we had a good mix of small companies and more established players who are already selling internationally.
My role in all this was to set the table and provide an overview of key trends I'm seeing in telecom and IT, and from all the feedback so far, my commentary was well received. I certainly made my share of new contacts with both local tech companies and the international contingent, so I have some promising follow ups to make now. I also have some intriguing overseas opportunities now that need exploration, so who knows where that could go? All in a day's work.
Waving the Canadian flag, I'll just leave you with this thought. We need programs like this to help companies grow, especially globally. Most of the companies here were pretty small, but seem to have good technology. This is pretty typical, especially for Canadian companies, and there's a host of reasons why most stay small, despite bigger aspirations.
After a lot of hallway and table-talk, there's no doubt these companies aspire to be on a big stage, but there's a cautionary tale here. Canada hasn't had much success creating Tier 1 world beaters in the tech/telecom space. We had Nortel for a while, and it wouldn't be impossible for RIM could slip away. That's not the plan, but they have a pretty big hole to dig out from.
Anyhow, the Ontario government is doing the right thing here, and am glad they're not overselling the future. It must be hard for small companies to set a realistic growth goal - we just can't seem to create really big ones here. Of course, the Ottawa event was right in the shadow of Mitel's offices, and in my books, they'd be the biggest fish in our pond if RIM were to fall. I really like Mitel, and maybe that's about as big we as we can make them these days. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and for now let's just focus on getting some deals done with the participants who came from so away. At least we gave them some balmy weather, and that just might fool them into thinking it's like that all year round.
Well, probably not, but as per the title of this post, up, up and away is still the vibe I got from the experience. So, kudos to the hosts, and I hope the international visitors came away with some great relationships that will help put some of our homegrown companies on a bigger map.
Coda - this was a private event, so I couldn't take photos of the sessions. Instead, I have another take on the up, up and away theme that came from an unusual confluence of events that took place over the past couple of day. Hope you like it...
8am, Tuesday - looking up AT the CN Tower from the 35th floor, shrouded in the Toronto morning fog
7pm, Tuesday - looking down FROM the top of the CN Tower, the highest observation point you can get to in North America. It's not a skyscraper, but tops out at 1,815', well ahead of the Willis Tower (nee Sears Tower) in Chicago, at 1,450'. Both will be surpassed by the new World Trade Center in NYC, but for now, Toronto is tops.
4pm, Wednesday - I'm not done yet going up. Now I'm flying to Ottawa for part 2 of the trip. Not sure of my elevation here, but am definitely higher up than the CN Tower. Really tried to get a shot from here looking down on the CN Tower, but couldn't get the right view - dang.
It's a good example of a government program designed to support local tech companies and bring international buyers to their doorstep. So, in both cities, there was a group of representatives from five countries - China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and Turkey. The speakers were from various operators, private companies and industry groups, and all told, we got a solid overview of what's happening in those markets in terms of carrier deployments, tech adoption and the growing role of IT.
On the local side, there was a wide range of Ontario-based vendors who would love to do business in these markets, and we had a good mix of small companies and more established players who are already selling internationally.
My role in all this was to set the table and provide an overview of key trends I'm seeing in telecom and IT, and from all the feedback so far, my commentary was well received. I certainly made my share of new contacts with both local tech companies and the international contingent, so I have some promising follow ups to make now. I also have some intriguing overseas opportunities now that need exploration, so who knows where that could go? All in a day's work.
Waving the Canadian flag, I'll just leave you with this thought. We need programs like this to help companies grow, especially globally. Most of the companies here were pretty small, but seem to have good technology. This is pretty typical, especially for Canadian companies, and there's a host of reasons why most stay small, despite bigger aspirations.
After a lot of hallway and table-talk, there's no doubt these companies aspire to be on a big stage, but there's a cautionary tale here. Canada hasn't had much success creating Tier 1 world beaters in the tech/telecom space. We had Nortel for a while, and it wouldn't be impossible for RIM could slip away. That's not the plan, but they have a pretty big hole to dig out from.
Anyhow, the Ontario government is doing the right thing here, and am glad they're not overselling the future. It must be hard for small companies to set a realistic growth goal - we just can't seem to create really big ones here. Of course, the Ottawa event was right in the shadow of Mitel's offices, and in my books, they'd be the biggest fish in our pond if RIM were to fall. I really like Mitel, and maybe that's about as big we as we can make them these days. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and for now let's just focus on getting some deals done with the participants who came from so away. At least we gave them some balmy weather, and that just might fool them into thinking it's like that all year round.
Well, probably not, but as per the title of this post, up, up and away is still the vibe I got from the experience. So, kudos to the hosts, and I hope the international visitors came away with some great relationships that will help put some of our homegrown companies on a bigger map.
Coda - this was a private event, so I couldn't take photos of the sessions. Instead, I have another take on the up, up and away theme that came from an unusual confluence of events that took place over the past couple of day. Hope you like it...
8am, Tuesday - looking up AT the CN Tower from the 35th floor, shrouded in the Toronto morning fog
7pm, Tuesday - looking down FROM the top of the CN Tower, the highest observation point you can get to in North America. It's not a skyscraper, but tops out at 1,815', well ahead of the Willis Tower (nee Sears Tower) in Chicago, at 1,450'. Both will be surpassed by the new World Trade Center in NYC, but for now, Toronto is tops.
4pm, Wednesday - I'm not done yet going up. Now I'm flying to Ottawa for part 2 of the trip. Not sure of my elevation here, but am definitely higher up than the CN Tower. Really tried to get a shot from here looking down on the CN Tower, but couldn't get the right view - dang.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Collaboration, mobility and a whole lot more - posting for the CIO Collaboration Network
I’m pleased to be joining this community, which appropriately is focused on the power of collaboration. This has become a powerful word in the communications lexicon lately, and on a basic level, my writing here is part of a broader collaborative effort to provide some objective thought leadership around the topic.
This is my first post in support of the CIO Collaboration Network initiative sponsored by Avaya, and some housekeeping is in order. First off, you won’t see me talking much here about Avaya or their specific offerings. For that matter, I won’t be citing other vendors in the collaboration space either. I’m here to talk about the trends I see that pertain to collaboration; some enrich or enable collaboration, while other trends benefit the other way by virtue of association.
Second, this is not new for me, and is totally in my comfort zone. For those who follow me, you’ll know I post in other places under similar conditions with sponsors. I’ve been doing this long enough, and know how to keep my analysis objective, and vendor-neutral. Finally, for this particular initiative, most of my posts will be here on my blog, but I’ll also be submitting posts that will run solely on the CIO Collaboration Network. The setting doesn’t matter, though, and my analysis will always be independent.
I should add that I'm in good company here, as colleagues Dave Michels and Art Rosenberg will both be regular contributors. Furthermore, Dave serves as the Community Manager here, so along with his posts, he'll be vetting my writing to make sure it's on-target for this audience.
With that out of the way, I’m going to start with the big topic of mobility, which will be explored over the next few posts. For collaboration to be truly effective, the tools need to be accessible where the people are. Up until recently, that wasn’t much of a problem in the workplace since most employees were desk-bound. When you needed to reach someone, a call to their desk phone would do the job, and failing that, an email would get them engaged to work with you.
Mobility has completely changed the dynamics of where we work, and after adding broadband to that, everything else changes, namely how we work and when we work. Not only are employees spending less time at their desks, but they’re spending less time in the office, and increasingly working from remote locations. Without mobile broadband, these trends would not be welcome developments for businesses.
The value of collaboration continues to increase, and never before has the need to share knowledge and expertise been greater. With globalization, business becomes more complex and we live in a world of specialization. Knowledge generalists remain valuable, but very few people have enough broad expertise to help a business grow on their own. This is where collaboration becomes a strategic differentiator, as businesses can perform at a higher level by pooling the expertise of specialists to work on tasks with a common goal.
In that context, mobility is a key driver for collaboration, since specialized knowledge or expertise will not readily be found at a workstation. Not only does mobility allow you to find people when you need them - wherever they are - but it also helps the collaboration process move faster. This is another key factor as the speed of doing business keeps accelerating, and by extension, agility becomes a source of competitive advantage.
So, how should enterprises leverage mobility to collaborate more effectively? I’ll explore this over the next few posts, but let’s start in an unexpected place – our home life. As much as mobility is becoming a lifeline at work, its impact is even greater for personal use, especially among Millennials. The “consumerization of IT” is very real, and employees are increasingly asking IT why they cannot deploy the applications they use back at home here in the office. This is particularly true with mobility, which is where most of the energy from application developers is focused.
The explosion of applications for smartphones and tablets has given consumers many options for collaborating on a personal or social level. These needs may not be as complex as the workplace, but that’s beside the point. Consumer-friendly mobile applications are easy to access and easy to use, and as a matter of course, we’re collaborating without really thinking about it. This may be a user-defined form of collaboration, but the process is no different than in the workplace. In these settings, people are sharing content, using multimodal communication, and reaching consensus around a common goal.
This sure sounds like workplace collaboration to me, and the good news is that consumer-based collaboration helps get people familiar and comfortable with using these tools in the office. I think of this as an unintended consequence, and it’s certainly a benefit so long as IT can make workplace collaboration as easy to do as at home. Not only does this help employees collaborate in the office, but when adding mobility to the equation, they can do this anyplace, anytime. In that regard, mobility and consumerization have an additive effect to collaboration that’s pretty hard to beat, and if IT isn’t thinking along these lines, they should be.
This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya
This is my first post in support of the CIO Collaboration Network initiative sponsored by Avaya, and some housekeeping is in order. First off, you won’t see me talking much here about Avaya or their specific offerings. For that matter, I won’t be citing other vendors in the collaboration space either. I’m here to talk about the trends I see that pertain to collaboration; some enrich or enable collaboration, while other trends benefit the other way by virtue of association.
Second, this is not new for me, and is totally in my comfort zone. For those who follow me, you’ll know I post in other places under similar conditions with sponsors. I’ve been doing this long enough, and know how to keep my analysis objective, and vendor-neutral. Finally, for this particular initiative, most of my posts will be here on my blog, but I’ll also be submitting posts that will run solely on the CIO Collaboration Network. The setting doesn’t matter, though, and my analysis will always be independent.
I should add that I'm in good company here, as colleagues Dave Michels and Art Rosenberg will both be regular contributors. Furthermore, Dave serves as the Community Manager here, so along with his posts, he'll be vetting my writing to make sure it's on-target for this audience.
With that out of the way, I’m going to start with the big topic of mobility, which will be explored over the next few posts. For collaboration to be truly effective, the tools need to be accessible where the people are. Up until recently, that wasn’t much of a problem in the workplace since most employees were desk-bound. When you needed to reach someone, a call to their desk phone would do the job, and failing that, an email would get them engaged to work with you.
Mobility has completely changed the dynamics of where we work, and after adding broadband to that, everything else changes, namely how we work and when we work. Not only are employees spending less time at their desks, but they’re spending less time in the office, and increasingly working from remote locations. Without mobile broadband, these trends would not be welcome developments for businesses.
The value of collaboration continues to increase, and never before has the need to share knowledge and expertise been greater. With globalization, business becomes more complex and we live in a world of specialization. Knowledge generalists remain valuable, but very few people have enough broad expertise to help a business grow on their own. This is where collaboration becomes a strategic differentiator, as businesses can perform at a higher level by pooling the expertise of specialists to work on tasks with a common goal.
In that context, mobility is a key driver for collaboration, since specialized knowledge or expertise will not readily be found at a workstation. Not only does mobility allow you to find people when you need them - wherever they are - but it also helps the collaboration process move faster. This is another key factor as the speed of doing business keeps accelerating, and by extension, agility becomes a source of competitive advantage.
So, how should enterprises leverage mobility to collaborate more effectively? I’ll explore this over the next few posts, but let’s start in an unexpected place – our home life. As much as mobility is becoming a lifeline at work, its impact is even greater for personal use, especially among Millennials. The “consumerization of IT” is very real, and employees are increasingly asking IT why they cannot deploy the applications they use back at home here in the office. This is particularly true with mobility, which is where most of the energy from application developers is focused.
The explosion of applications for smartphones and tablets has given consumers many options for collaborating on a personal or social level. These needs may not be as complex as the workplace, but that’s beside the point. Consumer-friendly mobile applications are easy to access and easy to use, and as a matter of course, we’re collaborating without really thinking about it. This may be a user-defined form of collaboration, but the process is no different than in the workplace. In these settings, people are sharing content, using multimodal communication, and reaching consensus around a common goal.
This sure sounds like workplace collaboration to me, and the good news is that consumer-based collaboration helps get people familiar and comfortable with using these tools in the office. I think of this as an unintended consequence, and it’s certainly a benefit so long as IT can make workplace collaboration as easy to do as at home. Not only does this help employees collaborate in the office, but when adding mobility to the equation, they can do this anyplace, anytime. In that regard, mobility and consumerization have an additive effect to collaboration that’s pretty hard to beat, and if IT isn’t thinking along these lines, they should be.
This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
New post series - helping channels sell UC
Am on a good run right now, writing in a variety of places, and got a couple others coming you haven't seen yet. This is a shout-out about a series we just got going today on the UCStrategies portal, something my regular readers will know about.
In addition to my regular contributions there, I'm writing a series of posts over the next few weeks about channel-related issues/challenges for selling UC. Perhaps "selling" is too strong of a word, but ultimately that's their business, and it's clear that UC is not a simple sale.
To provide some clarity on this, I'm posting my thoughts in this series. The first post is running now, and asks the fundamental question around selling UC - "what business are you really in?". If you're dying to find - and of course you are! - click here, read away, and share your thoughts.
In addition to my regular contributions there, I'm writing a series of posts over the next few weeks about channel-related issues/challenges for selling UC. Perhaps "selling" is too strong of a word, but ultimately that's their business, and it's clear that UC is not a simple sale.
To provide some clarity on this, I'm posting my thoughts in this series. The first post is running now, and asks the fundamental question around selling UC - "what business are you really in?". If you're dying to find - and of course you are! - click here, read away, and share your thoughts.
Guest Post - the Changing Role of Telephony
From time to time I accept requests to write guest posts on various blogs and portals, with the most recent one being for Toshiba. They may not be a household name for business telecom systems in North America, but depending on whose numbers you follow, they're a top 5 market share vendor for IP phone systems. Being a $67 billion dollar global giant, they're pretty hard to pass by, and when they approached me for this, I was happy to oblige.
These days, every company is fighting for attention on the Web, and Toshiba Telecom has had a blog portal since January 2011. My post was published late yesterday, and being exclusive to their portal, you'll have to go there to read it - which I hope you do! It's about how I see the role of telephony changing, and what vendors need to do to keep their value proposition fresh.
These days, every company is fighting for attention on the Web, and Toshiba Telecom has had a blog portal since January 2011. My post was published late yesterday, and being exclusive to their portal, you'll have to go there to read it - which I hope you do! It's about how I see the role of telephony changing, and what vendors need to do to keep their value proposition fresh.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
G+ profile for JAA - and I'm not talking about Google!
For better or worse, there are two G+'s in town - at least in my world. Most of you know about Google Plus, which actually doesn't figure high on my radar. Closer to home is the G+ community portal recently launched by Gerson Lehrman Group.
I've been part of their expert network for many years, and I enjoy sharing my analysis with the financial community. To build on this, they recently launched the GLG GPlus portal, which is accessible to the public. I've just started supporting the portal by posting there and answering questions where I can add some insight. It's a great resource to tap into, and hopefully you'll take advantage.
To help familiarize readers with GLG's network of experts, each month they feature a few of them in their e-newsletter. The March issue just came out yesterday, and am happy to say I'm one of the featured experts. So, a simple shout-out for myself, but more importantly, you should check out - and follow G+. They do a great job vetting their experts, so you can be certain the quality will be better than your average portal.
I've been part of their expert network for many years, and I enjoy sharing my analysis with the financial community. To build on this, they recently launched the GLG GPlus portal, which is accessible to the public. I've just started supporting the portal by posting there and answering questions where I can add some insight. It's a great resource to tap into, and hopefully you'll take advantage.
To help familiarize readers with GLG's network of experts, each month they feature a few of them in their e-newsletter. The March issue just came out yesterday, and am happy to say I'm one of the featured experts. So, a simple shout-out for myself, but more importantly, you should check out - and follow G+. They do a great job vetting their experts, so you can be certain the quality will be better than your average portal.
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