Communications Being Purchased Incorrectly

In the world of communications a sad fact is that in the past few years, technology has evolved to the point where communications is being more integrated into business processes than ever.  Regardless of industry,  communications has evolved to the point where it makes companies productive and efficient while simultaneously lowering costs.

What makes this sad is that companies are still looking at communications purchases as plain vanilla telephone replacements. In other words, they say… My phone system is about to die, let me get a new one.

What they don’t say is, I can boost my productivity by an order of magnitude… I can increase sales, reduce customer turnover and make it easier for my employees to be in touch with coworkers and customers at all times.

Sadly, as much as the media focuses on the power of communications and regardless of buzzwords like CEBP or communications enabled business processes, the people who make purchasing decisions still don’t seem to get it.

Perhaps the problem is that the tech people are still making the decisions. MIS directors and others with similar titles aren’t necessarily part of the businesses of the companies they work in.

As time goes on, more business people need to get involved in driving adoption of telecom products and services. It seems that like many other technologies, there will be some companies that understand how they can differentiate themselves and others who will continue doing business the same old way.

Instat just put out a press release that more or less confirms what I already knew. Here is an excerpt of that release:

Majority Use IP Comm to Transform Business Processes

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 11, 2008 ? Approximately 54% of US companies that have adopted IP communications have integrated it into their operations in a way that has changed business procedures and processes, reports In-Stat. However, adoption is still driven by traditional buying decision triggers, such as equipment end-of-life, lack of capacity, business partnerships, and internal IT initiatives, the high-tech market research firm says.

"Contrary to popular belief, current deployment of UC applications, such as collaboration and unified messaging, are spread uniformly across businesses of all sizes," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst.

"Unified communication applications are not just for large enterprises."

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

  • Less than 33% of businesses using IP communications currently use UC collaboration and unified messaging applications.
  • At least for 2008, the majority of IP communication and UC sales opportunities remain in the large enterprise business segment.
  • The lack of wide-scale IP end-point deployment will impede UC adoption.

The research, "UC: From A Technology Adoption Perspective"

(#IN0803984WWI), covers the market for unified communications. It provides a brief analysis of the business IP communication and unified communication adoption process. The document presents findings from an In-Stat survey of over 1,000 US businesses in a wide variety of vertical industries. It debunks the commonly-held belief that UC applications can be marketed as add-ons to existing IP communication installations. It also sheds light on the factors triggering IT buying decisions.

For more information on this research or to purchase it online, please visit this page.

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