On the other hand, everyone knows that most products and services are only interoperable "to a degree." By saying their products and services are interoperable, really what most vendors and service providers are saying is that they are "interoperable in terms of the testing we did," but not necessarily all-inclusively of every network scenario out there.

 

In the case of PBX/SIP Trunking it's arguably easier to achieve (and proclaim) true interoperability compared to other software -- but organizations still have to consider interoperability with other systems such as ACD, IVR, CRM or even back office systems they might want to hold onto. Fortunately SIP has helped facilitate standardization and interoperability of various communications systems and I can still imagine a day when systems are standardized to the point that interoperability won't be an issue at all.

 

Here are just a handful of the recent interoperability announcements we've covered on TMCnet...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other thing I've noticed is that making the switch has altered my behavior somewhat. For example, when I was doing all my banking on the phone, I had a tendency to call in to my bank a lot more to do things like check my balance. Like most people, my finances are pretty tight, so I had a tendency to nervously call in to see if, for example, a certain check had cleared yet or if the bank had charged me a late fee or something. I'll admit that sometimes I made these calls while I was at work (at an average call length of about 60 seconds).

But now that I've switched to online banking, I feel more confident about my finances and I don't feel the need to check as often as I did before. In effect, I'm saying making the switch has brought about a change in my behavior. Another thing I forgot to mention is that I no longer need to use the ATM machine as often. When I was doing my banking using the phone, I would usually do my transfers using the ATM machine because doing it using the IVR always seemed cumbersome and time-consuming. So, basically I was using the ATM machine as that graphical interface I now get from online banking. Except now I can do it at home, instead of going to the bank.

The thing I wonder about is the impact self-service banking has had on the call center industry. I'm sure the banking industry still accounts for a huge percentage of the call center industry - but I'm wondering how much it has shrunk as a result of the advent of self-service (and here I include IVR, ATM and online banking), because, let's face it, no industry has made greater strides in the area of self service than banking. I haven't seen any studies in recent years that provide a definitive measurement of the impact over the long run: For example, how many call center agents did the U.S. banking industry employ in 1980? 1990? 2000? 2009? I think it would be fascinating to see those numbers. It would be even more fascinating to see it broken down by the impact from the migration to specific technologies, i.e. ATM (which was introduced in the 1980s), IVR-based telephone banking (which was introduced in the late 1980s, early 1990s) and online banking (introduced in the late 1990s early 2000s).

If anyone out there can point me to such a study I'd really appreciate it ...

And, as I mentioned before, what about alternative, peer-to-peer technologies that are practically "untappable," such as Skype? It seems to me that all of these wiretapping solutions in the end have only one effect, and that is to force the "bad guys" to use alternative forms of communication.
 

 

1. Improve the ability to recruit and retain skilled labor for enhanced productivity, creativity, and higher quality work from anywhere in the U.S.

I'm still not entirely convinced this is true. For one thing, just because there are qualified applicants for positions who live far from your offices (and are therefore unable to work on-site) it does not necessarily mean all these applicants want work-at-home jobs. Yes, it's true that you've broken down the geographic factors that inhibit recruitment, but saying your labor pool is now "everyone who is qualified" regardless of where they live is a misnomer, because not everyone who is qualified necessarily wants to work from home. Also, with a majority of "work-at-home" offers out there being scams, it's sometimes difficult to get good applicants to believe that the job you're offering is legit.

 

2. Provide the necessary competitive advantage and the ability to win in an increasingly regionalized/globalized economy by repatriating many of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been sent offshore

Frankly, I don't get this point. Won't companies still have to pay U.S. workers at competitive rates, even though they work at home? If workers in the Philippines work at lower rates, then why not have them as your teleworkers? When it comes to the economics of labor, I don't see how teleworking and "repatriation" are related.

 

3. Reduce real estate, facilities, and other overhead expenses

Okay this point I agree with completely - and it's so self-evident, how could I not? But it's only a positive thing for the employers, not the employees: If companies aren't paying for the space, then the teleworker is. For example, if you are required to have a separate office for your work-at-home job, then you are paying taxes (yes, I know you can get a tax break, but you're not fully exempt), homeowner's insurance, on the square footage, not to mention utilities such as heat and electricity. This is where teleworking becomes a sweet deal for organizations - they don't have to pay to operate as much facility, instead, they pass this cost onto the teleworker, often without additional compensation.

 

 

4. Increase work/life balance, become self reliant, reduce stress, realize the opportunity to participate in local activities, and further one's education

I'm not sure this is really true. Just because you work at home doesn't necessarily mean your job will be any less stressful. Nor does it necessarily mean you'll have more time to do other things - that's really more a function of how long your commute is, as opposed to your workload. I guess if you have a long commute, it's definitely an advantage. Also, in most positions, if you come to an agreement with your employer to reduce your workload, you typically get paid less, and if you drop below 35 hours a week you might be denied benefits.

 

5. Retain a larger percentage of earnings for a higher quality of life

I'd like to see some statistics to back this up. From what I understand, most teleworkers get paid less than their counterparts who work in the office (can you name company that pays them the same or more?). And a lot of the time they don't get company benefits such as health insurance, which means the individual has to pay for it at higher, non-group rates. The main thing teleworkers save money on is transportation costs. Maybe your lunches are a little cheaper, too, since you can make them at home. I think it all comes out in the wash.
 

I agree with this point fully. I think teleworking is a great solution for companies looking to recruit in rural areas. The big question is, will you find the talent you need in Northern Montana?  

 

7. Lower carbon footprints, greenhouse gas emissions, and improved air quality

Again, this is a good point and I agree with it fully. But teleworking will only reduce air pollution if we can get a significant portion of the population to work from home. One or two percent probably won't make that much of a difference.

 

8. Reduce dependence on foreign energy, especially petroleum products

Also a good point - but the debate over where we buy oil from, and whether we should, is kind of a separate topic.
 

9. Have fewer traffic accidents, less congestion, and reduce the need for maintaining costly transportation infrastructures

Also a good point - and very closely related to #7.

 

10. Decrease the impact from disruptive occurrences. These range from terrorist attacks, natural incidents such as severe weather conditions, pandemics, transit strikes, and bridge collapses to everyday situations such as family needs, traffic congestion, and car trouble, through the use of a widely dispersed workforce.

I understand the concept of, and importance of, business continuity - and in general I agree with this point - but here is something else to think about: If your workforce a spread out everywhere, you might actually be increasing the risk of certain workers not being able to work. For example, you could have three agents who live on the South Carolina coast, and when a hurricane hits, you lose those three workers for the day. But if your headquarters was in Colorado, and you kept all your workers "on site," then you would never incur the risk of losing those three teleworkers in S.C., right? So just the same way there is risk of keeping "all your eggs in one basket," there is also a risk that one of the above-mentioned disasters will impact your workforce to some degree, if it is more geographically spread out. Then you have the challenge of reallocating resources, which is never as easy as they say it is.

 

Like I said, I think these are all great points -- and I know where this report is coming from. But the report fails to address two of the biggest factors that are inhibiting the adoption and growth of teleworking solutions: The ability to monitor employee productivity and network security. (Sorry, I'll have to save those two topics for future posts ... ).

I wish TelCoa would publish a similar report, only this time identifying the top ten challenges to making teleworking more viable, and how these challenges can be overcome.
 

In the article, Benedict Hernandez, president of the Contact Center Association in the Philippines (CCAP), said that salaries of call center agents increased annually by 10 percent, starting in 2004, when the industry experienced rapid growth as the Philippines became a preferred outsourcing destination. He said 10 percent year-on-year salary inflation is "simply unsustainable," regardless of whether the country is in a recession or not.

The concern for outsourcers is that the call center industry in the Philippines, which represents about 70 percent of the BPO industry in that country, will end up pricing itself out of the market if call center workers continue to get higher wages. The problem is, the outsourcers will have to pass the cost of these higher wages onto their customers - and this could cause companies to terminate their contracts and seek outsourcing in other countries where labor is cheaper. It's basically a no-brainer when you consider that roughly 80 percent of any call center's operating budget is labor.

The article indicates that there are two other factors that have caused costs to rise considerably for call center outsourcers in the Philippines: First, there was a high number of holidays last year, and when call center workers are required to work on holidays they generally get time-an-a-half or double-time wages. The article also mentions that there has been an increase in recruiting efforts - the recruitment rate among call center companies rose from 5 percent to 8 percent - and this also equates to increased operational cost. Many of the BPO firms now offer language training to their agents, which boosts the cost of recruiting and training. Recruiting and training has also become more expensive due to the overall growth of the industry, which in turn has led to a smaller labor pool to draw on and a shortage of qualified applicants.
 

 

 

The upcoming offering -- a module that plugs into Interactive Intelligence's existing platform -- facilitates what might is best described as communications-based process automation (CBPA). Basically it enables companies to use the unified communications capabilities of the platform as a framework for carrying out routine, daily business processes. More specifically, the call routing and presence capabilities of the UC platform are used to carry out business processes. This includes support for documents in all formats, in addition to the multimedia contacts (phone, email, IM, conferencing, etc.) the platform supports currently.

 

So, much the same way a contact center agent can route a call or other contact to any designated end-point throughout an organization, based on pre-defined rules, any worker (or automated system) in any department can use IPA to route documents to any other pre-defined end point on the network. And the same re-routing and failover mechanisms apply: If a worker is unavailable to handle a task, at any given time, and for any given reason, the system will automatically route that work onto the next available employee who is qualified to handle it.

As such, the software gives managers the ability to create and implement customized, "communications-based" workflows based on specific business rules, as well as on employee skills sets. Perhaps most importantly, the solution helps drive increased productivity, as workflows become more efficient and streamlined. In addition, managers and employees gain better visibility into business processes, with the ability to get detailed status on any project, in real-time, as well as detailed reports that will enable managers to track the productivity of all employees - not too unlike how a call center manager tracks the productivity of agents.

Facilitating the document management piece is the software Interactive Intelligence acquired when it bought Maryland-based software company AcroSoft in April. According to company officials, AcroSoft's document management software, which was originally created for the insurance industry, will be integrated into the IPA product, which is due out at the end of the year, and this is what will enable document sharing.

 

This marks a fairly radical change in direction for Interactive - not only in terms of the software it offers, but in terms of the customer base it serves. With this new offering -- schedule to be released in 4Q -- Interactive could end up serving a much broader customer base - and, providing IPA is successful, the company could become known for more than just contact center and enterprise phone systems it currently sells. What's more this means Interactive could find itself going up against the likes of Oracle, SAP, Savvion the other major business software vendors - something which it certainly can do, since it has already been selling contact center and telephony systems into the enterprise space for more than a decade now, and has a very established and loyal customer base.

As I see it there are two main advantages for Interactive in rolling out this new offering: First, it will present great value to existing customers, as the software can be readily and affordably added to the existing platform - there's no need to buy a whole new platform and additional hardware in order to gain the benefits of business process automation. The company estimates that IPA will cost about $400 to $500 per user, on average. Furthermore any software that helps streamline processes, boost productivity, reduce headcount, and thus deliver fast ROI, is getting serious attention from companies of all types and sizes, due to the current economic conditions. If IPA lives up to its promise, it could give the larger, more expensive custom installations from SAP, Oracle and the like a very serious challenge...

I'll be writing more about this new offering from Interactive Intelligence later today -- and later this week -- so for more information keep it tuned to TMCnet.com.


 

 

This, of course, could have been expected – I mean, after all Aspect is one of the largest providers of contact center solutions, and the adoption of unified communications is starting to pick up steam. Considering that so many enterprises already use their contact center telephony systems for communications across most, if not all of the organization (linking together different divisions, departments, remote offices, etc., that are geographically dispersed), it makes perfect sense for contact center platform makers such as Aspect to endow their products with UC capabilities (and many have already done so – for example, TouchStar just recently introduced its new “Unify” product, a browser-based product that facilitates true seamless UC across the enterprise). With these advanced, all-IP solutions and their amazing call routing capabilities, an enterprise can make its contact center system the “communications center” for the entire organization.

 

The advantage of bringing UC to the contact center is that it ushers in the next iteration of the “informal contact center,” where the walls, or barriers if you will, that separate the contact center from the rest of the organization are dissolved, and other “knowledge workers” within the organization can be used as resources for handling customer complaints and a wide range of other issues. To deliver superior customer service, agents need the ability to quickly and effortlessly “escalate” calls and put the customer in contact with someone else in the organization who has the exact skills or expertise to help that customer quickly. With UC in the contact center, agents have multiple means for reaching out to these knowledge workers – via IM, via email, via Web chat -- even video chat. Furthermore, with UC in the contact center, managers, supervisors and executives have the ability to reach personnel in the center (and view their “presence”) and get the information they need – quickly, effortlessly, and in the mode they prefer. With UC, not only can processes be seamlessly extended beyond the traditional boundaries of the contact center, with the ability to reach knowledge workers or “subject matter experts” in the organization, all collaboration across the organization is streamlined and enhanced.

 

“It is important for organizations to include the contact center as part of their broader unified communications strategy because customers can be a key beneficiary of the value that unified communications brings,” explained Bern Elliot, research vice president at Gartner, in yesterday’s news release from Aspect. “To succeed, enterprises should leverage contact center technology broadly into their enterprise, and similarly contact centers should understand how to leverage enterprise UC technology into their operations.”

 

For now Aspect is basing its unified communications for the contact center strategy on its current versions of Aspect Unified IP, a comprehensive session initiation protocol (SIP)-based VoIP unified contact center solution, and PerformanceEdge, its workforce optimization suite. The company reportedly plans to release new versions of these products which will be interoperable with other unified communications software.

 

The company claims that future releases of Aspect Unified IP “will enable organizations to route interactions to enterprise experts based on presence and willingness, generate enterprise-level reports of these interactions, and utilize workforce management to forecast expert demand.”

 

For more information about Aspect’s new UC strategy, check out Tracey Schelmetic’s article and Rich Tehrani’s blog entry from yesterday.