By Richard Hatheway, Director, Enterprise Communications Product Marketing – Rapport for Large Enterprise, Alcatel-Lucent

Let’s face it, most large enterprises are stuck in a rut when it comes to unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solutions – and a 20^th century rut at that.   While these enterprises would like to be more in control of their UCC and ICT infrastructure, most are not sure where or how to begin.

Large enterprises typically choose a UC solution vendor based on one primary fact – that the vendor told them they could provide everything they needed. From an enterprise perspective that makes sense. Having only one vendor eliminates additional budget requests and cycles, reduces the number of people involved, and effectively streamlines the operation.

The problem is that choosing one vendor effectively locks the enterprise into a proprietary technology silo with that vendor. Sure, the vendor may be able to provide the tools the enterprise needs, but at what price, using what technology and in what timeframe? Instead of the enterprise choosing the technologies that it needs, the vendor is now effectively in control and dictates which technologies will be used by the large enterprise.

Business in the 21^st century is dynamic. New technologies, tools and applications are developed every hour of every day that provide more new and useful UCC features and functions, enabling employees to be more productive than ever before. However, in order to stay competitive, large enterprises need to be able to react quickly to take advantage of those changes.

Being locked in to one vendor does not allow the large enterprise to react or adapt quickly to changes. In addition, older PBX systems are not capable of handling the demands made on them. Due to this, the status quo prevails and enterprise communications and collaboration are stuck in the 20^th century, which often results in employee frustration.

To get around these limitations, employees often go outside of the formal IT system and bring/use their own communications devices (BYOD) or use 3^rd-party apps that are not supported by IT (aka “shadow IT”). Unfortunately, these workarounds often create even more problems than they were trying to solve. However, thanks to Alcatel-Lucent’s new Rapport™ for Large Enterprise solution, the status quo can now be changed and enterprises can join the 21^st century.

With Rapport, large enterprises now have the ability to react quickly to changing business conditions, break vendor lock-in, and provide their employees with the communication and collaboration features and capabilities they really need; when, where and how they need them. The large enterprise takes back control of their own communications infrastructure, eliminates shadow IT, and embeds the communications and collaboration features and functions needed into any Internet-connected device.   Rapport effectively places a communications engine in the enterprise data center so that the enterprise now controls their own communications and collaboration and are no longer at the mercy of a vendor.

Rapport allows the large enterprise to replace their existing hardware-based or other type of solution (such as PBXs, audio conferencing equipment, soft clients, etc.) with a private cloud-based software solution. With proven integration of leading, open enterprise soft clients, desk phones and apps for full PBX features and more, Rapport provides full-service telecom network capabilities (including global routing, session management and fully-featured communications services) through one communications backend. The large enterprise manages their ICT infrastructure and uses their own IP trunking (instead of a telco’s) to deliver the unified communication and collaboration services their employees need across the enterprise.

Rapport uses open APIs and SDKs, allowing the large enterprise to easily integrate existing applications or develop and roll out new apps and services in a short period of time.  No more submitting a request to a vendor, waiting for them to enter it into their development queue and then finally being told how long it will be before you receive it.

In short, Rapport is what large enterprises have been waiting for – a private cloud-based solution that lets them control the features and functions their employees receive.

For more information on Rapport for Large Enterprise and how it can help your business, please visit the Alcatel-Lucent Rapport for Large Enterprise website or contact your local Alcatel-Lucent sales office.