Five Questions to Ask on Your Unified Communications Migration Journey

An Atrion White Paper

©2015 Atrion, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Five Questions to Ask on Your Unified Communications Migration Journey2

When deployed and leveraged to its maximum capability, unified communications (UC)—the integration of commu-nications services and features into a single system—can revolutionize the way an organization collaborates, and drive increased productivity and efficiency. As such, the UC market is expanding rapidly; a recent report from Transparency Mar-ket Research predicts the global UC space will reach a $61.9 billion valuation by 2018, up from just $6.38 billion in 2012.

Although UC can offer companies enormous benefits, a flawed migration to the technology can actually harm an organization and the reputation of the CIO or senior IT leader overseeing the project. For example, if the actual deploy-ment process takes longer than expected or fails to deliver measurable productivity gains, the project leader will likely shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility.

With so much riding on a successful UC deployment, CIOs and senior executives need to be certain all the pieces for migration are in place before the process begins. On the following pages we’ll outline the most important questions IT leaders must ask before starting their migration journey.

Five Questions to Ask on Your Unified Communications Migration Journey

4 FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK ON YOUR UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION JOURNEY FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK ON YOUR UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION JOURNEY 5

1Are You Experiencing Significant Challenges Around Worker Productivity?

The first step in a UC migration journey is determining exactly why you are considering a change in your communications infrastructure. Auditing your current challenges and capabilities will allow you to determine what your deployment road map should look like and help you make decisions about which solutions to consider, what features to prioritize and what resources you will need to complete the task.

Many CIOs and senior IT leaders are considering UC based on disappointing organizational work efficiency metrics. Productivity presents a significant barrier for many of today’s companies. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor noted in a recent report that non-farm business sector labor productivity decreased 2.2 percent during the last quarter of 2014.

That trend stretches back even further: Recent economic research from the Federal Reserve of San Francisco found that between 1995 and 2003, advances in IT doubled productivity growth from levels that had previously held steady for more than 20 years. But after 2003, productivity slowed again and has remained sluggish for more than a decade.

Several factors can lead to diminished productivity, but from a technology, communications and collaboration standpoint it typically stems from:

• An incomplete or flawed deployment or configuration

• Multiple disparate, overlapping systems that stunt efficiency

• End-user confusion about how to leverage more than basic features

• A lack of a defined, company-wide communications plan

Whether your company has deployed a UC solution in the past or has tried to leverage several technology tools to overcome collaboration challenges, if you continue to experience stunted productivity, a change in approach and technology is likely warranted. And to best determine a path forward, CIOs and IT leaders must carefully assess where previous implementations came up short and how those same mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Contributions to business-sector output growth

Annualized average over periods shown.Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and John Fernald and Bing Wang’s calculations.

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.548:Q1 - 73:Q1 73:Q2 - 95:Q4

HoursLabor productivity

96:Q1 - 03:Q4 04:Q1 - 07:Q1 08:Q1 - 14:Q1

%

6 FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK ON YOUR UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION JOURNEY FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK ON YOUR UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION JOURNEY 7

2 3Has Your Business Struggled With Adoption and Utilization of Collaboration Technologies in the Past?

What Kind of Migration Do You Need—Full or Partial?

Oftentimes, difficulties in communication and collab-oration stem from a flawed organizational strategy. For instance, in the past, businesses may have implemented disparate tools and technologies—like Microsoft Lync for IM and presence one year, followed by a Cisco solution for videoconferencing the next—to meet specific communications challenges they were facing at that moment in time.

Many times, however, these collaboration tools contain overlapping capabilities so, essentially, the business is paying double for some features. Unfortunately, once these systems are in place, they are difficult to integrate and consolidate, forcing companies to continue maintaining and paying for redundant functionality.

Even organizations that are able to somewhat success-fully integrate multiple systems may still struggle to translate the technology upgrade to gains in employee productivity. These issues may stem from the lack of a robust end-user training plan; in fact InformationWeek’s

“2014 State of Unified Communications Report” found that lack of end-user training was the second most common barrier to full UC adoption for organizations. Regardless of how excellent the tools or implemen-tation might be, if employees don’t understand clearly when and how to use various features to maximum effect, they are likely to revert to using the one or two communications solutions they have mastered. In other words, they are not likely working to capacity, and companies are paying for technology that goes unused.

Answering the previous two questions will provide IT leaders with a clear understanding of what kind of migration makes the most sense and what challenges may arise. Essentially, your organization will likely fall into one of two categories:

• A company with some level of UC in place that is not using the technology’s full range of features and functionality

• A company using several communications systems with no UC system in place

For those organizations with partial UC solutions in place, integration and de-duplication will be paramount. If a company still utilizes a legacy PBX, for example, and also leverages a UC system like Lync for IM and presence, phasing out the PBX and relying on Lync for voice communications and all other functionality should be a primary migration objective. An organization with solely a 15-year old PBX and a legacy third-party IM system, on the other hand, will likely be looking for a more complete overhaul.

“A user may understand how to initiate a videocon-ference or IM session, but may not realize that when an email chain begins to get lengthy and includes three or four parties, switching to a mode of real-time communication is likely a better use of time. That kind of idea might seem intuitive to a CIO and IT professionals, but for those employees who do not live and breathe technology every day, it may not be so obvious,” says Kevin McCarron, director, Business Innovation Group at Atrion.

Even with a sound deployment and plan for garnering end-user adoption, CIOs and IT leaders may not achieve desired results if they do not address some of the cultural aspects inside an organization that may hamper collaboration. For example, organizations that seek to leverage videoconferencing to cut travel costs should also consider imposing travel restrictions on employees to push them toward using the new technology to communicate with clients and colleagues in other geographic locations. These cultural issues can be some of the trickiest for IT leaders to tackle as they often fall outside their direct sphere of influence within the company. Nonetheless, culture plays a significant role in determining the success or failure of a UC deployment, whether your organization is embarking on a full or partial migration.

But regardless of what kind of migration you select, it is critical to recognize that any strategy should be approached step by step and phased in incrementally. This will also offset one of the most common fears for IT leaders and other executive decision makers: that the migration process will be prohibitively expensive. With a phased migration, however, the changeover can be scheduled taking into account any financial constraints.

In fact, a “Big Bang” migration in which a business attempts to deploy an entire solution across every department at once can be counterproductive, as it may not leave adequate time for some critical migration components like end-user training, cultural buy-in and establishment of measurable objectives.

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4 5Do You Have the In-house Resources and Expertise to Make a Seamless Transition?

How Will You Measure Migration Success?

Once a company has settled on the kind of migration it needs, it can begin to consider what resources it will require to execute the strategy. Specifically, the business will need to audit the skills and knowledge necessary for UC implementation to determine whether an in-house, co-sourced or outsourced model makes the most sense. Some of the most critical resources and capabilities will likely be:

• The ability to measure workforce productivity

• The expertise to create a design and migration plan around a UC strategy

• The technical capability to execute the plan

• The ability to deliver training to push robust end-user adoption from a technical perspective

• The capability to establish fully developed relationships and buy-in from key organizational stakeholders will help drive the cultural side of end-user adoption

• The skill set to measure quality of experience and to support the solution with ongoing maintenance

The last step before you begin the actual migration is solidifying the processes and metrics you will use to evaluate the project’s success. If you are an IT leader overseeing the project, you will need qualitative and quantitative data to clearly demonstrate success to peers and the C-suite and also to make any tweaks to the system after it is in place. Qualitative feedback should be gathered from any and all stakeholders in the organization, including personnel in marketing, sales, business development, the C-suite and any other division with a vested interest in improved collaboration. When leveraging either in-house or third-party experts, IT leaders need to collect anecdotal information from these stakeholders to determine what features and elements of the migration are working as they should and what areas may need further attention. If the sales team is struggling with document sharing functionality, for example, an additional training session may be required.

In many organizations, the IT department has the resources and expertise to fulfill some or even most of these requirements. But in other companies, the IT department lacks the full range of soft and technical skills necessary to carry out a seamless migration. In fact, the aforementioned InformationWeek study found that 40 percent of organizations cited lack of in-house expertise as a primary barrier to full UC adoption. For that reason, a co-sourcing model that leverages both in-house prowess and the expertise of an IT services provider—with a track record of UC migration success—may be ideal for many companies.

Hard data—like voice and video quality metrics, for example—is also critical to assessing the project’s success. Many organizations, however, struggle to gather this information accurately. For instance, a recent survey of Lync users conducted by Dimensional Research found that 46 percent could not state defin-itively how much money their organization had saved by implementing a UC solution. It is in the quantitative realm, specifically, where an IT services provider with UC migration experience can be a valuable resource.

Combining research with hard data is the most effective way to get a full picture of how a UC solution is being leveraged post-migration. Establishing processes for gathering these metrics will also be important for the future, as IT leaders will want to periodically audit technological performance and address any challenges as they arise to ensure sustained productivity gains and seamless collaboration over the long term.

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“CIOs who make the decision to implement UC have a lot on the line,” McCarron explained. “If the solution does not perform up to expectations in significantly improving productivity gains and cutting costs, their reputation throughout the organization—particularly in the C-suite—will likely be damaged.”

Looking Ahead: Preparation Ensures Prosperity

Thomas Edison, one of history’s truly great technological innovators, once advised, “We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.” CIOs and IT leaders would do well to heed Edison’s advice as they consider how to approach a UC migration; meticulous planning and preparation will make the process considerably easier and avoid potential UC pain points.

Organizations stuck in a cycle of diminishing produc-tivity will typically look to CIOs and other senior IT leaders for guidance. If you have been tasked with enhancing collaboration and boosting efficiency for your company, the stakes will be quite high.

©2015 Atrion, Inc. All rights reserved. | atrion.com