UC harnesses communications and data infrastructures and extends this throughout an enterprise; it is about mobility and improved productivity for employees, wherever they happen to be. UC in its raw form can connect employees during times when they are not able to connect via WLANs or cannot use their notebook PCs.
Richard Menton, product development manager at BCS says that today's competitive landscape and the challenge to manage internal and external processes, among others, is spurring more companies to take the competitive advantage that technology solutions can provide.
“It is not about a bigger and better system, it is about a smarter system. A system which is pervasive and can provide you with a full view of your enterprise, while at the same time necessitating access to your business by all of the people within your supply chain, and that is where both IP and UC can play a critical part,” says Menton.
BCS collaborated with long term technology partner, Alcatel-Lucent, at the event to provide a single view of the solutions and methodologies they can jointly offer.
According to Eddie McAlone, general manager enterprise and verticals at Alcatel-Lucent South and East Africa, the real benefit of the forum was the fact that companies could present to a mature audience. “The companies in attendance appeared to understand the concept of UC and the mobile workforce, as well as the potential benefits of adopting this as a strategy hold for them, while some companies are still grappling with how they can define the mobility aspect to suit them.
“Organisations need to carefully review the business case for mobility. It has been shown that although productivity undoubtedly increases, some of the cost savings anticipated are not met, and indeed, in some cases, hidden costs emerge. Careful benchmarking of the expected benefits and how they can be measured is required in order to fully understand the ROI. In particular, SASOL's experience presented at the seminar completely reflected the messages from Alcatel-Lucent in regard to strategy, planning and ROI,” McAlone concluded.
