In keeping with Matt's excellent post focusing on how to deal with the economic crisis, I want to come back to the subject of execution. If the plan is to justify Unified Communications or IP telephony investments as a cost-cutting measure, it's obviously critical that the deployment of these technologies actually be carried out in a way that really does save money--without the kind of missteps or misdirected efforts and investments that can torpedo even a solid business case.
In keeping with Matt's excellent post focusing on how to deal with the economic crisis, I want to come back to the subject of execution. If the plan is to justify Unified Communications or IP telephony investments as a cost-cutting measure, it's obviously critical that the deployment of these technologies actually be carried out in a way that really does save money--without the kind of missteps or misdirected efforts and investments that can torpedo even a solid business case.We've focused several of our VoiceCon San Francisco sessions on just this issue, and I just finished reviewing slides for one talk that looks like it'll be particularly helpful. Doug Carolus and Jason Wright of N'Compass Solutions consultancy are speaking on "Pricing and Budgeting for Unified Communications: Bang for the Buck and Investment Protection." This presentation deals with how the world changes when you buy voice communications systems as software rather than as hardware. It's been a big issue for some time, and with UC, it'll only get more complex.
But the part of Doug's and Jason's presentation that I want to call out is their list of the Top 10 Questions that you should be asking yourself with regard to UC procurement. The list is:
1. Have you conducted an appropriate feasibility study?
2. Is your entire network infrastructure REALLY ready for the new enterprise applications? Power, cooling, cable, QoS, PoE, carrier services, data electronics etc...
3. How will you define success and do you have clear, concise, and objective evaluation criteria to select the vendor(s)?
4. Do you have the appropriate user groups represented on your project team and do you have executive sponsorship to help support & defend your project?
5 Do you have the right internal resources needed to select, implement and support the selected technologies?
6. Have you defined what you REALLY need implemented on "Day 1" and what infrastructure elements can you leverage? Easy to bite off more than you can "chew"
7. Do you have a clear service and support plan developed for after system acceptance? 8. Do you have sufficient growth and network refresh costs in your CapEx budget?
9. Do you understand how your decision will impact your IT/Telecom teams and your company's vendor relationship(s)?
10. What is the best procurement and implementation methodology to support your strategy?
2. Is your entire network infrastructure REALLY ready for the new enterprise applications? Power, cooling, cable, QoS, PoE, carrier services, data electronics etc...
3. How will you define success and do you have clear, concise, and objective evaluation criteria to select the vendor(s)?
4. Do you have the appropriate user groups represented on your project team and do you have executive sponsorship to help support & defend your project?
5 Do you have the right internal resources needed to select, implement and support the selected technologies?
6. Have you defined what you REALLY need implemented on "Day 1" and what infrastructure elements can you leverage? Easy to bite off more than you can "chew"
7. Do you have a clear service and support plan developed for after system acceptance? 8. Do you have sufficient growth and network refresh costs in your CapEx budget?
9. Do you understand how your decision will impact your IT/Telecom teams and your company's vendor relationship(s)?
10. What is the best procurement and implementation methodology to support your strategy?
As you can see, these aren't really questions about procurement. They're really about execution. They're the questions for which you need solid answers before you even consider going out to bid.
These 10 questions are as good a summary as I've seen of a core strategy for making sure that you capture the benefits that UC promises.
