One the arguments against UC written by Nick Jones of Gartner is, "...it's not as if you could even make a decent business case for UC; people end up using bizarre logic involving the value of saving 15 minutes a day per employee. If you give people 15 minutes more time you won't get 15 minutes more work, they’ll just go have a chat and another cup of coffee with a friend."
During the past week, I've been in the offices of two clients using our UC solution from Panasonic. We didn't use any business case or rationalization to sell them the client software and the UC software was an insignificant percentage of the total contract amount, however, the UC capabilities were instrumental in landing the deals after we demonstrated to the customers what UC would do for them.
I never thought UC would get connected to access and control in the way we did with our schools. Whenever a door phone button is depressed, the UC client on the school staff computers uses Caller-ID to screen pop the network camera covering that specific door. When we discussed and demonstrated the capabilities to our customer, it was a key deciding factor for them and what I heard from the customer was security being the key concern. What I observed onsite for several hours working with their IT contractors was quite different. These door phones were busy throughout the day hammering two secretaries with calls--and requests for access to the building. Yes, this is a more secure solution and yes it does save time and I'd like Nick Jones to visit our Blue Ribbon School and tell me otherwise. I didn’t observe the school secretaries chatting it up and having another cup of coffee with a friend or anyone else. The process was markedly improved for this school. No surprise: other schools want to know what we did and how and the customer did ask about popping the images to DECT phones--thus my suggestion.
Another key client uses the Panasonic UC client in a way we never thought. Our customer wanted a way for their call center operators to visualize the call queues. For these operators we installed Communications Assistant Supervisor and now the operators are making the decisions about calls they are on and are managing the traffic using feedback from the client showing the groups and calls in queue.
Several months ago, in: Zultys Nails UC for iPhone, I mentioned a key benefit: "Now, for traditionalists, a separate point was brought up from another project I'm working on involving iPhones and Mac servers--whisper page and one-way agent talk-over (voice assist) isn't necessarily needed when UC is deployed, and I agree. UC is a better fit with desktops because it doesn't interfere or act invasively with the voice stream."
The Zultys UC client as many others, allows users to continue on voice conversations and the ability to multi-task with getting voiceovers, voice-override from their bosses or whisper page from their coworkers. UC is non invasive to the voice stream and this is a key benefit that smoothens the work process of users during the course of a business day and minimizes disruptions to that work process.
Giving people the tools to better manage their days, makes a happier work place. The studies and numbers about time benefits may or may not apply. Employees that self-manage and become self-directing with less management involvement are preferred over those needing constant micromanagement. Mileage varies because these statements too are just as subjective as Nick’s. Proof however, is in the pudding, and the best way is to sample the dessert. If you like it, you’ll buy some more and if you don’t like it, you may never sample again or care to consider buying again. Whatever communications tools we use in our tool belts is to improve what it is we are tasked with doing and doing better, faster or cheaper. This doesn't mean UC is for all employees, it just means that the employees must have the right tools. Can you remember standing in front of an acoustic coupler for 12 minutes waiting for a "Confirmation of Reception" of a fax message? I can.
