Mobility

Beyond the Bill: Hidden Unified Communications Costs

April 25, 2016 by wccadmin

In an age when effective communications is a major key to business success, unified communications (UC) tools are taking those benefits to the next level. UC tools allow companies and employees to collaborate with clients and colleagues anywhere, using various devices and incorporating advanced services.

While a move to UC tools seems like an easy decision, there are costs to consider prior to deployment. The actual cash cost of purchasing hardware, software, and systems to facilitate UC is obvious. But there are other costs that are not as obvious or easy to spot during the deployment process.

Following are several examples of unexpected costs that might come up during a UC deployment or after a system has been implemented.

Employee Devices

Today’s business environment is increasingly mobile and less likely to be contained within the four walls of a physical office. Installing UC in an office environment where the endpoints are known and fixed is relatively simple. When remote or home-based employees are added to the equation, there may be increased costs associated with optimizing remote equipment to support collaboration.

In addition, employees are increasingly using their personal devices to conduct business in the office and in the field. Bring your own device (BYOD) situations can add to the number of endpoints that require UC tools and support, which can add complexity to a deployment and increase costs beyond expectations.

Network Optimization

UC tools bring a variety of cutting-edge services and capabilities that may be useless if the underlying network and infrastructure can’t support them. For example, many UC deployments focus on adding video capabilities that enhance collaboration. But videos require screens that can take up unanticipated space and demand bandwidth that may have to be reallocated.

Network management tools are typically needed to prioritize resources. UC tools have also caused an explosion in demand for storage and archiving resources, as companies often want to record UC sessions.

In some cases, the potential hidden costs associated with network upgrades and increased storage demands will prompt a company to explore the option of using a cloud-based service model for UC. This type of service model has its own set of costs to consider.

Analytics

There is hidden value in analyzing employee usage of UC tools to bolster productivity, but many companies fall short of capitalizing on these analytics benefits. Investment is needed in deploying the right analytics tools for those who can take the sometimes overwhelming volume of data and turn it into useful, actionable information.

Security

Protecting the company network and assets from cyber attacks keeps IT administrators up at night. The introduction of any new hardware, software, or tool to a network opens up new entry points for viruses and malware.

Home-based and remote employees often use public Internet, Wi-Fi, and mobile devices to access company networks. UC sessions also frequently extend to third party networks outside the company’s control. Many UC sessions involve Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which is considered vulnerable to cyber threats.

These vulnerabilities create costs, not only in the actual cost to fight cyber threats, but also those associated with potential data loss and system downtime that could occur with a cyber attack.

Balancing the Budget

UC tools generate actual and often unforeseen benefits, but come with the potential for unanticipated hard and soft costs. Understanding these potential hidden costs is key to absorbing them with minimal interruption to business process and less stress for IT departments. Contact Worldnet to learn how to avoid hidden UC costs.

A Decade of Web Conferencing Trends

April 3, 2015 by wccadmin

With a more mobile workforce and a new generation of employees who are digital natives, web conferencing is becoming more and more popular within businesses. Employees are looking to communicate with colleagues in a more personal way, and they are turning toward mobile devices and web conferencing to do it.

A Decade of Web Conferencing Trends

In 2005, market analytics company Wainhouse Research began a decade-long study on web conferencing trends. They found that the use of video has not only become acceptable within a company, but also a technology that transforms the way organizations do business. Organizations now expect to be able to use some type of video within their platforms.

Of the 800 companies surveyed, a third responded that they used video and web conferencing at least 50 percent of the time. Forty-four percent of overall users looked to use video when web conferencing and turned to another service or stand-alone system only if video was not available.

While video web conferencing fluctuated throughout 2007 and 2008 – mostly due to low-quality video and over-hyped services – the increase in quality has led to an equal increase in use and user base. Millennials, many of whom have grown up with video technology, now expect video conferencing to be a part of collaborative services – and if it doesn’t exist, they will ask for it.

Mobile Web Conferencing with Video

With the continuing improvement in technology, many organizations are beginning to rely on remote team members. According to the study by Wainhouse Research, only 42 percent of employees could use mobile devices enabled for conferencing in 2013. Since then, that number has increased to 70 percent.

Fortunately, many web conferencing vendors created mobile clients early on, resulting in over half of respondents agreeing that web conferencing on a tablet is effective. With its larger screen, the tablet is the first choice of most employees, but many are also willing to use mobile phones for the same purpose.

More and more workers are working remotely from home or on the road. This is a benefit for businesses that are looking to expand their reach, but it is also one of the major driving forces behind web conferencing. In fact, most organizations surveyed were using web conferencing to increase communication between employees.

Some of the top web conferencing platforms include:

Cisco’s WebEx
Microsoft’s GoToMeeting
Skype
Microsoft’s Lync
Google Hangouts
join.me

Although the survey found that WebEx was at the top of the list for web conferencing platforms, Microsoft is working on rebranding their offerings. This includes an effort to show consumers that Lync is the business version of Skype.

Millennials and the remote workforce are looking to improve teamwork and interact with their colleagues visually. By using video in their web conferencing, businesses are improving internal relationships and increasing the value of their employees.

The Convergence of Big Data and the Cloud

March 20, 2015 by wccadmin

The Internet and ever-emerging technologies have created the omnipresence of data around the world, and maybe even the universe, as people and machines can now communicate with each other from the earth to the moon and vice versa. The management and storage of overwhelming Big Data has become a challenge for both IT developers and end users. IT scientists saw a logical solution: cloud computing.

Why should businesses depend on the cloud for the management of the massive data at their disposal? What important technology trends must they consider to achieve a competitive edge?

Mobility is encompassing the world

International Data Corporation (IDC), a premier global market intelligence firm, forecasts that the world’s mobile worker sector will reach a 1.3 billion population in 2015 or account for more than 37 percent of the total global workforce.

With mobility trends transcending geographic and cultural boundaries, the need for an effective cloud strategy is even more crucial for businesses. On the one hand, mobile workers prefer to perform their tasks on the road or from remote locations at the point of need using their own devices. On the other hand, enterprises want to be always connected to their workforce and organization.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating data, data, and more data

In a recent article, Cisco CEO John Chambers called the IoT “the most fundamental change” among current technology trends and considers it “the second generation of the Internet.” With Big Data becoming increasingly pervasive, the IT world is seeing the emergence of IoT solutions in new generation cloud platforms.

There is an interesting relationship between the IoT and cloud computing with the ability to connect living and non-living “things.” For instance, sensors that can be operated remotely can be installed such things as refrigerators, television sets, thermostats, cars, cows, and trees to make them function more intelligently.

The social web is connecting the dots faster

Tweeting, liking, tagging, linking, friending, messaging, or simply viewing are just a few of the social media activities that are adding to the explosion of Big Data. Many users are not even aware that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, YouTube, and e-mail are all essentially connected to the cloud.

The social web and cloud resources can be integrated into enterprise networks for improved business collaboration. A sales team may be better able to work together to achieve sales goals using social networking technologies, while accessing important data and support from enterprise data centers.

Big Data analytics allow for more informed choices and decisions

The potential in Big Data is not in its bigness, but in its ability to identify and solve business problems and open new opportunities. With the proper analytics tools, businesses can have answers to why customers are leaving, what products customers are likely to buy, or what the value of a “like” or a “tweet” is.

Big Data is only as good as the actionable knowledge and insights businesses derive from them. Cloud-based analytics helps unleash the hidden promise of untouched data in jumbled traditional databases. It enables organizations to process large volumes of data to determine which data is relevant and can be used to drive better business decisions.

It is, thus, clear that Big Data and cloud computing are taking on a convergent path. More and more modern businesses are realizing that the limitlessness of structured and unstructured data is influencing the way they do business. They also know that Big Data will remain to be useless data if business decision makers do not use it properly and quickly.

Video Conferencing – Meetings With True Communication

March 6, 2015 by wccadmin

Video conference Web conferencing is not new, but video is fast finding its way into web conference venues. The reason is clear. Face-to-face communication, even in a virtual setting, engages the human psyche in a more personal and interactive way. What words can’t say body language will.

In the corporate world, businesses must look for ways to more effectively communicate with all stakeholders in their organization–business owners, employees, customers, suppliers, and the rest of the supply chain. With video technology, businesses can create a new corporate face in the midst of increasing competition to help elevate corporate reputation and brand.

Video as a transformative technology

According to a decade-long Wainhouse Research study, the main drivers for increased video preference are:

A mobile workforce
Millennials

As mobile workers and the Millennial generation populate the human resource pool, the need for video in corporate conferencing is gaining ground. Mobile workers don’t stay put in permanent workplaces. Growing up when technology was beginning to boom, Millennials generally think that they can perform their tasks better with the click of a button. Yet, the need to see faces and meet people offers an empowering experience that can make them better team players.

In the same research, Wainhouse Research learned that 70 percent of employees had access to collaboration-enabled devices. Enterprises saw this development as an opportunity to expand their web conferencing services to their employees. Big screens are the preferred devices, but tablets and smartphones are equally useful.

Benefits of enterprise video conferencing

There is nothing like a personal meeting experience, but video conferencing is the next best thing. In a progressively wired work environment, video allows for the opportunity for better interpersonal communication and minimizes the risk of miscommunication.

On the business side – Video conferencing helps increase productivity, operational efficiency, and sales. For example, real-time document sharing and editing, like Microsoft PowerPoint or Visio, are dynamic features of video communications that were previously not possible. Decisions can be made faster and products can be brought to market quicker, significantly streamlining the sales cycle at reduced costs.

On the employee side – Video conferencing can offer a better work-life balance and mean less strain on employees and their families. Employees can be burnt out by physical travel stresses like flight delays, traffic, or bungled accommodation arrangements. Video conferencing also keeps employees connected while on the road or working remotely.

On the customer side – Video conferencing is an effective tool to improve and maintain customer relationships. in addition to verbal communications, live video conferences allow business owners and managers to determine what customers want by analyzing facial expressions and body language.

What to expect from a video conference service

The features that create a great web conference experience are varied depending on a business’s needs. Real-time screen sharing, targeted application sharing, meeting scheduler tool, provision for animated discussions among participants, and seamless security to protect confidential information are a few examples.

Dominating the web conferencing market are Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft’s Lync, Onstream Meetings, InterCall, GlobalMeet, Adobe Connect Pro, ClickMeeting, and many more. Businesses have many choices, but the final choice they make should be anchored on what they need to truly communicate in meetings.

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