Overview:

Organizations have ever-increasing products and services to evaluate, as more hardware and software vendors bring their Unified Communications offerings to market.

Planning for and implementing UC can be a huge task, which often takes months or years. Decision-makers must understand how their organizations define UC and collaboration. They also must consider their UC drivers and
requirements.

Once there is an understanding of what products and services to deploy, enterprises must also evaluate the IT departments’ levels of expertise, considering when it makes sense to supplement on-site staff with third-party service providers.

This volume helps companies understand where other organizations are in their UC deployments, what is driving their decisions for a particular UC product. It also explores how they are organizing their staffs to handle not only the implementation, but the ongoing management of UC applications.

Author(s): Katherine Trost, research analyst

Keywords: VOIP, unified communications, collaboration, outsourcing, professional services, VOIP management, VAR, Carrier, System Integrator, UC budget, VOIP decision maker, UC decision maker.

Vendors mentioned: Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Mitel, NEC, Nortel and Microsoft

Table of Contents:

1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................
2 VOIP TRENDS .................................................................................
2.1 VOIP State of Deployment: Snap-Shot .......................................
2.2 The VOIP/UC Connection ............................................................
2.2.1 The Microsoft Question ............................................................
2.3 Staffing for VOIP Management ....................................................
2.3.1 Keeping it In-House..................................................................
2.4 Outsourcing VOIP Monitoring and More ......................................
2.4.1 Selecting A Partner ..................................................................
3 UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS............................................................
3.1 The UCC Strategy........................................................................
3.1.1 Defining UC – Continued Confusion..........................................
3.1.2 UC Deployment.........................................................................
3.2 UC Demand..................................................................................
3.3 UC Drivers and Considerations....................................................
3.4 Team Effort .................................................................................
3.5 The UC Budget............................................................................
3.6 Managing the UC Infrastructure .................................................
3.6.1 Relying On Internal Expertise...................................................
3.6.2 Third-Party UC Support.............................................................
3.6.3 Not Implementing UC? .............................................................
4 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................
5 METHODOLOGY ..............................................................................

Clients: Read this Benchmark - VOIP and UC Organizational Strategies

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