Vol. 1: Organizational Trends & VoIP State of Deployment

Table of Contents

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
2 ORGANIZATIONAL AND OPERATIONAL STATUS 2
2.1 OVERVIEW OF PARTICIPANTS 2
2.2 STAFFING UP 3
2.2.1 Cha-Ching! Does Convergence Pay? 6
2.3 WHEN VOICE AND DATA WORLDS COLLIDE 7
2.3.1 Staff Convergence 9
2.4 CALLING THE SHOTS 11
2.5 NEMERTES’ ORGANIZATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS 12
2.5.1 For Business Users/IT Executives 12
2.5.2 For Vendors & Carriers 13
3 STATE OF DEPLOYMENT 15
3.1 HOW WIDESPREAD? 15
3.1.1 Growing Rollout 16
3.1.2 Full Organizational Adoption 19
3.1.3 Limited Deployment 21
3.1.4 Pilot/Testing 22
3.2 LAN OR WAN 24
3.3 VOIP: WHO NEEDS IT? 26
3.3.1 No, Thanks! 26
3.3.2 No, Thanks—Just for Now 28
3.4 HOUSE CALLS 29
3.5 NEXT UP: VIDEO OVER IP 32
3.6 CUTTING THE CORD 33
3.7 NEMERTES RECOMMENDATIONS 34
3.7.1 For Enterprises 34
3.7.2 For Vendors/Carriers 35
4 APPENDIX A: REPORT METHODOLOGY 37
4.1 PROCESS 37
4.2 TIMEFRAME 39
4.3 PARTICIPANTS 39
4.4 BY INDUSTRY 40
4.5 BY SIZE 41
4.6 DISCLAIMER/DISTRIBUTION 42
5 APPENDIX B: PEER PROFILE BENCHMARK DESCRIPTIONS 43

Table of Figures

FIGURE 1: IT STAFF BY REVENUE 3
FIGURE 2: AVERAGE NUMBER OF IT EMPLOYEES 5
FIGURE 3: CONVERGENCE STAFF LOAD 6
FIGURE 4: VOICE/DATA ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 8
FIGURE 5: CONVERGED OPERATIONS? 10
FIGURE 6: DECISION MAKERS 11
FIGURE 7: VOIP STATE OF DEPLOYMENT 17
FIGURE 8: GROWING ROLLOUT, BY SIZE 18
FIGURE 9: FULL ADOPTION, BY REVENUE 20
FIGURE 10: LIMITED DEPLOYMENT, BY REVENUE 22
FIGURE 11: PILOT/TESTING, BY SIZE 23
FIGURE 12: IP VOICE ON LAN 24
FIGURE 13: VOIP ON THE WAN 26
FIGURE 14: ROADBLOCKS TO VOIP 27
FIGURE 15: NUMBER OF TELECOMMUTERS 30
FIGURE 16: VOIP FOR TELECOMMUTERS? 31
FIGURE 17: VIDEOCONFERENCING PLANS, DESKTOP VS. ROOM-TO-ROOM 32
FIGURE 18: WIRELESS VOIP 34
FIGURE 19: PARTICIPANTS BY TITLE 38
FIGURE 20: PARTICIPANTS BY INDUSTRY 39
FIGURE 21: ANNUAL REVENUE 40
FIGURE 22: IT BUDGET 41

Table of Tables

TABLE 1: AVERAGE SALARY STATISTICS 7
TABLE 2: PROJECT OVERSIGHT, 2003-2005 9
TABLE 3: VOIPSTATE OF DEPLOYMENT, 2004-2005 15

1 Executive Summary

Convergence projects are running strong in the vast majority of organizations. Voice typically is the first application implemented on a converged IP backbone, and Nemertes is starting to see IT executives explore new applications, such as video, unified communications, collaborative tools, and real-time communications dashboards. They’re also recognizing the need for network optimization, branch-office technologies, enhanced management tools, and detailed cost analyses. And they’re waiting not-so-patiently for the carriers to catch up with market demands.

Volume 1 of the “Convergence & Next-Generation WAN Technologies” benchmark explores the organizational trends around VOIP deployment, the state of deployment, and what’s holding companies back. We found shifts in who’s running the projects—more data experts than voice experts—and who’s making vendor-selection decisions—more managers and directors. The average organization has drastically increased the number of IT/networking staff members assigned to convergence.

Additional volumes of the benchmark analyze vendors and carriers, including Nemertes’ annual ratings; and explore converged applications, branch-office trends, management challenges, mobility plans, and WAN service/technology trends. We also provide detailed cost analyses and comparisons outlining capital and operational costs and savings, and analyze organizational best practices based on Nemertes’ Peer Profile Group (SM) Benchmarks, a multi-faceted method of categorizing companies based on a variety of characteristics.

Please contact client-services@nemertes.com if you would like to schedule a briefing.