ROI

Remember ROI?

Ah, the ‘Good Ole Days’. Remember when business decisions and investments could be made based on ROI (return on investment). If a business invests $1 million in new manufacturing equipment that helps them produce higher quality widgets faster, thereby increasing output and bringing in $200,000 a month more in revenue, then the investment pays for itself in 5 months and after that its all gravy. Simple enough.

The problem is that many of the business decisions and investments on the table these days do not fit into ROI calculations. Investing in network security does not generate revenue. It just (hopefully) protects you from losing money. Investing in process automation does not generate revenue. It (hopefully) makes processes more efficient resulting in cost savings per process execution which reflects back to the bottom line. Unified communications is sort of in the same boat.

In and of itself, UC won’t generally make money. What it will (hopefully) do if implemented properly is allow employees to work more efficiently and be more productive. It will allow employees to collaborate more effectively and help to generate team synergy where it wasn’t possible before. It will enable the business to respond to market pressures and customer needs more agilely. UC is a tremendous investment, but companies need to understand the big picture and both implement and use the tools effectively. Oh, and don’t try to justify the investment with a straight ROI measurement. Your CFO probably won’t cut a check based on that argument.

Corporate Culture and ROI

Unified Communications is many things to many people. Many organizations (and even some experts) are still struggling to define what it is, what it isn’t, what are the features and benefits, and what are the pitfalls. Arguments can be made about how it will streamline communications and allow the company to be more productive and more efficient, but that assumes it is properly implemented and used. Where the proverbial ‘rubber meets the road’, the true measure of ROI for the UC investment will be based in large part on how well the company educates its users and transforms the corporate culture so that the users understand how to leverage the new tools effectively. Investing in a unified communications infrastructure without training the employees to use it effectively is like having a race car that nobody knows how to drive. Evangelyze Communications, a Microsoft Gold Partner and Voice Premier Partner, understands this need and has developed an end-user training course organizations can use to educate their users and transform the communicatios culture to make sure employees take advantage of the UC tools at their disposal.

The Value of VoIP

For new companies or old companies building new facilities, the value of VoIP is easier to define and the return on investment can be realized much quicker. Deploying only one infrastructure- the network infrastructure- for voice and data, rather than an IP network for data and separate wiring and infrastructure for voice presents immediate cost savings. For existing businesses, the value is still there, but removing and replacing an already present voice network is a harder sell in terms of ROI. As this article points out, there is value in VoIP, but businesses need to look carefully at the costs of licensing and the actual handset phones they will need. More importantly, to more accurately determine the value or ROI, the business needs to look not just at the ‘now’, but also project how they will grow and expand over the next 2 to 3 years and what the additional investment will be. On the other hand, VoIP is not an island an the sum total of the value of VoIP does not rest in the VoIP itself. VoIP is also a stepping stone to more comprehensive and robust unified communications solutions which can make the business more efficient and boost productivity, increasing the value of VoIP even further.

Quantifying the Value of UC

The features and benefits of unified communications sound great, but for most businesses you have to be able to demonstrate and quantify the actual return on investment. The fact that it is “very cool” does little for the bottom line. But, what if you could tell the CFO, or the Board of Directors that it will reduce the cost of communications by 10%, or that employee productivity will go up by 10%, or that customer satisfaction will increase by 21%? That might make a more solid case for UC. A recent study by Dimension Data shows just that. For more about the Dimension Data study, check out this article from Customer Strategy magazine.

Integrating Avaya with Microsoft UC

One of the promises of unified communications, particularly Microsoft Unified Communications, is the ability to leverage the existing telecommunications infrastructure. Selling UC to upper management and proving the ROI is significantly more difficult if it means ripping out and disposing of the entire existing communications infrastructure to replace it with a new UC infrastructure. Avaya wants to make that integration and incremental adoption that much easier by providing detailed guidance for making it happen with Extend the Value of Microsoft Office Applications with Avaya Unified Communications.