Talk 2008 National Newspaper Supplement

• All Embracing Telecoms Solutions • Business Communication Tools • Telephony and IT Integration • The benefits of Voice, Data and Video Convergence

• True Mobility from Toshiba, see page 9 • What’s on at the Unified Communications Expo ‘08

Distributed in The Guardian on behalf of Lyonsdown Publishing who take sole responsibility for its contents.

lyons down PUBLISHING • MARKETING SALES • COMMUNICATIONS • TRAINING

LET US TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT YOUR COMMUNICATIONS ESTATE. WE COULD SAVE YOU UP TO 20%.

Stand 618 UC08, 9/10 April 08, Olympia www.azzurricommunications.com

The unified workplace.

How effective collaboration will drive future business success.

For global enterprises, maximising the potential of infrastructure

configure sophisticated productivity-enhancing features; they

and resources across geographical and time boundaries to

can see the availability of colleagues; contact them and share

improve productivity and profitability is a critical management

information by phone or IM; schedule and initiate audio, video

objective. “Unified Communications” and “collaboration” are

or net conferences—all from one user interface.

two of the latest phrases to gain credence amongst business

This means that collaboration becomes more natural and can happen

leaders to help achieve this goal.

in real time, eliminating many of the delays, or “human latency,” that

Unified Communications supports an exciting concept: seamlessly

have traditionally plagued teamwork within large organisations.

and intuitively integrating business communications solutions

However, the biggest business shift swings into play as collaboration

with operational goals thereby enabling employees to collaborate

becomes second nature, and organisations effectively empower

easily and naturally.

their employees to take control of their daily activities.

Employees today want to have access to the same communication

It is clear that the successful adoption of a collaboration strategy

and collaboration tools wherever they are. Enabling an organisation’s

can enable organisations to effectively transform their employees

most valuable resource—its employees—to exchange ideas,

into a knowledge-sharing community that can quickly make more

documents and information wherever they are, 24/7, 365 days

informed decisions. Given the critical role that collaboration plays

per year, is fast becoming essential.

in overall business performance, this would seem an option that few organisations can choose to ignore.

A 2006 study by Frost & Sullivan showed that the ability to collaborate is a key driver in overall performance of companies

While many organisations are today embracing on-demand

around the world. Its impact is twice as significant as a company’s

communication tools as part of their overall communications

aggressiveness in pursuing new market opportunities and

infrastructure, few can maximise their potential because they

five times as significant as the external market environment.

are unable to measure what impact these tools have on business

Overall, 36% of a company’s performance (comprising factors

performance. Verizon Business recently introduced a Collaboration

like profitability, growth, productivity, product quality and

Calculator that addresses multiple aspects of an organisation’s

customer satisfaction) is attributable to how well it collaborates.

1

By converging business communications onto a single IP-enabled

degree of collaboration, and provides recommendations and actions on how to collaborate more effectively.

network, an organisation can give employees access to a full range

Verizon Business already helps many global enterprises maximise

of tools that support collaboration—and therefore performance.

collaboration through comprehensive solutions delivered over

Employees can use simple point-and-click functionality to

one of the world’s largest global IP networks.

verizonbusiness.com

1

From Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance, a Frost & Sullivan white paper sponsored by Verizon Business and Microsoft, June 2006.

Service availability varies by country. ©2008 Verizon. All Rights Reserved.

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CONTENTS Page 4: Learn about the events on offer at this year’s premier event for Unified Communications.

Page 9: Care Telecom “True Mobility from Toshiba” IT Europa Award winners talk about Toshiba’s latest mobility solutions

Page 6: Telecommunications Consultancy, ICCOM UK, reveal their new integrated approach to business communications.

Page 10: Keeping a grip on contact centre expenses with a unified IP solution from Aspect Software.

Page 7: GemaTech tell us about their advanced solutions that facilitate more flexible ways of working.

Page 12: Buying the Solution, Not the Technology - The editor of VoIPinBusiness. co.uk, Michael Gray, favours a market led approach to technology sales.

Page 8: Green Up your Digital Life - Find out about latest range of energy saving technologies from Siemens

Page 13: How Noble Solutions VOIP telephone system helped Bobby Wright in his fight against cancer.

PROJECT MANAGER: Marc Morrow

PUBLISHED BY: LYONSDOWN PUBLISHING brad@lyonsdown.co.uk marc@lyonsdown.co.uk 10a Millway, Mill Hill London NW7 3RE SUB-EDITOR: PRODUCTION Nick Scheffer Tel: 020 8906 9011 MANAGER: W: www.lyonsdown.co.uk ART DIRECTOR: Emmanuelle Miquel E: info@lyonsdown.co.uk Colin Halliday EDITOR: Bradley Scheffer

colin@v-creative.co.uk

lyons down PUBLISHING • MARKETING SALES • COMMUNICATIONS • TRAINING

IP Telephony & Convergence Specialists

“When you find a really good supplier you should let others know, Adodo are such a company.

I can recommend them for outstanding long term excellent service.”

Chris Habershon, Aquila Business Products

Telephony, messaging, video and presence functionality using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange UM 2007.

Enable faster communications, increase employee mobility, reduce costs and carbon footprint and extend your PBX lifespan.

• Dialogic gateways • Microsoft Roundtable™ • POSTcti Advanced Communications Platform • POSTcti LivePA intelligent call recording

Live demonstrations of the above on stand 802

tel: 0870 1266633 sales@postcti.com www.postcti.com

You can’t ignore it, convergence is here to stay.

What are your Key Drivers in converging voice and data networks?

• • • • • •

Savings in management time Savings in ongoing monthly costs Increased employee productivity Enhanced customer service Improved communications throughout the organisation Want more…..then talk to us and improve your chances of success

0800 092 1471 solutions@adodo.co.uk

www.adodo.co.uk

new technology, traditional values

4

REALISING THE BUSINESS POTENTIAL OF UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS Building on four years of success Unified Communications 08, incorporating VoIP for Business, has now firmly established itself as the event to help you understand how IP based communications are changing the way businesses operate today.

A

s Europe’s only dedicated exhibition on Unified Communications this is a must attend event for companies who want to stay ahead of this rapidly evolving market.

In particular the event is aimed at CIOs, Business Managers, Technical Directors, IT Directors, IT and Network Managers and Communications Managers, and Sales and Marketing Directors looking to mobilise their workforces and bring together disparate communications platforms.

Unified Communications Expo offers an exciting, stimulating and jam packed event. It boasts a comprehensive exhibition showcasing over 500 products from leading players, such as Amdocs, Avaya, BT, Cisco, Dimension Data, Microsoft, Mitel, Nortel, Shoretel , Siemens and Verizon Business amongst others demonstrating the latest products and services available to enterprises for the delivery of voice, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing. With over 100 exhibitors on hand to answer your product queries this event provides an ideal opportunity to compare a range of products and services under one roof.

Running alongside the exhibition, over 60 educational seminars in four theatres will cover all aspects of Unified Communications from messaging, technical implementation through to teleworking, mobility and VoIP. Each

dedicated theatre specialises on a particular area of Unified Communications allowing you to focus on what is relevant for you. Optimise your time at Unified Communications and visit key seminar slots in different theatres. In each theatre expert speakers and specialist panellists will address business and technical issues, present case studies and provide key insights from the industry.

Such an intensive and comprehensive programme will help to demystify the technology behind next-generation business communications and provides the ideal environment for user organizations to learn, evaluate, match needs and select products and services.

THIS YEAR THE EVENT IS DESIGNED AROUND A NEW FORMAT AND INTERACTIVE FORMULA. FOUR KEY FEATURES WILL ENHANCE YOUR EXPERIENCE AT UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS EXPO: 1) UC live!

Microsoft brings you UC live!. This interactive feature allows you to play the role of a UC user in a live environment. You can sit in the office, work from home, or relax in an internet café allowing you to experience the business benefits of UC in real-time.

‘RUNNING ALONGSIDE THE EXHIBITION, OVER 80 EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS IN FOUR THEATRES WILL COVER ALL ASPECTS OF UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS FROM MESSAGING, TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION THROUGH TO TELEWORKING, MOBILITY AND VOIP.’

2) IP Contact Centre of the Future The IP Contact Centre of the Future will showcase the latest technology live on the show floor. Presented by Avaya, this feature is a must attend for those who want to keep ahead of the latest contact centre technologies.

3) Complete Communications Centre BT and Cisco come together to present ‘Complete Communications Centre’ a 360 degree view on Unified Communications for small business enterprise.

4) Business Briefings in association with Nortel Aimed at senior business and IT executives this interactive briefing session focuses on the business transformation opportunities presented by UC and the best way to take advantage of the potential benefits. Business Briefings are essential for those who need to stay on top of the commercial opportunities presented by the rapid convergence of voice, data and video. It provides an ideal chance for companies to gain objective insights into the way Unified Communications are transforming the way organisations operate and meet their customers’ needs.

Whether you choose to browse over 500 products at your leisure, pack in a day of stimulating seminar sessions, participate at the business briefings, see the latest products at the Centre of the Future, experience UC live or all of the aforementioned there is no doubt that this event will enhance your understanding of unified communications and its rich potential. The event’s format will allow you to discover how users, independent experts and suppliers see the issues, providing a multi-perspective view of the best way to gain a business advantage through unified communications.

• For more details, please visit www.unifiedcommsexpo.com/guardian

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ICCOM UK: TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION OF YOUR TELEPHONY AND IT ICCOM UK is the new name of well established telecommunications consultancy, Ryedale Telecommunications.

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perating throughout the UK, with a new office in Asia, we had outgrown our previous name. In a competitive market we believe we have stolen a march on our competitors by recognising a hunger amongst businesses for integration and supplier accountability.

We have taken the fear and confusion out of the convergence of IT and telephony technologies, offering a consultative approach to communications requirements: this means offering a level of expertise to customers which guarantees an integrated approach in

James Lucks

Alice Adams

every aspect of business communications, delivered from one single point of contact – we then go one step further – by making ourselves accountable for the ongoing smooth running of the resultant network and infrastructures – it’s brave, but it’s a dream come true for our customers.

ICCOM believe in working with partners who share their philosophy and deliver similar standards of excellence. One of our major growth areas is the supply of telephone systems: small traditional and VoIP systems, up to solutions designed for a thousand or more users. In recognition of our need for the highest possible quality we partnered with Internal Communications Limited, whose experience and reputation – endorsed as a Siemens approved installer – convinced us that our customers would be in the best possible hands. Whilst ICCOM concentrate on consultancy, project management, network design and connectivity – Internal Comms supply Siemens, Mitel and Avaya solutions

to suit all sizes and types of businesses, complemented by cabling, full engineering and consultancy services.

ICCOM and Internal Communications have forged the ‘dream partnership’ working as one company, delivering expertise that is ‘bang up to the minute’ with each party operating daily in their own specialist field.

Having identified this hunger within the business community we are proud to deliver solutions to previously anxious organisations, where doing nothing and persevering with inadequate solutions had previously seemed preferable to making the wrong decision. Business users fear being bounced between different suppliers when things go wrong and the market has fostered this fear through over specialisation. Our approach is designed to once again instill confidence and gain a customer’s trust – great for customer retention, great for winning new business.

Alice Adams, Managing Director: Tel: 0870 777 4880, alice.adams@I-CCOM.co.uk www.I-CCOM.com

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GEMATECH - AN ALL EMBRACING TELECOMS RESILIENCE SOLUTION GemaTech is a specialist telecoms technology company focusing on the design, development, distribution and sale of new and technologically advanced solutions that facilitate more flexible ways of working targeted at the telecoms business continuity, secure voice recording and virtual call centre markets. additional module to the combined BCM / LITE

G

emaTech’s product range is constantly being enhanced by our development team to provide products and applications that fulfil our customer’s ever increasing needs with our current product range comprising:

• BCMLITE – a Network based product that can “instantaneously, and seamlessly”, recover 100% of incoming calls directed to individual geographical DDIs by intelligently re-routing them, on an individual DDI basis, to any other number, or series of numbers, on any remote device with any one of any number of call plans activated with “a click of a mouse” and changed “on the fly” as circumstances change via a wi-fi or secure web connection.

• Dealer Board CAS Recovery – Providing a truly unique solution to instantaneously and seamlessly re-route individual, nailed up, CAS channels over the PSTN to a “decoding” unit converting back into CAS

SVR

providing a totally seamless recovery for Dealers following a circuit failure and/or recovery to CAS Dealer Boards located at any number of remote sites including the provisioning of home based Dealers • SVRLITE – a feature rich secure voice recording product available as a stand alone (CPE) application or as an additional module to the BCMLITE unit – providing Network based recording of all inbound and outbound calls – or as an SS7 Network based recording application for use by Carriers as a “pence per minute” offering to their SME customer base.

• Remote outbound call recording – a new application enabling selected outbound calls made by remote (home) workers to record their outbound calls – incorporated as a stand alone managed service or as an

LITE

application.

• Network based Fax to Email Server – Recently launched application enabling the delivery of faxes via email attachments to remote workers and provided as either a stand alone managed service or as an additional module to our core BCMLITE/ SVRLITE Network based application.

• RCO – Rapid Call Out is a rapid notification module available as a stand alone managed service or additional module to our core BCMLITE/SVRLITE Network based application enabling customers to instantaneously notify their employees, customer and suppliers via SMS Text, voice message or email of any occurrence, and the action being taken to recover from the event.

• More information on GemaTech’s comprehensive product range can be found at www.gematech.com or call 0800 328 8354 or email us at guardian@gematech.com

WHEN THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS SHUTS DOWN... ...WILL YOUR BUSINESS STAY AWAKE? RETAINING THE ABILITY TO ANSWER INCOMING CALLS IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF ANY COMPANY. Major events that disrupt the business community – natural disasters, accidents and terrorist attacks – are of course beyond your control. But you can control how your business copes.

GemaTech specialises in the development of telecoms solutions for forward-thinking customers who want flexibility and mobility built into their telecoms processes.

TELECOMS BUSINESS CONTINUITY – INTELLIGENT CALL ROUTING Our solutions instantaneously, and seamlessly, recover incoming calls directed to individual DIDs by intelligently re-routing them, on an individual DID basis, to any other number including mobiles, homes and recovery sites.

SECURE VOICE RECORDING OF ALL RE-ROUTED INBOUND CALLS We can also provide a high quality secure voice recording module that records all inbound calls re-routed to all alternative numbers on any device.

IN BUSINESS TODAY, NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL THE PHONE RINGS. Call GemaTech now for cost-effective, easy-to-use applications that deliver flexibility and mobility to your telecoms processes.

0800 328 8354 or visit www.gematech.com

8

GREEn up yOuR DiGiTaL LifE In the UK today it is estimated that at least 70% of households own five or more fully integrated electronic devices. Whereas electronic devices once worked completely independently from one another, today’s telephones, televisions and stereos work in harmony with PCs, digital cameras, and games consoles to increase efficiency and usability. However, this means that more and more electronic devices are in a state of ‘always on’, constantly drawing power and ultimately placing greater energy consumption demands on the environment.

E

CO DECT and ECO Broadband, new energy saving technologies introduced

by Siemens, are helping customers reduce the amount of energy they consume on a daily basis, helping consumers to save money as well as preserving the environment for future generations.

Reduce your energy expenditure by up to 60% with ECO DECT ECO DECT is a technology from Siemens that reduces the power consumption and transmission power of cordless phones. By incorporating an energy-saving switchedmode power supply, ECO DECT-based Gigaset phones use up to 60% less energy than handsets with a conventional power supply.

While many phones use a constant amount of energy to reach the handset regardless of its proximity to the base station, Siemens ECO DECT Gigaset phones detect the distance between the handset and the base station and adjust the energy used accordingly, saving energy and providing users with a far longer stand-by time.

With ECO DECT, when a single handset is docked, models using the base station as the charger can reduce the transmitting power of the base station to zero whilst simultaneously charging the handset.

The new Gigaset phones such as the Gigaset

C475, S675, SL375 or SL565 now also include ECO Mode, in a a new feature that can reduce a handset’s power consumption by 22%, extend talk time by 28%, and cut the base station’s transmitting power by 80%, even if several handsets are used or the handset is not in the base station.

GiGasET ECO VisiOns: as stylish as they are environmentally friendly Siemens Gigaset Eco Visions showcase the future of the cordless phone – these stylish and environmentally friendly future concepts represent superior quality phones that are truly eye catching and innovative. The first two concept phones out of this series, the Gigaset “Solar” and “Leaf”, are the direct result of SHC’s environmental excellence strategy and fulfil the ECO-DECT standards already available in today’s Gigaset cordless phones: The Gigaset Leaf has a unique natural design which is reminiscent of a leaf in spring.

The invisible OLED display is embedded in a translucent lens encasement, giving the phone a futuristic touch.

The Gigaset solar uses all-over solar cells for a self-sustaining energy supply and can recharge naturally in the sun. The eco-index indicates the renewable energy use. Made of pure, separable materials (metal, eco-plastics, glass) the Gigaset Solar is truly state of the art high-tech inside and out.

Save energy whilst surfing and speaking ECO Broadband Much like the Siemens Gigaset phone portfolio, the Siemens Gigaset broadband portfolio also contains products that save energy and reduce transmission power. Siemens ECO Broadband products allow the user to reduce the transmission power of the router by 75%, 50% or 25%, or the WLAN function can even be disabled completely, depending on the proximity of your PC to the wireless router. For

instance, if your PC is usually situated in a home office just a few feet from the router, you can reduce the transmission strength down to just 25%, saving you energy and money. However, if you wish to work in another room in your home that is further from the router, you can quickly and easily increase the transmission power to ensure there is no interruption to the wireless signal.

Energy saving in internet technology is becoming increasingly important as the versatility of the internet as a communications tool becomes ever more apparent. Today, the internet is no longer just a way of checking email and surfing for information, internet telephony has been a standard in offices for some time, and is rapidly becoming common in households. One in five households in the UK now uses internet telephony and the number is growing rapidly.

Cordless products have started to adapt CAT-iq, the successor to the DECT standard, in order to provide these services. The new standard offers more bandwidth inside the same frequency range. SHC has been first to launch a CAT-iq phone, the S685 IP – a so-called “hybrid phone”, which SHC was again first to introduce to the market in 2005.

Hybrid phones encompass all advantages of an IP-phone, but additionally allow phones calls over the traditional landline. Easy-to-use and install without having to resort to a PC, they are energy saving telephony solutions made for everyone. Up to six handhelds can be connected and up to six VoIP provider accounts can be configured in one Gigaset hybrid phone – an ideal setting for families, apartment-shares or small / home offices. www.siemens.co.uk/gigaset Products available at your local John Lewis (www.johnlewis.com) and Currys (www.currys.co.uk) store.

True mobility, from Toshiba All the features and applications you’d expect from an enterprise phone system, accessed through a Windows Mobile® device. Now any member of staff can be truly free from their desk.

Jonathan Foxwell, Commercial Director of Care Telecom writes about how this breakthrough technology can be used in the workplace.

Toshiba’s mobility solution is unique in many ways, but what really sets it apart is that unlike other solutions that deliver basic functionality using the SIP protocol, Toshiba provide a Soft Phone client that gives you every feature and function of your desk phone, on a mobile device.

Now you really can carry your extension out of the door on your mobile phone. Want to work from home today? Just connect to your home Wi-Fi and you’re holding your desk phone in your hand.

But let’s take a look at how some of these advanced features can make all the difference across your organisation: Sales A single device that allows access to e-mails on the move, a synchronised calendar and office documents on the move has revolutionised the road warriors working life. Add to that same device the ability to be part of the office phone system and colleagues can see if the sales person is free to take a call, and the sales person can easily conference in a product specialist while on the phone to a client. What’s more, the sales manager now has the ability to monitor activity, just like with any office based extension, and substantial savings can be made by the sales person calling out over the network rather than over GSM. Now we’re really setting our sales people free from their desks!

»

E-mail, documents, and your office phone in one device.

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Any system function you need, wherever you have Wi-Fi.

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Walk out of the office with your extension in your pocket.

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Slash your costs calling to and from internal mobiles.

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Mobilise your teams for increased productivity.

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Flexible working, with powerful activity reporting.

IT (mobile teams) It can be difficult for an IT manager to keep in tight contact with their technicians, but with Toshiba’s mobility solution, an IT manager can simply glance at their mobile phone and see that 3 technicians are available, 1 is travelling between sites and the other is on a call. Of course the technicians have the same features on their phones and with the touch of a button they can call each other for free.

Mobile teleworkers Another feature that is often used is a login/ logout button for an incoming calling group, such as a technical support team. But technical support staff are an incredibly valuable resource.

What if they could be mobilised? What if your technical support team could work from home, from a customer location or from any of your offices, and from any of these locations be able to login to the support number at the press of a button?

Management If you’re out of the office at a conference, meeting with key suppliers, abroad to consider new market opportunities or any other reason, e-mail seems to be the only way to keep in touch and on top of things. With VPN software installed on your Windows Mobile device you can be part of the office phone system wherever you have internet access. Pickup your messages make internal calls with colleagues you can see are available, use your speed dials for external calls, see immediately if you have any voicemails with flashing notification, even page the office intercom to announce you’ve just got the big sale everyone has been working towards.

Mobile + Laptop = Office A Windows Mobile device and a laptop can give you the same functionality outside the office as a desktop PC and desk phone can within the office. The phone system can use the real estate of the laptop screen to present information more easily than can be viewed on your mobile device. Calling from Microsoft Outlook®, screen popping, interaction with third party software, CTI, are all possible as well as group wide extension visibility and private instant messaging.

Massive cost reductions All of this functionality uses data and internet connectivity and is effectively free. Calls to and from mobiles are the most expensive types of call for most businesses, and with Toshiba’s mobility solutions* these can be dramatically reduced, whilst increasing the communication and customer satisfaction.

Care Telecom provide free reports and assessments for companies on areas like mobility, and provide award winning solutions with Toshiba equipment. For more information call 0845 362 0020, download a FREE white paper on mobility at www.caretelecom. co.uk/mobility, or come and see a live demonstration on stand 415 at the Unified Communications exhibition, London Olympia, 9-10 April 2008.

Care Telecom awards:

*Additional infrastructure may be required to enable features stated in this article.

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A more unified ApproAch to contAct centres While customers today demand rapid and flexible customer service whenever - and however - they choose to make contact (i.e by phone, email, SMS or the Web), organisations know that they need to keep a tight grip on contact centre expenses in order to stay competitive. Delivering high quality service, while keeping cost-to-serve to a minimum, can be a daily challenge for contact centre managers. n recent times, technology providers have recognised this challenge and, in their latest generation of Internet Protocol (IP) enabled contact centre solutions, created products that address the need to be both efficient and effective.

Products such as Aspect® Unified IP™ now provide contact centres with a totally ‘unified’ solution for improved customer contact. By combining core functions such as automatic call distribution functionality as well as predictive dialling, voice portal, internet contact, workflow management, multi channel recording and quality management, they effectively provide a complete contact centre technology solution on a single platform: making administration faster, ‘moves and changes’ simpler to make, and services more integrated. halfpageadvert_0208_03:advert 04/03/2008 Products that support session initiation

protocol (SIP)-based Voice over IP (VoIP) go a step further – making it easier than ever for organisations to connect remote agents, link multiple sites and leverage existing telephony resources (be they traditional or SIP-based VoIP systems).

It’s a revolution in contact centre functionality. As well as providing faster and more seamless customer communications, unified contact centre products provide agents with access to real time information on customer history and preferences, and provide genuine up-sell and cross-

‘products such As Aspect® unified ip™ now provide contAct centres with A totAlly ‘unified’ solution for improved 10:31 Page 1 contAct.’ customer

Voice Performance Management For Voice over IP and Unified Communications Managing voice or video over IP, or receiving it as a managed service, makes it critical to have the right tools to ensure the highest quality user experience. The existing focus on availability and provisioning of IP Telephony leaves operational staff exposed to high risk issues. Managing voice or video services presents a unique set of operational challenges that have not yet been addressed until now.

Psytechnics provides Voice Performance Management, to deal with the requirement for real-time systems that understand the specific complexities of voice, including echo, noise and poor speech quality.

Psytechnics Experience Manager fills the critical gap left by other systems. It gives you unique visibility into the network, providing detailed monitoring of the voice waveform, together with alarming, alerting and troubleshooting for quality issues. This greatly improves quality and reduces the cost of operating your deployment.

Find out more:

www.psytechnics.com/uc08

sell opportunities. They can also deliver advanced features such as universal queuing, real time monitoring, unified historical reporting - with the ability to implement a single set of business rules across all interaction channels.

It’s also a revolution in performance.

Organisations deploying Aspect Unified IP have reported numerous benefits including: a 75 - 80 percent increase in agent utilisation rates, a 40 percent increase in self-service automation capacity, a 300 percent increase in call handling capacity, and an 8 percent drop in call abandonment. Benefits that ensure organisations achieve a rapid return on investment.

By Anita Marsh, Aspect Software marketing.uk@aspect.com Tel: 020 8589 1000 www.aspect.com

www.psytechnics.com

i

If you want to save the environment, eat what’s nearby A basket of fruit flown in from overseas emits more CO2 than an average family uses for cooking in six months.

Make a little difference

1

In comparison with conventional Siemens cordless phones.

Buy a Gigaset phone with ECO DECT and save up to 60 % energy1.

Simply visit your local Currys store or go online to: www.dixons.co.uk

Find out more about energy-saving ECO DECT and our full range of phones at:

www.siemens.co.uk/gigaset CORDLESS HOME COMMUNICATION

12

BuyIng the solutIon, not the technology Ask a group of marketeers why so many clever technology ideas fail to take off and they will answer with a single voice. Products succeed if they meet market needs; if they don’t, they fail. And the trick is to recognise that people buy ‘benefits’ and not ‘features’; ‘solutions’ and not ‘products’.

I

n the marketing textbook at least, a ‘market-led’ approach to technology innovation is always preferrable to a ‘product push’ approach (i.e. one where suppliers create products and propositions in the hope of creating new markets or satisfying unidentified needs).

Where this simple logic breaks down is in situations where products/solutions can alter underlying business processes. Take IP communications technology for instance.

Advanced IP solutions can often do more than just satisfy a company’s need for a phone system, a messaging system, or an automated call handling system; they can also impact the way organisations operate.

Sales departments are a good example.

While sales people have always had the need to communicate efficiently and costeffectively, modern IP comms technology now makes them more contactable on the move and hence more able to complete orders, access competitive information and update reports while away from the office.

The technology doesn’t just satisfy the need for good person-to-person communications, it also allows organisations to change support structures and business processes, driving further efficiencies.

This brings a whole new dimension to the technology sale. With IP communications, the technology salesperson effectively has a technology kit bag. A bottleneck in Company A’s supply chain may suggest a new phone system and a speech recognition-driven automated call handling system from that kit bag; while a flexible working solution for Company B may suggest a distributed IP solution with new mobility and contact

centre components.

It’s a very different approach. And very soon, technology salespeople won’t just be judged on how well they know the phone system they are trying to sell. They’ll also be judged on how well they understand the customer’s problem – enough to recommend the appropriate blend of phone, web, email, mobile and other components to maximise business efficiency and effectiveness. The ‘product sell’ becomes the ‘solution sell’.

Technology developers are rightly excited about Unified Communications - but if they are to avoid falling into the same trap as other ‘next big thing’ technology vendors before them, they must recognise that organisations

rarely buy ‘products’ or ‘product integration’ and build their knowledge and skills in delivering business solutions.

That calls on technology resellers to use their ‘kit bags’ of phone, email, web, mobile, video, network security, performance management and other IP communications technologies to deliver solutions that not only help businesses communicate more efficiently but also drive further benefits in areas such as customer service, operational efficiency, budget reduction and revenue generation.

• By Michael Gray, editor, VoIPinBusiness. co.uk - an independent information centre and buyers guide for business VoIP

the BackBone of transformatIonal government In 2003, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council (SBC) announced a Euro 11.5 million IT investment programme to support its e-government goals. The seven year programme centred on the creation of an IP-based network infrastructure and the launch of a range of unified communications services. one of the first major IP programmes of its kind in local Government, SBC claimed that unified communications would save it around Euro 500,000 per annum in ICT costs – as well as drive efficiency and improve customer service.

Five years on, and SBC is now running a range of advanced services on its Ciscobased core IP infrastructure. Staff can work from any location in the Council. All users have voicemail and audio conferencing.

They can also move themselves without

the need for IT assistance, and have access to an online directory that can be used to call users by name. The IP-based network allows SBC to centralise management of different systems and is hosted and managed on-site by NextiraOne. The Council also recently added a new customer contact centre to make it easier for customers to get in touch. The centre is based on Macfarlane Telesystems’ CallPlus contact centre software and Lagan Technologies’ Frontline enterprise

case management software embedded within SBC’s IP infrastructure and closely integrated with Cisco Call Manager software.

In 2007, the Audit Commission named Stockton as one of only two English councils to achieve the highest rating for its ‘Use of Resources’ – value for money – and awarded the maximum 4-star level for performance in its Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA).

13

A Noble SolutioN When Kevin Wright discovered that his 3 year old son, Bobby, had a rare form of childhood cancer, he was determined to do everything he could to save his son’s life.

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evin needed to raise $350,000 for the initial antibody treatment. The only way to raise so much money was through the generosity of the public. He planned to set up a call centre asking people for donations. His plans, however, were delayed owing to the unavailability of sufficient telephone lines. Consequently, time was running out for Bobby.

A chance meeting with Noble’s Managing Director, Nik Middleton, provided a solution.

Noble lent the fund a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone system and within four days a fully operational call centre was staffed by 35 volunteers requiring just three standard broadband lines! Using Noble’s expertise, 36 virtual lines were now available.

Kevin was able to subsequently fill the call centre with 50 people with the addition of an extra broadband line.

The three month campaign raised sufficient funds to send Bobby to the USA for the treatment, and he is now in remission.

Because only 4 phone lines were used, the cost to the fund of a year’s line rental was minimal compared with the 50 lines that would have been required using a traditional

phone system.

Bobby celebrated his sixth birthday recently, something his father didn’t think he’d see.

Since this successful campaign, Noble went on to help the ‘Baby Emma’ appeal in Manchester, and through the Bobby Wright fund, has now set up two new call centers, one in Exeter and a large site in Bristol capable of holding 150 volunteers for the Callum Kaye cancer fund in Swindon.

Using traditional phone systems would have been financially prohibitive, not only for the initial capital costs, but because of the number of lines that would need to be rented.

With call costs to landlines at 1p/minute, the telephone system running costs were kept to an absolute minimum.

‘becAuSe oNly 4 phoNe liNeS were uSed, the coSt to the fuNd of A yeAr’S liNe reNtAl wAS miNimAl compAred with the 50 liNeS thAt would hAve beeN required uSiNg A trAditioNAl phoNe SyStem.’

About Noble Noble are a leading supplier of VOIP business class phone systems, which they manufacture in the UK. Their unique design, makes them highly adaptable from just a few phones to hundreds. Adding more line capacity, simply involves extra broadband lines.

Noble has a growing business customer base ranging in diversity from Accountancy firms to Zoos. Their switches in London now handle millions of calls.

Contact Noble Solutions Tel: 0845 868 5140 Email: sales@noblesolutions.co.uk Web: www.noblesolutions.co.uk Charity Links www.bobbywrightcancerfight.co.uk www.babyemma.co.uk www.callumsappeal.co.uk

We Provide an Alternative Choice We provide a unique combination of leading-edge IP technology, and tailored, responsive service that is unmatched by anyone else in the telecoms industry.

Our strengths make us the best alternative for your global communications needs.

Find out more at www.globalcrossing.com or call +44 (0) 800 496 1000

Convergence era brings new opportunities to the dissident professional For many years now fierce price competition has dominated the IT and telecommunications sectors, fuelling a relentless and seemingly irreversible decline in service levels. A new dissident group in the professional market sector has emerged demanding tailored IT and communication solutions but with higher service levels.

In response to this changing marketplace, a recent merger

has created a specialist company equipped to meet the complex and changing demands of this section of the corporate market: Charles Street Solutions.

Charles Street’s roots go back to 1997, when it began offering IT and telecommunication solutions to selected clients where specialist expertise could deliver a functional and financial edge.

Uniquely, the company offers

a dedicated service to the legal and financial sectors with specialist expertise provided by ITIL qualified staff.

Charles Street has built a decade of healthy growth on a reputation for resilient and reliable solutions underpinned by excellent, highly tailored service and its founders are now taking this core philosophy to a new level.

The new company seeks to become the corporate client’s total technological resource; from consulting and planning through design and supply to ongoing service and support, on a nationwide basis.

The merger with a complementary specialist (to be announced shortly) has helped to dramatically extend the scope of the Charles Street offering. In addition to the company’s traditional bedrock strengths in fixed line, mobile VoIP telephony, Blackberry and related mobile data

London Customer Service 0845 345 1313

Total technology.

Power to the Professional.

Find out more: www.charlesstreet.com/talktome

“UNIQUELY, THE COMPANY OFFERS A DEDICATED SERVICE TO THE LEGAL AND FINANCIAL SECTORS...” solutions, Charles Street has now added commensurate capability in DSL, leaseline, WiMax, desktop, onsite engineering, remote IT support, and IT consulting. The company is now equipped to fulfil even the most technically complex and demanding project.

The fundamental principle, however, remains the same: to empower busy professionals with appropriate, resilient and reliable solutions that help maximise their productivity, enabling them to concentrate on their core business.

Contact: Craig Sawyer, Account Director, DDI: 020 7451 1312

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Available applications: • ACD • Call Recording • IVR • Mobile Phone Recording • Predictive Dialling • Routing • Scheduling Find out more at: www.opexhosting.co.uk/talk08 T: 020 8326 8326 Systems infrastructure by:

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Which platform would you choose to handle the fundamental communications of your business? By choosing a Swyx Communications Server to replace your existing Telephone System, you can be secure in knowing you have made the right decision to satisfy your company’s communications needs. Swyx has few traditional boundaries, especially in scalability and functionality. Swyx will grow with your company, maturing to meet your business needs, ensuring that this is the last telephone system you will ever have to buy!

• Home and remote working capabilities to all users • Hosted or managed service options, reducing management burden • Collaboration tools, reducing the need to make unnecessary journeys, contributing to a reduction in carbon emissions • Full call-recording capabilities, comprehensive and secure storage and retrieval • Multi-site communication capabilities, from a single central platform • Tight integration into third party applications, increasing the users’ productivity levels

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Atia Solutions have revolutionised the communications of many organisations throughout Europe. Call us for a no obligation consultation on 02920 022200 or email theguardian@atiasolutions.com

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