To understand the ROI of IP-based conferencing & collaboration tools we first have to determine the scope of use we expect. Today, most conferencing tools are used by only a small fraction of the knowledge workers in an enterprise, about 10-20% according to our customers. There are two main reasons. First, the technologies don’t scale in the real world of enterprise usage. Second, the usage-based pricing model makes it prohibitively expensive to provide broader access. I don’t believe that will be the model of the future. Instead, IP-based conferencing tools will be distributed and used like email. Separate voice, web and video point solutions will be replaced by integrated conferencing products that will be given to every employee in the company that has an email address for unlimited use. Companies will pay one fixed price for all the conferencing and collaboration their employees can use. We believe this will happen because our customers are doing this today! This graph shows actual usage of one of our customers. The red line represents the level of conferencing done with current usage-based point solutions. The blue line represents the 7-fold increase in conferencing usage that occurred within 6 months of the company “setting conferencing free” within their organization. They did this by giving integrated voice, web and video conferencing to everyone in the company, integrating it with their email and calendaring system, integrating it with their PBX, LDAP directory, SSO and security infrastructure, and giving it a small amount of internal publicity. The bulk of the new usage was not from existing users using more; it was from people who had never had access to it finding valuable uses for it. This is the environment we believe companies need to plan for when they consider the ROI of IP-based enterprise conferencing and collaboration. The following slides examine what we believe are the characteristics of a conferencing solution that maximize the ROI for an enterprise choosing this path.
One of the influences on ROI is the number of conferencing products a company uses. According to IDC, ??% of companies use ?? Or more conferencing products. What we see among our customers is a trend toward consolidating on a single enterprise-class solution for all their conferencing needs in order to reduce support costs, simplify vendor management, and reduce confusion among users about what product to use for what application.
Bandwidth requirements Phone only – TDM / PSTN (no bandwidth required) Phone + PC <5kbit (Avg) PC only 35kbit (Avg) Server to Server 35kbit (Avg), single stream per call When local server is deployed (ICS) All data connections from LAN go to the local onsite server Single stream goes out (per call) Voice Activity Detection (VAD) for PCs and phones No data transmitted during silence Can reduce bandwidth > 50% per event!
Most companies have a mix of offices, from large HQ locations to various sized branch offices to small project offices and even home office workers. The two main deployment models are on-site and hosted services. The problem is that companies often have to choose either one or the other when what they need is actually both models working together as one integrated solution. In this model, companies can enjoy the cost savings, improved security and greater integration opportunities of an on-site model for those locations where the volume of people – and conferencing – make that a sensible investment while at the same time offering the same product as a hosted service to people in smaller offices, where it makes no sense to make an on-site investment. As business changes the office infrastructure (e.g. as offices grow or shrink organically or through acquisition), the company can change the mix of on-site and hosted infrastructure.
To effectively manage conferencing on every desktop requires tight integration with a number of internal systems and applications. For example: Managing moves, adds and changes is simplified by integrating with a company’s directory services and SSO infrastructure Security is improved by integrating with a company’s reverse proxy infrastructure Usage and adoption increase when meeting creation and management are integrated with a participant’s existing calendar system or an internal portal Conference call costs are dramatically reduced when the audio is integrated with a company’s PBX Company knowledge is enhanced when content can be stored and searched through an enterprise content management system Without these kinds of integration both IT teams and participants can be overwhelmed by the work required to use an integrated conferencing system like email.
Its clear that once a company’;s conferencing volume reaches a “tipping point”, usage-based pricing becomes unacceptably expensive and unpredictable. Would you pay a penny for each email you sent internally and 2 cents for each email you sent to people outside the company? For a company to give conferencing out to everyone in the organization, they need a flat rate, unlimited usage model.
Frost & Sullivan research study: online survey of 946 decision makers: LOB, IT; President, VP, Director, Manager Geographies: US, Europe (France, Germany, UK), Asia (Australia, Japan, HK) 6 vertical industries: Financial Services, High Tech, Mfg, Prof Svcs, Healthcare, Government Size: 493 from $5-99m, 170 from $100-499m, 65 from $500-999m, 63 $1 – 10b, 85 > $10b Created a “Collaboration Index” which combined Collaboration Capability (a company’s orientation (e.g. culture, organization) and Collaboration Quality (infrastructure).
In the final analysis, after all the ROI calculations are done, business executives have a simple litmus test: Which company would you rather be? The one doing less collaboration and communication internally and with customers or partners or the one doing more?
![Emerging Conferencing Paradigm: Unlimited, Enterprise-Class, Integrated ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],Average Conferencing Minutes per Person Current Point Solutions Conferencing: on Every Desktop, like eMail](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)