A well-implemented and fully-adopted UC solution can yield material benefits, including increased productivity, reduced costs, and highly engaged customers. However, these benefits prove elusive for the average enterprise. The reality: many licenses are not deployed, and those that are may not be fully utilized. This eBook, sponsored by Alcatel Lucent Enterprise, identifies the common challenges in front of a fully-deployed UC experience, and outlines a step-wise approach to moving from complexity into deployment, and further towards integration and transformation. By identifying the key steps ahead of time, you can determine the right path that makes the most sense for you. And, more importantly, you will establish a realistic path towards success.

1. The UC Journey
7 Steps to Unifying the User Experience
A Wainhouse Research eBook
Marc Beattie – Sr. Analyst & Partner
Bill Haskins – Sr. Analyst & Partner
May 2017
Sponsored by

2. Table of Contents
2. A Dose of Reality
3. Service Stack Complexity
4. Find Your Own Path to UC
6. Consider a 7-Step Path
Step 1: Pick the Right Platform
Step 2: Deliver Persistent Messaging
Step 3: Integrate Your Calendars
Step 4: Establish Borderless Communications
Step 5: Add Telephony
Step 6: Add Conferencing
Step 7: Evaluate Integration to Business Processes
1. The Promised UC Land
5. Every Journey Starts With the First Step

3. The Promised UC Land
The Unified Communications value proposition is actually very simple: a
consistent, easy to use, unified experience across messaging, voice, video,
and conferencing services will increase user productivity, decrease costs,
and dramatically improve communications and collaboration within your
enterprise. Today’s UC vendors are delivering on this promise with a range
of hosted services, complete with APIs for tight integration into business
process, and expanding past the enterprise walls to support customer and
partner engagement. The promise of increased productivity and decreased
cost has caught the attention of many enterprise IT teams.
Bill Haskins
Sr. Analyst and Partner
Wainhouse Research
For those enterprises who have deployed UC, almost
90% indicate an increase in collaboration volume
within their enterprise – with half noting an increase
of 50% to 100% or more!
A well implemented UC solution makes IT’s life easier
as well – over 70% of those who have made the
move to UC say the new experience is much
preferred to the old one.

4. A Dose of Reality
Contrary to vendor PR and sales pitches, however, UC is not fully
deployed within most enterprises - 40% of small-to-medium enterprises
have no UC at all, 40% of all purchased licenses are undeployed, and
only 6% of enterprises have fully deployed UC throughout their
enterprise.
The fact is, most organizations still use an on-premises PBX, a variety of
sanctioned and unsanctioned messaging services, and all manner of
conferencing services.
Marc Beattie
Sr. Analyst and Partner
Wainhouse Research
One word stands in the way of a fully unified user
experience in most organizations: complexity. Our
data shows that 75% of enterprises have 2 or more
PBX vendors in production. A full 33% have 2 or
more UC vendors! For those who believe a unified
platform is the first step to a unified experience,
these multi-vendor environments represent a huge
challenge!

5. Over time, the accumulation of services creates a variety of problems for IT management,
end users, and the vendors and customers with whom they communicate:
• Partially-deployed services can isolate groups from communicating with others.
Finding and connecting with colleagues and trading partners is often difficult and
requires new downloads and different forms of access.
• Unsanctioned services frequently find their way into the enterprise, but are not
consistent with organizational compliance, security, and regulatory policies.
• Complex environments are expensive to support! A variety of support tools, vendors,
and networks, each with their own process, quality, and costs are required to support
these different services.
• Multiple accounts, different passwords, and new UI’s create user fatigue – it’s hard to
keep up with the App of the Day!
• Ultimately, these “cobbled together” environments can impact your customer and
partner engagements, resulting in delays, quality issues, and additional costs.
The net result is often a subpar user experience, lost productivity, security headaches,
support issues, and a general lack of UC adoption.
Service Stack Complexity

6. Find Your Own Path to UC
For most enterprises, rip-and-replace simply isn’t an option – but the alternative
is often a 3-5 year (or more!) migration to a unified experience.
There are many voices in the market saying there is only ONE
WAY to UC – and that is to replace every communications
element you have now with an entirely new service (theirs!).
However, the truth is, there is more than one path to UC. In
fact, you probably have a lot of good technology that
continues to work reliably well. It is also likely that you have
some “user selected” services that will be hard to kick out
based on user preference and familiarity.

7. Every Journey Starts with the First Step
(…and it’s impossible to get to the end without taking multiple steps!)
Let’s recognize that every organization is unique in what services they
currently have, what services they need, and how to reconcile these
two. While a unified suite of services is a logical target, there is no
single “prescription” to get there for all organizations.
If you are currently happy with your on-premises PBX (and it is
working well), keep it! We are going to help you think about
enhancing and extending the communications assets you already
have, creating a unified experience for your users, and beginning a
transition that works specifically for you.
The primary barrier to extending an enterprise UC
platform: INTERNAL POLITICS. Many teams get
stuck in Analysis Paralysis, debating the pros,
cons, ups, and downs of each path to UC. Debate
is healthy – but not when it stands in the way of
your first step.
There are often good reasons behind an enterprise’s complex environment –
acquisitions, mergers, strategic relationships and more. And let’s face it – it’s
hard to throw away a working system.

8. A good place to start the discussion is at the foundation of all
enterprise communications – a user’s identity. Every user needs a
unique identifier, access to a set of authorized services, and a
mechanism to authenticate to those services. For most organizations,
IT manages the process behind the scenes – users just see their
contact list, phone numbers, and applications they are approved to
use.
However, in today’s app-oriented environment, many employees have
acquired multiple identities across multiple services. As users bring
their own external apps for messaging, voice, video, conferencing, and
more, they accumulate a growing number of identities – that IT has no
way to manage.
A single and unified enterprise identity, managed and maintained by
your IT team, across all approved services, solves this problem.
“BYOA”, or Bring Your Own App, has become a theme in many enterprises –
but BYOA is also BYOI (Identity) in many cases. This can pose a massive security
risk to the average enterprise – IT loses control!

9. Next up, it’s best to think about relationships between all those
identities. Relationships are established within the enterprise,
between enterprises (B2B), and between an enterprise and a
consumer (B2C). Sometimes the enterprise creates these
relationships - by onboarding a new employee to an existing
team, or by assigning an account manager to a new account.
Relationships often grow organically, as employees connect and
share knowledge through the natural course of business.
Services support the interaction between identities, and will
enable and support relationships. Messaging, audio, video, and
conferencing services enable your users to share knowledge, and
ultimately create richer and higher-value relationships.
Finally, let’s think through how we link together identities,
relationships, and services. Your best bet is to deliver intuitively
obvious services that make it easy to find contacts, establish
relationships, and share knowledge - not just within your
organization, but with your trading partners and throughout your
customer engagements.

10. Let’s separate the two key elements of a UC solution – the user experience and
the platform. It’s true that unifying both will deliver a number of material
benefits to your enterprise. However, migrating every service to a new platform
can take time, energy, and resources.
So, we suggest decoupling the two, and propose the following approach: select
a platform that is capable of delivering a fully unified experience, with the
flexibility to integrate to existing infrastructure where it makes sense. The
is to deliver a fully unified client, capable of messaging, presence, telephony,
video, and conferencing, with a seamless combination of both native and
integrated services.
Next, let’s walk through the steps one at a time…
Consider a 7-Step Journey

11. 1. Pick the Right Platform
You won’t be ripping and replacing your existing communications
infrastructure if you don’t want to. But, you will be standardizing elements
of the user experience. So, you need to find a platform that meets your
immediate requirements, and allows you to add and integrate features
over time. Consider your core requirements today, and what you expect
them to be tomorrow:
• Features: Does the platform support your ideal unified experience?
Presence, messaging, telephony, video, content sharing, and
conferencing?
• Flexibility: Can you deploy features independently, at a pace that
makes sense for you? Does it support integration with your existing
infrastructure?
• Cloud: Most enterprises are moving their communications to the
cloud – over time. Does the platform support a staged migration?
Does the platform’s pricing model match your anticipated approach to
migration?
• Security and Compliance: Does the platform meet your unique
encryption, compliance, and regulatory requirements?
• B2B / B2C: Does the platform support borderless communications?
Can you communicate with your employees, customers, and partners
equally?
• Extensibility: Does the platform provide APIs and allow for integration
past your current communications experience?

12. 2. Deliver Persistent Messaging
Now that you have a platform selected, focus on the lowest hanging
fruit: presence and messaging. Provide everyone with a common
messaging and presence platform so colleagues can easily identify
one another, see availability, and connect.
Your presence and messaging engine should integrate with your
enterprise directory, and be deployed universally across your
organization. You don’t want users hopping between applications
when they need help from Sally in Finance, vs. Dave in HR – this is a
sure recipe for frustration! This is also the start of your unified
experience, and the foundation you will be adding to over time.
Many solutions support real-time, instant messaging. However,
persistent messaging has become a key feature for many users – it
ensures previous conversations, history, and interactions are
available and accessible on a moment’s notice.
The most commonly deployed – and used – UC feature is messaging. To maximize
value, everyone should be on the same messaging platform – you don’t want users
trying to figure out which tool to use for each contact!

13. 3. Integrate Your Calendars
Connect calendars, using what you have – Microsoft, Google, etc. –
so presence aligns with calendar activities and the scheduling
workflow is consistent.
Tight calendar integration is critical as an early step as it adds a
layer of rich presence – your users should know when they are
texting with someone who is in a meeting - or otherwise busy -
based on looking at their schedule.
Also, this is a key step as you look towards adding voice and
conferencing features – the ability to easily schedule and share
meeting details will be a key requirement moving forward.
Many users rely on their calendar as the center of their communications universe – whether
it’s a one-on-one or group conference call, it’s in there. A user’s presence should be
available to colleagues and updated based on their calendar schedule.

14. 4. Establish Borderless Communications
Extend your presence and messaging benefits by securely
connecting with trusted partners outside of your enterprise – a
process known as federation.
Federation allows the enterprise to manage secure connectivity with
your key partners and customers. Start by establishing secure, text-
based communications – extending the productivity benefits you are
already experiencing within your organization.
Then, as you add telephony and conferencing features in future
steps, your platform value will only expand – extending quality and
cost savings associated with on-net voice, HD audio and video
conferencing, and increased collaboration.
If your UC solution only lets your users collaborate within your enterprise, you
will most likely hear about it – from unhappy users. Ensuring secure, cross-
domain communications is critical to success.

15. 5. Add Telephony
Telephony is often viewed as the most business critical service in the
enterprise. As a result, many are reluctant to move away from their
existing PBX until they are absolutely sure the new platform meets
their requirements. So, why not find a platform that integrates with
your PBX today, and lets you migrate when you are ready?
Remember: the goal is to unify telephony into your user’s experience
at this stage. When your user can make and receive phone calls from
the same PC and mobile application they are using for messaging,
with a click-to-call contact list, they will be more productive.
And this benefit will only increase as you federate with additional
partners – no more looking for your consultant’s phone number, or
worrying about the cost of calling their office in Hong Kong. You’ll
communicate with them, on-net, as you would between employees
within your enterprise.
The advent of expanded APIs and open UC platforms are providing new
opportunities to integrate UC clients with traditional PBX systems.

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6. Add Conferencing
Today’s meeting is no longer audio-only – most contain a mix
of video and content sharing as well. However, the thought of
adding personal video to every user at once may give your
network team nightmares. Consider deploying conferencing
services at a pace that aligns with your infrastructure’s ability to
support them – audio, desktop and app sharing, and on into
video.
Remember: you likely have a number of power users and
specific conferencing requirements – think of call recording,
large events, and more. Your ideal platform should support the
primary feature set required by the average user, and allow for
integration with external platforms when needed.
Note that many enterprises have a number of competing 3rd
party conferencing services supporting users within the
enterprise. Consolidating to a single platform should provide a
consistent and improved user experience, and give an
opportunity for cost savings at the same time.
Conferencing is the new dial-tone: 40% of voice ends up on a conferencing
bridge for the average enterprise, and this number can go up to 50% - 75% for
many large multinational organizations!

17. 7. Evaluate Integration to Business Processes
Now that your user experience is fully unified, you can explore
the opportunity to integrate communications into your business
process and workflow.
The opportunities are endless, and unique to your most critical
business applications and workflows. This may be a ticketing
system – adding automated, presence-based messaging will
reduce time to resolution for ticket approval and escalation
calls. Or perhaps your website and the apps you use for
customer engagement – these can be linked into your CRM,
directory, and new UC platform, providing deep, secure, and
managed access to the right team member at the right time.
Now that you’ve taken a staged approach and deployed the
services you want, at your own pace and to every user, you can
gain maximum value by extending the experience past
traditional communications, and into the solutions your teams
use most.
Communications Enabled Business Process (CEBP) has long been the holy grail in
the UC conversation – but a lack of adoption has stood in the way for most. This
step-wise approach can help get you there.

18. In the end, there are new tools and services that allow your
organization to communicate more effectively, with better
features, and less chaos – and you can do this, one step at a
time.
Of course, every organization is different and your exact path
will likely differ from others. By identifying the key steps ahead
of time, you can determine the right path that makes the most
sense for you. And, more importantly, you will establish a
realistic path towards success.
It’s all about taking that first step.

19. Wainhouse Research, www.wainhouse.com, is an independent analyst firm that focuses on critical issues in Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C). The
company conducts multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes white papers and market statistics,
and delivers public and private seminars as well as speaker presentations at industry group meetings.
Bill Haskins is a Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research with a strategic focus on unified communications products and services. Bill has over
15 years of experience supporting, delivering, and designing converged Collaboration services in a global communications environment. He
has authored multiple white papers and articles detailing the keys to a successful UCC implementation and delivered various UCC
presentations, highlighting his experience integrating Collaboration solutions into business process and enterprise applications. He can be
reached at bhaskins@wainhouse.com.
About Wainhouse Research
About the Authors
The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Wainhouse Research shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for
interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
Marc Beattie is a Senior Analyst and Partner at Wainhouse Research. His area of expertise is cloud-based unified communications and
conferencing services at worldwide Telcos and communication service providers. He is the principle author of more than 12 market research
studies annually, has local market knowledge in more than 20 geographic markets, and briefs with over 90 service providers and technology
vendors annually. He has authored public and private reports on product strategies, distribution structures, emerging technologies and
industry applications. To the financial community, he has provided market and company due diligence on many of the major investments
and acquisitions within unified communications and conferencing over the last 15 years. He is a featured speaker and moderator at industry
conferences and private company events - specializing on the future impact of current technology developments. He regularly consults with
end users, established vendors, emerging companies, and the financial community. Prior to co-founding Wainhouse Research, Marc was an
early member of PictureTel and Polycom - holding positions as market analyst, and in product management, sales management, and business
development - spending 13 years working within the industry. He can be reached at mbeattie@wainhouse.com.