Assessing the hard and soft ROI of unified communications
by Jamie Ryan on March 2nd, 2011
For companies that are thinking of adopting a unified communications (UC) platform, one of the lingering questions is verifying the return on investment (ROI). Even though the economy is recovering and IT spending is predicted to rise more than 5 percent this year, any major technology investment must be rigorously analyzed and justified before committing resources.
In a previous post, I highlighted the bottom-line benefits that Aspect has captured in implementing Microsoft Lync (and its predecessor, OCS) in our offices around the world. A little background: two years ago, Aspect made a commitment to implement a UC platform for our entire global workforce—1,900 employees in more than 20 offices. We achieved substantial cost savings—$2 million of annualized spending in the first 12 months.
Our experience at Aspect is consistent with a Forrester Consulting study on the total economic impact of Microsoft Lync on a composite organization. Forrester estimated a 337 percent risk-adjusted ROI, with a payback period of 12 months. We actually achieved an ROI within nine months of adoption.
As we moved from OCS to Lync, we saw additional savings via an 80 percent reduction in our server footprint.
Most executives would find these kinds of returns tantalizing but might worry about the organizational disruption such a widespread implementation could cause. In my experience, our employees embraced these new tools. Further, the holistic benefits and value from a more transparent, collaborative culture are what make implementing a unified communications platform a no-brainer. A few examples tell the story.
First, on a basic level, the value of a more open, collaborative culture cannot be overstated. UC’s rich-presence tools helped remove organizational hierarchy and barriers to interaction. What company couldn’t benefit from improved cross-organizational communication? With rich presence across the entire organization, my colleagues can see if I’m available and then contact me through the means they are most comfortable with—email, instant messaging, or a phone call. Also, a side benefit is I seldom have a voicemail from an internal colleague; you just don’t call people you know are unavailable.
Second, I spend no time chasing after people or wondering why they haven’t responded. If you’re an executive who spends a good part of your day leaving or responding to voicemail messages, I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t have to be that way.
Third, employee adoption was seamless, primarily because these tools are so intuitive. Although we made sure to mount an internal communications campaign to lay down some basic guidelines, I can tell you that our employees got up to speed very quickly.
Last, a particularly notable statistic: of our 1,900 employees, approximately 10 are administrative staff. That’s not a typo. The functionality within UC enables every employee to manage their own schedule effortlessly and set up conference calls and meetings themselves. And since these tools are available on whatever device I’m using at the time, access is never a problem. Best of all, the administrative staff we do have spend their time on tasks that add real value, such as planning customer meetings, coordinating company-wide functions, and the like.
In my next post, I’ll discuss four key factors to implementing a UC platform and how to manage them effectively. In the meantime, I’d like to hear from UC adopters about how these tools have improved your productivity.
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Improving the way companies communicate internally and externally with their customers is an important objective for all organizations. This blog is focused on levaraging the collective knowledge withing Aspect.