By Telecom Lead Team: Pure IP-communications offers
enterprises a 43 percent savings over traditional PBX infrastructures,
according to a study by Siemens Enterprise Communications.
An increasingly mobile workforce is forcing more
enterprises to adapt cloud technology, and that staff training and headcount
issues often delay a company’s migration to a unified communications platform.
A hybrid environment helps mitigate risk and protect
existing investments. Running IP communications next to legacy PBX is the most
common approach, with 91 percent of respondents reporting this method.
The enterprise workforce has become increasingly mobile,
with most enterprises having just 20 percent of endpoints dedicated to phones
at headquarters locations. The greatest number of endpoints, according to the
study, were dedicated to remote/branch phones (39 percent), followed by mobile
phones (33 percent). In addition, one in three call center operators now work
from home.
This de-centralization is driving enterprises toward
cloud deployments. While only 16 percent of those surveyed currently had cloud
services in place, 45 percent of respondents reported that cloud was part of
their 2012 communications plan, with respondents favoring private cloud to
public cloud at a nearly three to one ratio. The top applications that enterprises
plan to deploy in the cloud are web collaboration, UC and video conferencing.
90 percent of respondents listed IP web collaboration, UC
and IP video conferencing as technologies they are discussing for 2012, and
more than half of respondents are already using these.
Although UC is a priority for the majority of
enterprises, staffing issues often plague its migration. Respondents have found
that IT staff often lacks the skills necessary to deploy newer technologies,
especially cloud computing. More than half of respondents feel that the IT
landscape has become too complex, which, combined with narrow skill sets and
high turnover rates, can easily hamper cloud and UC adoption.
When asked to rate their staff’s readiness for UC, from
extremely unprepared to extremely prepared, the top three areas where the
respondents rated their staffs less prepared were private cloud communications,
public cloud communications and private WAN-based video conferencing.
Enterprise communications is in transition from PBX to
IP and from premise to cloud. Siemens Enterprise Communications is dedicated to
providing our customers with flexible, open, enterprise communications
solutions that adapt to their business needs, helping mitigate IT complexity,
support a mobile workforce and facilitate this shift,” said Chris Hummel,
president, North America and CMO of Siemens Enterprise Communications.
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