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In recent times, Avaya has been investing heavily in familiarizing corporate customers with unified communication, and underlining how this technology can help them improve performance and employee productivity. Mun-Yun Leong observes that globally most enterprises have already taken to UC very well, and expects a similar uptake in India soon. Excerpts

Globally, unified communication has seen a good uptake. But in India the technology has seen very little acceptance, with most of the adoption coming from enterprises. What, according to you, is the reason behind this slow acceptance among SMBs?

Yes, UC is doing well globally as it improves productivity and mobility of the workforce. As demand for mobile workforce rose in the US and Europe, the requirement for UC, for continuity of work, also increased.

People in developed countries are worried about missing customer calls during their absence. UC has made it possible for these employees to be connected to the network and their customers even when on the move.

What I have seen about the Indian working pattern is that the various communication systems are disconnected and do not talk to each other. This is because most of these organizations use basic communication systems.

I personally feel this status quo is just a matter of time. These corporate houses will need to take decisions on how to invest correctly on the right kind of technologies, which will up their employee productivity. And this is bound to happen, sooner than later.

Many Indian organizations feel that if they have videoconferencing, they do not need to go for UC. Do you agree with this sentiment?
Today, video and voice are integrated within a communication system. Companies go for VC or UC depending on their requirement. There are dedicated VC systems, which can successfully support the communication network. But, this is only if there is a need for room conferencing.

UC is a totally different ballgame. It seamlessly ties up the various communication devices in an organization in such a way that employees are accessible at all times. This in turn cuts down on the decision making turnaround time, thereby increasing productivity, and also cutting costs and delays.

Also, in the current scenario, in a lot of companies, it is client ownership, which spells success or failure. Often this relationship is dependent on the employee who is interfacing with the client. With UC in place, all employee contacts are routed through corporate numbers and even if the employee moves, the customer can still be in touch with the company rather than the employee alone.

Besides this, often-good business prospects are lost because information is not furnished to the client instantaneously, either because the relevant employee is unavailable or because the approvals need to be taken from several people. This situation can be eliminated with UC, because a real-time update is visible for all the employees, which translates into quicker decisions.

At the same time adoption of these technologies are largely driven by solution providers. Once they understand well which technology will fit which client requirements and budgets, they can pitch in with the right solution. I don't think that companies are confused about the technologies. I think they are basically trying to understand which will suit them best.

So how do you view the UC business, given that there are many components to it today?
Avaya looks at UC in three different levels. The first level is integrated desktops featured with data, voice, video, and conferencing. The next level is communication. For instance, systems are integrated in a way that if people can't attend calls at office, those calls get diverted to either their cell phones or home phones. In the US, people are already working with mobile handsets, which can be tuned to a VPN, which means they are on the corporate network at all times.

The third phase is not just people to people; it's system to people. This is the most important facet of our communications messaging today, because we are saying that our communication solutions will not negate the need for human intervention.

Given the direction in which communication technology is headed today, human intervention is being minimalized. Do you agree?
In the case of Avaya, we don't agree with minimal human intervention. Under the communication enhanced business processes solutions that we offer, we group these processes together in such a way that the areas where human intervention is not critical is managed by our solutions.

At the same time, we build in intelligence in our communication network so if there is some problem, it has to be escalated to a human being or a group of people for resolution.

We provide business applications to enhance the quality of work amongst employees. For instance, companies adopt supply chain application for stock checking. This basically helps to place the orders. If the receiver does not receive the message, then the supply chain system will be affected.

With UC, if the person does not respond to a message about stock checking, then the system will call them on all the communication numbers and options provided, be it an email, mobile, landline, etc.If within a time frame the person is unable to revert the system will resend the message, and if it still does not get a response then the problem will be escalated to someone else who can also resolve it.

So, in short, the system might identify a problem in the assembly line but the resolution can take place only with human intervention. At the same time, since the system is intelligent enough to man the assembly line production, these people can be engaged in other activities, which will improve the company's performance.

Coming to Avaya, what is your technology road map for this year?
We have two primary business areas-UC and contact business. Avaya commands 40% of the global market in contact center business. We are continuing our investment to enable contact centers, IP contact centers, and video contact centers. In the UC space we are going to invest with Microsoft and IBM.

Our latest product is the Intelligent Presence Server, which is a software that gives a real-time presence–based view of the employees on a single dashboard. This is a collaborative effort that we are undertaking with our business partners like IBM and Microsoft.

Besides this we are also working on communication applications based on the social networking phenomenon. With sites like Facebook, the current generation is sharing their personal information online and this is where UC can play a very important role.

Most of Avaya's solutions are targeted at larger enterprises. Is this because you do not see SMBs taking a proactive stance when it comes to communications technology adoption?
Yes, I agree with the fact that some of our solutions like communication enhanced business processes are witnessing better adoption among enterprises. SMBs have not yet adopted this technology to a great extent but this could be because traditionally enterprises are always the first to take up any technology.

Having said that I do believe there is a need to generate better awareness among SMBs about how certain technologies like UC will enhance their overall productivity.

At the same time there are two sets of customers of any technology. One is the consumer on the street and the other is the actual enterprise worker in the corporate scenario.

Today, most customers are used to phones and voice-based devices. If you try to introduce too many things to them then it becomes difficult for them to understand it all and also use it. On the other hand, organizations are more willing to invest in upcoming technology because it is easier for them to educate their workers.

Avaya is banking a lot on UC. Is this because you view it as the be all and end all of future communication systems?
Our communication solutions extend beyond UC, and UC is not the end all. But, at the same time, UC is the undisputed future of enterprise communication.

Archana N Swamy
vadmail@cybermedia.co.in