Should Unified Messaging still be a key part of your Unified Communications strategy?

Unified Messaging (UM) may not be the most fashionable topic at the moment – yet the productivity gains it can provide remain undiminished. Organisations thinking about implementing Unified Communications (UC) need to think carefully about how UM fits into their overall communications plan, as well as how they will integrate and rollout new services.

When it comes to collaboration technology, there is a lot of focus on video right now. And quite rightly so. When we launched our new Avaya Flare^TM experience recently it was in conjunction with the new Avaya Desktop Video Device, which makes it easier than ever for people to integrate video into their day-to-day communications and provides a real step change in multi-media performance.

But while video is undoubtedly the hero of the hour, it would be unwise to forget how integrating this capability with a unified approach to more 'traditional' forms of messaging - such as voicemail, email and fax - can also deliver significant benefits in terms of collaboration.

Indeed, in a recent report the analyst firm Gartner stated that "[m]essaging is a critical enterprise communication capability", and that "[m]ost companies will benefit from adopting some form of Unified Messaging, rather than leaving each of these separate"[1].

I couldn't agree more. Properly implemented, UM enables effective communication and collaboration across the enterprise - enhancing productivity with solutions that enable people to receive and respond to calls and contacts faster and more efficiently:

• This can include advanced features like voicemail to e-mail transcription, which converts voicemails into text and sends them to you as an e-mail, meaning you can deal with messages even when you don't have access to a phone.

• You can also opt for a sophisticated advanced speech recognition services, such as Avaya one-X speech, which allows you to control your UM environment using the power of speech alone. This allows users to check messages, calendars or set up a conference call by just speaking their commands - a benefit which an Avaya survey found can increase mobile worker productivity by up to 30 minutes a day (which equates to around 15 extra days freed up a year).

• And what about realising the value of contextual history? If voicemail and e-mail are integrated into UC, then the full history of voice and text communication can be retrieved when a user receives an incoming call or communication. The UC application trawls e-mail for past interactions with the caller (e-mails exchanged, meetings attended, documents shared, voicemails left etc.), presents them at the time of the call, and both parties have all the information they need to be effective and productive on that call.

The benefits are clear to see, but Gartner's analysts have also made the point that UM solution selection "is often complex due to the broad range of usage patterns and the shifting landscape of communication technology." They also say that "[t]here are multiple approaches to UM, each offering specific advantages and disadvantages." [2]

Organisations therefore need to evaluate their UM options carefully. I would also say, given the potential boost to the success of collaboration projects it can bring, that UM should never be an afterthought when it comes to planning overall communications needs. There are technical reasons for this too. UM solutions today must integrate with rapidly evolving, leading-edge communication technologies, while also integrating with existing legacy infrastructure. And you also need to think about how UM solutions can be extended to cope with the prevalence of mobile and remote working solutions - as well as the need to fit within the broader Unified Communications context.

The answer is that CIOs need to think holistically about UM and UC. Voice, messaging, presence, IM, video, fax, e-mail and directory services all need to be assessed as one communications platform, rather than discrete components.

But having said that, there is no need to implement everything in one go! Indeed, for many CIOs the prospect of a full scale Unified Communications implementation can be so daunting that the easiest option for them is to do nothing, depriving their business of the benefits that it would undoubtedly bring. To get round this barrier, it is perfectly possible - provided a modular and open solution is chosen - to break Unified Communications down into its component parts and add those parts one step at a time. A common approach, for example, is to start with the voicemail & e-mail integration that is basis of a UM solution - and then add, remote working, mobility, presence, IM and video as appropriate. This is in fact a far smarter way of tackling the rollout, and one which makes life much easier. Not only for IT, but for the end business user as well - so that neither is faced with grappling with too much change in one go.

The key to making it work is making sure you have an overall plan - and not falling into the trap of thinking that a holistic approach to UC, and an incremental approach to rolling it out, are mutually exclusive.

[1] Gartner, Fitting Unified Messaging Into Your Unified Communications Plan, 2009

[2] Gartner, Fitting Unified Messaging Into Your Unified Communications Plan, 2009