This white paper is a business briefing for C-Level Executives on how integrating a range of technologies - including unified communications, service oriented architecture, virtualization and cloud computing - can transform the productivity and profitability of large enterprises.
White Paper
Enterprise Communications and
Collaboration in a Fast Changing World
http://www.nec.com/Enterprise Communications and Collaboration in a Fast Changing World White Paper
Executive Overview
This white paper is a business briefing for C-Level Executives on how integrating a range of technologies - including unified communications, service oriented architecture, virtualization and cloud computing - can transform the productivity and profitability of large enterprises.
With capital expenditure budgets drastically reduced, the IT team is facing an unprecedented challenge: just how can it meet demands for more flexible working and improved productivity without embarking upon a sustained investment program? As organizations look desperately for opportunities to reduce office space to cut costs, the pressure is on to enable hot desking and flexible working. And with pandemics such as swine flu or bird flu likely to affect employees' ability to get to work, viable flexible working will become critical. At the same time, IT is also facing concerns about data center power consumption and environmental legislation, as well as the ever present security fear of losing data and managing endpoints. It is understandable that the over-riding emphasis is now on cutting costs - from server virtualization to achieve dramatic consolidation and a reduction in people, power and hardware costs, to desktop virtualization to exploit the reduced centralized management costs associated with thin client devices. These technologies are also enabling organizations to significantly reduce the facilities costs associated with the continu-ous expansion of data center requirements that has occurred over the last two decades: virtualization is enabling organi-zations to use this data center space far more effectively. Similarly, the 2008/9 recession has actually added impetus to IT and communications convergence, as more organizations look for the cost and management benefits associated with a single infrastructure. However, for flexible working strategies to be truly effective, organizations need to leverage a lot of additional tools and technologies - from unified communications (UC) that improves communication and collaboration between employees, to cloud computing that will support anytime, anywhere access to both information and core applications. Yet, to date, the majority of these projects are being undertaken in isolation: organizations are looking at isolated UC components such as unified messaging and video conferencing, for example, without even considering the link with desktop virtualization or cloud computing. By failing to take a consolidated approach, organizations may gain initial cost benefits but they will compromise their ability to take advantage of these technologies to deliver the incremental benefits of integrating instant messaging (IM), presence, voice, video, and other collaboration services with business applications and business processes to achieve true business transformation.
Organizations need to look closely at the overall system design and architecture: putting in place today a consolidated solution based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework that will provide the building blocks for highly innova-tive solutions in the future. A role-based approach delivering new mashups offering a rich user experience and reflecting specific need-based user demands will transform productivity and enable unprecedented flexibility in working practices.
