Instituting effective communications can be a challenge, especially for large, global organizations. As Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the use of data networks to transmit voice communications, has become mainstream there has been greater demand for full integration of all communication channels, from telephone to voicemail, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and so on. This trend is called unified communications and it is a new frontier in technology — a frontier that Getronics has been exploring since 1999. For this month’s edition of Workspace Wire we turned to Romolo Pallini, Getronics’ version of Lewis and Clark in the unified communications frontier, to get his perspective on this emerging technology trend and how Getronics has set about conquering it.

Q: What are the primary benefits of unified communications?

A: Unified communications is a great way to enhance workplace productivity — as long as people are educated on how to use the various channels for maximum efficiency. Used properly, unified communications can deliver significant cost savings and improve “reach-ability” by helping the person choose the right communication method for his or her goal.

Unified communications also enables working from anywhere. For example, I can work from home and do everything from there that I can do at the office.

Q: What are the challenges to implementing a fully integrated unified communications solution today?

A: I think the biggest challenge is that currently no one vendor than can fulfill all of the requirements of unified communications. That means you typically need to choose best-in-breed pieces of the solution from at least two vendors and then get them to seamlessly integrate. That’s hard enough for a technology company like us. For a company whose core business isn’t centered around technology implementation and integration it’s an even bigger challenge.

Q: Where do you see the unified communications market heading?

A: The market is really moving away from a focus on specific technologies and toward this overall concept of “presence.” The concept of presence encompasses all of the ways that we communicate and can be reached by others and how we integrate those channels to improve our availability and productivity. For example, a workplace may offer telephone, e-mail, and instant messaging for communicating. With the concept of presence, we no longer view those as just three separate options for people to reach one another. We leverage integration between instant messaging and calendar software that would enable “employee A” to see via instant messaging that “employee B” is online, but in a meeting. Employee B could be on a teleconference, on a video conference, or in a physical meeting. It doesn’t matter. The point is that if employee A tries to call employee B on the phone, he will likely go straight to voicemail. If he sends an instant message to employee B, he is likely disrupting and distracting employee B. Therefore e-mail may be the best communication method. Or, if employee A’s matter is urgent, it may be better to go to another member of the team instead. Employee A can see at a glance via instant messaging who else on the team is online and available and get his problem solved much faster. Productivity is clearly enhanced in this scenario.

I also see that the big vendors in this space will continue to work toward a single-source end-to-end unified communications solution. They’re already working on that, and, some claim to already have it, but I think it will become a true reality in the next few years.

Q: What is Getronics doing to stay ahead of the curve in unified communications?

A: We’ve always strived to be very proactive with communication technology. In 1999 we were one of the early companies to implement VoIP. We also started on the road to converged communications around the same time with integrated voicemail and e-mail — something of a novelty at the time! Today we’re really embracing the concept of presence and rolling out a completely integrated suite of unified communications technology to our entire global organization. We’re currently in a production environment with a few hundred users and expect to have the roll-out complete by the end of 2008.

Q: What are the special challenges of a global unified communications roll-out?

A: The distance and distribution of people is the biggest challenge but you also need to look individually at each country. There are cultural differences that can inhibit the adoption of certain technologies or practices. For example, voicemail and conference calls are very “American.” In addition, there are varying regulations country to country on what you can publicly publish about an employee. And of course, some locations may not have the reliable data connection that you need to support a unified communications solution. We’ve learned that everything needs to be translated into at least three or four languages and we pass everything through our in-country legal and human resource departments.

Q: What advice would you give other IT executives looking to implement unified communications?

A: Build from the bottom up. You must make sure you have solid infrastructure and the technology components to support unified communications already in place. From a unified communications technology standpoint, the messaging piece of the solution is particularly important so I suggest investing some time in choosing the right one. Integration is obviously critical so you need to make sure you have the right capabilities, either in-house or through a partner, to be successful. And lastly, training is probably the one area that is most overlooked. As IT people, we sometimes assume that everyone has the same understanding of technology that we do. Of course they don’t, proper training on how to best leverage the solution is vital.