Comms4Business News

Over a half of the 1,000 companies surveyed said they outsource some or all of their network infrastructure, yet four in ten of those that do (41%) are unable to estimate the resulting cost savings. This situation is likely to further hinder board-level IT investment decisions, according to Telindus marketing director, Danny Williams.

"There must be clear metrics in place to justify any IT or network outsourcing spend in order to better track its value to the business and avoid a disconnect with senior management," says Williams. "Cost is a key factor, but it's not the only one. IT managers also need to consider the strategic value of network outsourcing in terms of network stability and the measuring of business productivity improvements as a whole."

Telindus' research also found that, despite an increase in network outsourcing, trust is still an issue for companies looking to take advantage of its benefits. The most frequently stated reason for not outsourcing was 'I want to be in control of my network infrastructure.' (54%). One in eight companies went as far as saying that they wouldn't trust a third party with their network.

"It's natural to feel apprehensive about outsourcing the network or IT functions, but any outsourcing relationship must be flexible and collaborative," says Williams. "The successful companies lay down clear boundaries at the start of a network outsourcing partnership and set SLAs that reflect the business environment. In this way they can reap the productivity and cost benefits of outsourcing without losing management control. "What this independent research tells us is that overall, whilst there is still a degree of reticence to outsourcing per se, forward-thinking companies are more and more ready to consider the outsourcing of operationally mature elements such as network management, as this enables them the time to consider strategy and policy such as the introduction of IPT," he concludes.

Fully integrated with the Samsung range of systems such as OfficeServ, CMS is highly scalable, from small businesses on the OfficeServ 12 platform, right up to the large multi-site enterprise. A full new range of supporting material for resellers is available at www.samsungbusiness.com, including a CMS sales guide, personal productivity sales guide, technical bulletin and updated product configurator.

Improvements in this latest version of CMS include Samsung’s “ease of deployment” concept for Multi-site roll-out. With its easy installation wizard, growing companies can install and link up CMS at other sites quickly and easily.

Unlike other standard products, Samsung CMS is not a passive reporting tool. The Samsung CMS takes an active role: as well as showing in real time and in a very visual graphical format what is happening on the system, important information can be emailed to any destination on any customer-set alarm threshold that is exceeded.

The new alarm module allows supervisors to configure the system to alert them, by SMS, email or even flashing light, whenever a call breaches a certain threshold of their choice – for example calls lost or calls above a certain duration.

The wallboard offers a host of new benefits by displaying key statistics such as successful calls and team performance figures on a large screen on the wall. The agent view function allows managers to view, on a single screen, a real-time display of each phone operator’s performance. The system can also be tailored to include as advanced a set of statistics as required, including number and duration of calls, operator availability, teams versus other teams and reports from other sites.

Samsung CMS delivers a range of software-based applications that create real business benefits including greater staff efficiency, reduction of costs, more effective customer service and maximised return on existing and future IT investment.

There are four distinct software packages allowing any company to select the most appropriate and cost-effective solution to meet their requirements. These range from CMS Professional Multi-site down to CMS Lite – an entry-level application for single sites. With modular add-on features, however, customers can upgrade their system whichever level they have started from.

Commenting, product manager Wilfred Wood said, “We have listened to our customers and have built in additional features that call centres were requesting. We have also structured the pricing so that users only pay for the functions they want to use. Even if they run multiple sites with large numbers of operators, but do not require full detailed monitoring and reporting, they pay according to functions, not just size. CMS was already a competitive package but with its new version we think we’re on to a winner.”

That’s the finding of leading communications and technology company Azzurri Communications, which offers businesses a free audit that will identify where efficiency and cost savings can be made across their telecoms infrastructure.

Azzurri has audited 1,200 corporate UK customers with a combined telecoms spend of £300m per year and has identified £60m worth of achievable savings across all these companies. Based on the fact that there are approximately 4,800 large corporates in the UK, British businesses are wasting £240m on excess telecoms spend.

“Most companies don’t make regular checks on how they are using their telephones, whether they are paying the cheapest rates or if they are continuing to pay for unused lines,” said Azzurri Communications’ managing director Central Region, Jason Standerwick.

“We also see an incredible amount of employee abuse of company phone systems. One of our customers employed a security officer who had run up a bill of £8,000 calling relatives living overseas - and this is far from uncommon.

“Another member of staff employed by a national car dealership was running up high bills due to him operating a separate business in his employer’s time.”

Another major finding of the survey is that most companies are committed to buying services on price and seek out the best pence-per-minute (PPM) deal from their network provider. However, they neglect fixed costs such as people, line rental, equipment rental and maintenance costs.

“It’s like having really cheap petrol and making unnecessary trips. Why do people in the US drive big SUV and Cadillacs and drive everywhere? Because the petrol is cheap. It's the same principle here. As long as people think that they are getting really cheap PPM rates, they think they are saving money. What they don't look at is whether their employees are making unnecessary calls or wasting money on rental for lines that they don't use,” continued Standerwick.

The key findings from Azzurri’s audits are:

- 6 out of 10 companies are on the wrong tariff - 9 out of 10 companies could save money by switching provider -10 out of 10 companies are paying for unused telephone lines -10 out of 10 companies could benefit from tighter control on telephone usage.

House-builder George Wimpey is one of the first companies to have benefited from the audit process. George Wimpey’s operations demand the frequent opening and closing of site offices and show homes as developments progress. “Working with Azzurri we have eliminated ‘forgotten lines’, reduced fixed-to-mobile call costs, removed unauthorised premium rate and international calls and raised awareness among staff of the true costs of making calls,” said Jolyon Ingham, IT director, George Wimpey UK.

The survey was conducted among 100 UK decision makers by Omniboss in August 2005. These recent findings suggest that over 45% of British business consider their contact centre to be a cost centre and drain on resources. Whereas only a small majority (18%) felt their call centre was a profit centre and actually played a vital role in the overall corporate strategy.

Call centres are a necessity as an essential part of business and the customer’s first interface to any organisation. However, in the UK there seems to be a reluctance to invest and embrace new generation call centre technologies in order to improve customer service.

Wicom found over half of UK businesses buck the IP trend with a physical based centre. Most (60%) see the advantages of migrating to an IP based model, but the shift hasn’t happened, suggesting decision makers don’t fully understand the long term benefits of an IP-based call centre model. Ali Shirnia, VP of Global Sales and Marketing, Wicom explains, “UK’s reluctance to invest in the IP model is largely due to limited budgets tied with heavy investment in hardware and proprietary systems. However what they may not understand is that if they adopt an IP model, the phased migration to the new technology will allow businesses to utilise their existing ICT investments and entire business infrastructure more efficiently.”

Cost savings and ease of deployment form a compelling argument. However the multiple benefits of IP include easier multimedia routing and queuing, remote agent deployment, multi-channel integration, and multi-site virtualisation. For instance, during periods of peak demand, overflow can be routed to home-based workers in real time, irrespective of country location or time zones, with some calls even being routed to a company’s offices during off-peak periods significantly improving worker utilisation and productivity.

IP based telephony is one of the fastest growing technologies in Europe, bringing revitalisation to call centre markets in regions like the Nordics and Eastern Europe. In fact, a radically new customer service model has emerged, where IP based technology is changing the way businesses are aligning their call centre within their corporate strategy. And with this, the evolution of a new call centre model coined as ‘Straight Through Communications’.

This new model allows customer calls to be prioritised and routed straight through to the experts. This eliminates the need for unnecessary call forwards at the first line of agents and optimises the match of customer needs and expert skills. For instance, employees can provide “traffic light” notices via their mobile devices which notify call centre routing logic, switchboard operators and colleagues about their current availability for service queues. Similarly, when travelling, users can route service calls and personal contacts to their mobile phone or to a selected team of specialists to ensure that customer requests are resolved in the most immediate manner. All information is accessible by switchboard, contact centre operators and company employees, improving availability and call resolution by as much as 20%.

Wicom was early to recognize the potential in IP-based call centre applications. It maintains its strength in the Nordic market but is beginning to achieve greater visibility with service providers such as BT Infonet, T-Systems and BT Global Services in Germany and is working with key organisations such as Fujitsu Services, the Finland Post Group and Premiere.