 | |||
|
|
||
|
|||
| |
|
Home > Productivity, not savings, big winner for FMC |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Executive Briefing: |
|
||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Question: What did the study look at? Winthrop: The impetus for this research was to get a better sense of the pressures driving mobile VoIP technology. Our initial hypothesis was based on the fact that organizations were looking to reduce cellular costs. Question: What did you find? Winthrop: The data showed something very different. At first, companies were planning on deploying mobile VoIP to cut cellular costs. That was the original intention. What they realized — particularly with best-in-class organizations — was that the actual benefit was not [totally] in cost reductions but in improved productivity. It is more about productivity gains. The cellular saving gains were there, but that wasn't number one. [Overall], the annual cost savings was over $150 per user. Question: What role, specifically, did cellular costs play? Winthrop: We did not ask discretely about cellular costs. You can infer a big component of [the savings] is the cellular costs. It's actually quite simple when you think about it. You can take a Wi-Fi phone that is connected to the PBX system and roam around the office and corporate campus and always be available. So that is a tremendous productivity gain. It's a minute here, a minute there. Those kinds of gains overall translate into tremendous value to the organization. If you step away for two minutes to get coffee, you could miss that all-important call. Now with a mobile VoIP phone, you won't miss it. Question: So aren't you measuring two different things: Subjective productivity and cellular savings, which is more definitive? Can't you do a more precise measure of savings from switching from cellular to FMC? Winthrop: It's hard to make a one-to-one correlation [on cellular minutes saved] unless dual-mode devices are used. It's not a black or white issue. Not all organizations surveyed had dual-mode Wi-Fi and cellular phones. True FMC comes from those phones. They hand calls between the corporate Wi-Fi and the cellular network. That's true FMC. Not all organizations have taken it to that level. Right now, there are a number of organizations that are using mobile voice over Wi-Fi. That's where it's hard to map the correlation between cellular and productivity gains. Question: So you are saying that unless the switching is totally agile, you can't measure ROI any more precisely than when assessing productivity gains. The key, it seems, is true FMC. Winthrop: There's no doubt that the future holds great promise for devices that can do seamless handoffs. Question: After the fact that productivity turned out to be more of a driver than reduced costs, did anything else about the survey surprise you? Winthrop: The second thing that was very surprising was the level of dissatisfaction with the voice over Wi-Fi networks that exist right now. Now, only 47% of organizations rated mobile VoIP solutions as high or very high. That is not the fault of manufacturers or the fault of end-user organizations. No one is to blame. It tells me more planning is needed before the networks are put in place to ensure the Wi-Fi network is robust enough to handle voice and data at the same time. Question: The survey focused on best-in-class organizations. What counsel does this provide to other companies that, perhaps, aren't as advanced? Winthrop: That they must do a lot more planning up front. The second recommendation in the report is to make sure the Wi-Fi network can handle the traffic and fulfill bandwidth needs. This Executive Briefing originally appeared in a weekly report from IT Business Edge.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |  |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |
|
|
About Us | Contact Us | For Advertisers | For Business Partners | Site Index | RSS |
|
|
||
|
|||||||
