Abstract
Unified Communications has altered the decision maker' s paradigm of enterprise
communications. It has moved away from a typical traditional voice centric
assessment to criteria that seek maximise business process streamlining and
productivity gains, with minimal business process re-engineering. Produced
annually as the flagship report in Telsyte' s Business Decision Maker Series,
this study provides a detailed investigation and comprehensive analysis of
enterprise communications technology trends among Australian businesses.
Key findings from this study include:
- Peer referral is a powerful source on purchase decisions. Word of mouth
from trusted colleagues, industry peers or personal friends has always been a
major source of influence, which correlated highly with customer satisfaction.
Decision makers also favour direct interaction with the vendors and service
providers. Although it is less so in the Mid-Market and Large businesses, due
to complex procurement practices.
- Service provider is the prime source of advice followed by direct
consultation with the equipment vendors. Decision makers are less inclined to
seek independent advisory sources such as technology consultants, technology
research firms and management consultants.
- Cisco, Avaya and Alcatel-Lucent have been able to successfully repackage
their enterprise product offerings, including UC, to cater for the needs of
the medium market segment. The push for UC in this market is likely to
eliminate traditional vendors with no UC propositions such as Panasonic and
Samsung in the next 5 years, largely expected to be in line with replacement
cycles.
- Although large enterprises are currently proving to be the early adopters
of UC, the midmarket businesses are poised to follow soon after. Essentially
opting to wait till UC becomes more mature and the business case for the large
enterprise market is proven.
- Australian businesses are at a crossroad in terms of technological change.
The technological has long shaped the behaviour of the end-user, the
workforce, the CIO and IT managers. However, with the emergence of Unified
Communications (UC), the end-user has been given the opportunity to shape the
technology to cater for their needs.
- Despite the imminent slowdown in the Australian economy, Australian
business decision makers have indicated they, in the 12 months, are either
likely to increase spending or sustain the current level of telecommunications
spending.
- On-demand web collaboration is particularly attractive for the SME market
as the ondemand nature of the service minimise capital investment and onsite
support.
- Decision makers in general have a positive view of Microsoft in the UC
ecosystem. Breaking down by business size, the small, medium and mid-market
segments are particularly positive about Microsoft, with the small market
segment having a strong view that Microsoft will be the market leader in UC.
- Over 60% of Australian business decision makers have indicated that
‘Greenness' is either very important or is becoming important in vendor
selection. The view is especially strong among the large enterprise.
- Conclusion and recommendations.
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