7 Unified Communication Advantages:

1.)    See the real-time presence and status of co-workers

2.)    Receive voice messages in an email

3.)    Make phone calls from a laptop

4.)    Transfer calls between a smartphone and a desk phone

5.)    Keep messages accessible from phones, fax machines, PCs and more

6.)    Use group calendaring to view calendars and schedule appointments without playing phone tag

7.)    Access voicemails anywhere and at any time using speech-to-text capabilities

Enterprise-class Unified Communications (UC) incorporates real-time services—including IP Telephony, conferencing, softphones, and presence—into a company’s workflow. It’s an investment that can improve productivity and availability, save money, and increase user and customer satisfaction.

Let’s not forget—UC comes at a cost, though. If a strong ROI can’t be demonstrated, top executives may not approve. Here are some benefits to share with your boss:

·         Cut traditional telephony costs
·         IP telephony allows internal site-to-site calls to be routed over the corporate data network, lowering long-distance, maintenance and support costs by as much as 25%
·         Once the IP telephony system is in place, the costs for adds, moves and changes may also drop
·         Improved communication
·         Enhanced customer service (leading to customer retention, loyalty and referrals)
·         Revenue acceleration (Faster access to information results in sales closing faster and invoices being sent sooner)
·         Ability to quickly answer customer questions and provide better support

So, your job in IT is to determine how these productivity gains can be aggregated and calculated into ROI.

Our advice? First understand what tangible and intangible benefits are most important to your company. Need more information about UC? Here’s a great SDN source.

Download a complete report from InformationWeek, free for a limited time here:
“Strategy Session UC: Charting a Rational Path”

Source: InformationWeek Magazine, written by Mark Damphousse

Renee Halgerson
Marketing Specialist
SDN Communications

You’re interested in Unified Communications (UC), but you’re not sure exactly what else it can bring to your office besides dial tone and voice mail.

Consider this. If you integrate your phone system into the applications you use every day, like a customer relationship management tool (CRM) (like Sugar CRM, SalesForce.com, etc.) it can make a profitable difference. A simple “click-to-dial” or a “screen pop” increases productivity and makes the software and your day-to-day business run more smoothly.

Another feature to try is mobile phone integration. Single Number Reach (also known as Simultaneous Ring or Sim Ring) is a feature that allows one phone number to ring your desk phone and your mobile phone at the same time. It also allows you to switch an active call between the phones. UC can replace chat tools like AIM and Messenger with enterprise versions and can deploy high-end desktop videoconferencing. Besides improving employee collaboration and efficiency, UC also creates a more mobile workforce for your office (saving you travel expenses).

In the end, you get to pick and choose which pieces of UC to implement. If you’d like a demonstration of these features or a list of more benefits, visit our website or contact SDN.

Renee Halgerson
Marketing Specialist
SDN Communications

Should telecommuting be considered more than just an employee perk? One author thinks that it should be considered a fundamental business strategy. Telecommuting has been shown to increase productivity, encourage city revitalization (workers no longer have to leave rural areas to find high-paying jobs), and reduce pollution caused by traffic congestion.

Simplified communication tools make telecommuting easier now than ever before. High-speed Internet services allow secure and speedy connections from remote locations to the main office.  Advanced phone systems provide the ability to work from any location and have all of the tools of an office at your fingertips.

Want more information about how a telecommuting program could be established at your office? Contact SDN today.

Julie Hoyer
Marketing Specialist

Technology solutions continue to evolve, providing ever-expanded opportunities for businesses. 2010 has been no exception and industry leaders, like Cisco, Extreme Networks and VMWare, are busy announcing “next-generation” solutions for businesses.

·         Cisco now offers an application to access WebEx online meetings from smartphones and the iPad. Cisco is also expanding its portfolio of small business technology solutions. New technology includes energy-efficient, unmanaged switches and a wireless virtual private network (VPN) firewall.

o   http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solutions/small_business/index.html

·         At Interop Las Vegas, Extreme Networks launched the new VIM440 module for the Summit X650 data center top-of-rack switch. This module enables the box to scale to 40 GigE. The fastest Ethernet connection in datacenters today is 10 GigE.

·         VMWare, the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, recently formed a strategic alliance with Salesforce.com to launch VMForce. With VMForce, more than 6 million enterprise Java developers will have an open path to cloud computing. It will enable Java developers to quickly and easily build next-generation enterprise Cloud 2 apps that are instantly social, mobile and collaborative.

o   Visit www.vmforce.com for more information.

Be watching for more updates and new product launches in the next few months from other SDN vendor partners.

Julie Hoyer
Marketing Specialist

More and more companies are beginning to realize the correlation between IT spending and economic growth. However, that knowledge comes with a new level of confusion and a new set of questions:

·         How much of my budget should be spent on IT?

·         When should I invest in new technology?

·         How often should it be reviewed?

·         What do I really need to do?

“IT is an integral part of almost every business and essential to moving the business forward,” said Dean Putnam, sales engineer at SDN. “Business owners should try to understand the value of technology solutions as an investment, not just an expense.”

Technology can serve as an economic development tool for many businesses. “Businesses look at investing in new technology for obvious reasons like hardware failure, but they should also consider it if they are losing market share or are in a very competitive situation,” explains Putnam. “Technology helps gain market share by improving productivity and collaboration. It can also make you appear more competitive [to your customers], improve company e-tools and provide additional solutions.”

Additional insight from Putnam into IT spending and development can be found in this article from the Midlands Business Journal based in Omaha, NE.

Julie Hoyer

Marketing Specialist

On December 18, 2009, Avaya completed its acquisition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES). Because of its global presence, Avaya had to pass regulatory reviews in the United States, Canada and the European Union before the planned acquisition could move forward. This was a strategic move for Avaya that will provide additional global coverage and an expanded product portfolio to customers. NES was acquired for $900 million with an additional pool of $15 million reserved for an employee retention program (approximately 6,000 NES employees will now be part of the Avaya team).

SDN has been a partner with Avaya for several years. We are looking forward to sharing more information in the coming months about additional selection and product choice for SDN’s customers. For more information on the IP phone systems currently available from Avaya, click here.

For additional information on the acquisition, visit www.avaya.comm/nortel

Julie Hoyer
Marketing Specialist

In spite of all of your advanced communication devices, do you find yourself spending too much of your time managing tools rather than communicating with people? 

I confess that I get caught in this technology trap from time to time, like when I spend 15 minutes communicating in email what could have been handled in a two minute phone call. But since I have started using the technology supplied by SDN, my life has been simplified.

For example, I give out only my desk phone number, and calls are delivered to my office and mobile phone, which allows me to answer calls without being tied to my desk. Additionally, all voicemails are delivered to my desk phone, but I don’t have to call in to check for messages—it all gets delivered to my Blackberry as a .WAV file. Further simplification comes from our corporate Instant Messaging that enables communication with SDN employees in real time while observing their automatically-updated availability as ‘in a meeting’, ‘on the phone’, ‘away’, and more. 

SDN specializes in integrating these various technologies. For more on how to make your communications devices work for you, and not vice versa, contact SDN. Click here to see more on our website.

Jered Schock
Senior Account Executive

Years ago when we first started selling IP phones, there was little benefit over the traditional digital desktop telephone.  As IP telephony has evolved over the years, there are many advantages to using an IP handset.

• Better speaker/handset audio
• Integration with Outlook contacts
• Color & touchscreen capabilities
• Web applications, and now…Twitter. 

Avaya has just released a web application for its IP phones that allows you to get your Twitter updates on your IP phone.  Here is where you can download the app: https://devconnect.avaya.com/public/dyn/d_dyn.jsp?fn=563

For more on IP telephony and the ways it can benefit your business, contact SDN.

Jered Schock

Senior Account Executive