Delivering a UC Experience - Migration vs. Integration

Delivering a UC Experience
The Migration vs Integration Approach
A Wainhouse Research SlideShare
Marc Beattie – Sr. Analyst & Partner
Bill Haskins – Sr. Analyst & Partner
June 2017
Sponsored by

Table of Contents
2. The End User
3. The Enterprise
4. The Reality
1. The Goal
5. The Solution
6. The Migration Approach
7. The Integration Approach

The Goal
© 2017 Wainhouse Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 3
Unified Communications, or UC, combines messaging, audio, video, and
collaboration, delivering a unified user experience that supports all
communication. Today’s UC platforms support a mix of devices, extending
communications across personal computers, mobile devices, desk phones,
and room-based video systems.
A well-implemented and fully-adopted UC solution delivers benefits to end
users, IT teams, and the enterprise alike. When users don’t have to hop
between applications to find contacts, see who’s available, and actually
start communicating, they become more productive. Once they get good
at it, they start collaborating more.
For IT, a unified platform means less moving parts – easier to support,
easier to update, and cheaper to maintain. Today’s UC platforms are
increasingly delivered from the cloud, typically moving the management,
maintenance, and support burden from IT to the provider.
For the enterprise, this results in engaged employees, more output, and
happier customers. However, The reality is that achieving this goal can be
elusive. There are a number of challenges that stand in the way of success
– from user requirements, die-hard habits, and the complex realities of
today’s enterprise environment.
IT
Decision
Makers
End Users

The End User
However, most end users are also creatures of habit, and many
have a hard time adopting new services – holding onto their
favorite devices, tools, and services as long as possible.
Most users are not early adopters of new technologies and
services, waiting until all the bugs are worked, or until they
absolutely have no choice to move over.
And although 70% of end-users are ‘multi-device’, the vast
majority still use that good-old reliable desk phone. It’s still on
the desk for a reason…
66%
are considered
mid-to-late adopters
of technology
85%
still use a desk
phone
Today’s end user is complex!
We can thank the consumer app
movement for today’s wave of technical,
software-savvy end users.
End users are collaborating much more
today than they did yesterday - using a
range of enterprise and consumer
applications. As a result, integration
between communications and enterprise
apps and workflows has become a high-
demand feature.
They also use multiple devices to
communicate – in the office and on the go,
with team members, and with external
partners and customers.
And the days of “good enough” services
are behind us – today’s user demands
high-quality communications.
70%
use a combo of
phone, PC, and
mobile
90%
rate quality as
critical for meeting
services
70%
rank ‘integrated
communications’
among top needs

The Enterprise
Just like the end user, today’s Enterprise is also complex!
Multiple and redundant communications platforms, services, and
technologies make it difficult to deliver a high-quality, consistent,
secure, and cost-effective experience.
Many enterprises find the number of different vendors supporting
telephony and UC platforms increases at the rate of acquisition – as
their enterprise acquires or merges with another company, they inherit
new platforms and vendors.
Others simply have infrastructure that keeps on working – “if it isn’t
broke, don’t fix it” is a common IT mantra. This is especially common in
the telephony world – where a good PBX can last far past its end-of-
life date.
And most enterprises currently allow their users to bring their own
apps (BYOA) to work. While BYOA is a well intentioned policy, it has the
side-effect of creating overlapping, redundant, and complex
application environments
75%
2 or more PBX
vendors in
production
33%
2 or more UC
solutions in
production
5+
The average #
of redundant
conferencing
services
70%
allow users to
bring their own
apps – by policy

The Reality
Combine end-user and enterprise complexities, and
the results can give the most seasoned IT team
nightmares. Users grouped across multiple PBXs,
using disconnected messaging solutions, and any
number of conferencing applications for business
communications.
The challenges grow as partners are introduced to
the mix – adding layers of complexity, risk, and
challenge to the discussion.
The complex web of communications delivers the
same result across each enterprise: a lack of UC
adoption. In fact, our survey numbers show only 6%
of enterprises have deployed UC to 100% of their
employees. For the vast majority, UC remains an
elusive goal, often with an extended timeframe to
achieve.

Today
The Solution
As a wise person once said, “each journey begins with
a single step”. This is especially true as you evaluate
your path to delivering a full UC experience.
Although the exact steps will vary by enterprise, they
all start with selecting a unified platform that will
support your target unified experience, while meeting
your IT team and enterprise requirements. Then, all
you need to do is deliver the experience to your end
users!
Of course, this is easier said than done. While it would
be great to rip-and-replace existing services, most
enterprises choose a phased path forward.
There are two realistic approaches to enabling UC in
practice today: Migration and Integration. We’ll
provide an overview of each approach, starting with
Migration.
Goal:
Full UC
Experience

1
Acme Enterprise
Migration - Phase 1
Migration delivers features and experience in phases,
as IT moves users and enables features on the new
UC platform, while disabling and decommissioning
each legacy service.
Although each enterprise’s exact Migration Plan will
differ, there are a few common approaches. We’ll use
Acme Enterprise as an example - here we see that
Acme’s IT team has selected a cloud-based UC
platform.
In Phase 1, instant messaging (IM) is often the first
workload to move, and for good reason: IM is easy to
deploy, has minimal network impact, and requires
little-to-no training – low hanging fruit.
As IT provisions users to the new platform, they also
integrate their directory so that a user’s corporate
contact list is consistent between all services. Now, IT
just needs to communicate, release, and disable any
legacy IM solutions.
Migrate
IM, Presence,
Contacts

2
Acme Enterprise
Next up: Conferencing! Many enterprises target 3rd
party audio, video, and web conferencing costs in
their UC business case.
This is the case with Acme. First up, they picked the
conferencing services generating the most cost, but
requiring no network investments in order to move
to the cloud: audio and web conferencing.
However, one team is using a specialty audio
conferencing service and relies on features that
aren’t available in their new UC platform. And
moving video to a the cloud requires a WAN
augment. These services will stay for now.
So, in Phase 2, Acme successfully migrates all web
conferencing, and a few audio conferencing users –
while others remain on legacy platforms.
Add:
Audio & Web
Conferencing
Migration - Phase 2

Acme Enterprise
Acme’s Phase 3 focuses on moving the remaining
audio and video conferencing services.
When users have a reliance on unique features,
moving them to a new service often requires one of
two things: a) the new service to add the requested
feature, or b) the user to adapt their related process
to the new service – and sometimes both. In Acme’s
case, the HR team was recording specific conferences
to comply with a company policy. IT had to set up a
new recording server to support the new UC
solution’s recording feature – no issues, it just took
time.
Video was another story. Acme is a heavy user of
room-based video, and needed to put gateways in
place to ensure their rooms could talk to the new
service. Problem solved – after more investment, and
more time spent.
Migration - Phase 3
Add:
Audio & Video
Conferencing
3

Acme Enterprise
Most enterprises view telephony is their most
business-critical communications platform. Therefore,
it is often the last service to move in a UC migration –
especially when that service is moving to the cloud.
Depending on the new UC service, this phase can
require a lot of heavy lifting – augmenting network,
changing QoS policies, deploying headsets, removing
or replacing desk phones, and heavy amounts of
training and communication.
Most enterprises use a range of criteria when they
decided which PBXs to move first. In Acme’s case,
they choose to reduce risk and minimize disruption,
starting at small satellite offices.
The users whose PBX moved in Phase 4 now have
unified access to messaging, voice, video, and web
collaboration.
Migration - Phase 4
4
Add:
first PBX

Acme Enterprise
Next, Acme moves larger sites with older and fully
depreciated PBXs. This phase can take some time,
depending on the number of users, to ensure
everyone is ready for the new experience. But, on a
positive note, Acme’s getting close – just one more
user community to go!
Add:
second PBX
Migration - Phase 5
5

Acme Enterprise
The last PBX moves to the cloud! In Acme’s case,
the final PBX had been purchased fairly recently
and had a few years left on its depreciation
schedule. Once complete, finance gave the go-
ahead, and IT moved the remaining users to the
“new” UC platform.
Migration - Phase 6
6
Add:
final PBX

Full
UC
Experience
The end result: Acme’s communications are now
delivered from a provider’s UC cloud. All users have
access to a consistent and unified experience, across
all devices, supporting both internal and external
partner and customer collaboration.
The obvious downside to the migration approach is
timing. When your unified experience is contingent
on a service, feature, and user migration, your
timeframe is dependent on the solutions you are
migrating away from – rather than the solution you
are migrating to.
Many mid-to-large enterprises point to the migration
schedule as the reason their UC roadmap stretches
across 3 to 5 years – or more!
Goal Reached!
Full UC
Experience
Migration – Goal!


The Integration Solution
Extended deployment timeframes, high costs, confused
users, and a general lack of UC adoption has pushed a
growing number of vendors to adapt their UC platforms
with flexibility in mind. These solutions allow for Integration
between services, delivering a faster and less disruptive
path to a unified user experience.
In the Integration model, users are provided with a unified
client and initial light feature set, and legacy-but-working
systems are integrated via APIs – with IT adding
incremental services and features at a pace that makes
sense for the user and the business. The user gains
familiarity with foundational features, and becomes more
productive as IT delivers more advanced services:
connecting to conferencing services, integrating various
PBXs, and federating with trading partners.
Enterprise Platforms

1
Beta Enterprise
Integration - Phase 1
While Acme chose the Migration path, their
competitor, Beta, took the Integration approach.
While both paths generally begin at the same starting
point – select the platform and tackle the least
disruptive feature first. So, in Phase 1, Beta moves IM
to the new UC service and is off to the races.
Migrate:
IM, Presence,
Contacts

Integration
Goal:
Full UC
Experience
Beta Enterprise
In Phase 2, Beta is faced with a similar challenge –
several conferencing services have unique
requirements that users are dependent on.
However, rather than wait for a feature to be
developed or force the users to adapt their
requirements to the new experience, Beta integrates
those services with their new UC cloud. The goal is to
deliver all conferencing services through the same
cloud, through the same user interface, and with the
same workflow.
Here, Beta moved audio and web conferencing, while
integrating with a conferencing service provider and
their video bridging infrastructure. Moving forward,
Beta can move those remaining services at their own
pace.
2
Migrate and
Integrate
Conferencing
Integration – Phase 2

Integration
Goal:
Full UC
Experience
Beta Enterprise
Telephony’s up next. However, compared to the
heavy lifting in the Migration approach, Integration
offers a short-term path to the fully unified
experience.
Here, Beta integrates each PBX with their UC service
over the weekend. Users leave the office on Friday,
and come in on Monday, noticing nothing different.
It’s not until that first call that rings their existing
desk phone AND their computer AND their mobile
device, that they realize something changed. The
early adopters immediately begin making all calls
from their PCs, while the rest of the org keeps
picking up their handset.
3
Integrate PBXs
Integration – Phase 3

At this stage, Beta’s IT team has delivered a fully
unified experience. Of course, they still have work
to do in order to consolidate the remaining
services – but this can be done over time, at a pace
that makes sense, and without impact to the user.
Integration – Goal!

Goal Reached!
Full UC
Experience

The choice to Migrate, Integrate, or even rip-and-replace is up to you. Your path forward
forward is likely dependent on your user’s ability to adapt, the size of your budget, and
your preferred vendor’s capabilities. But if anyone is telling you there is only one path
forward, we encourage you to evaluate your options.
Our goal in providing this overview is to drive awareness of the Integration approach as a
potentially faster path to a fully deployed unified experience. Your goal, on the other
hand, is to align your ideal target experience against the reality of your environment –
and create a plan that you can execute on without risk to your business. You can find
additional insight on this topic by visiting Alcatel Lucent Enterprise’s website – make sure
to thank them for sponsoring this presentation while you’re there!

Wainhouse Research, www.wainhouse.com, is an independent analyst firm that focuses on critical issues in Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C). The
company conducts multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes white papers and market statistics,
and delivers public and private seminars as well as speaker presentations at industry group meetings.
Bill Haskins is a Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research with a strategic focus on unified communications products and services. Bill has over
15 years of experience supporting, delivering, and designing converged Collaboration services in a global communications environment. He
has authored multiple white papers and articles detailing the keys to a successful UCC implementation and delivered various UCC
presentations, highlighting his experience integrating Collaboration solutions into business process and enterprise applications. He can be
reached at bhaskins@wainhouse.com.
About Wainhouse Research
About the Authors
The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Wainhouse Research shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for
interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
Marc Beattie is a Senior Analyst and Partner at Wainhouse Research. His area of expertise is cloud-based unified communications and
conferencing services at worldwide Telcos and communication service providers. He is the principle author of more than 12 market research
studies annually, has local market knowledge in more than 20 geographic markets, and briefs with over 90 service providers and technology
vendors annually. He has authored public and private reports on product strategies, distribution structures, emerging technologies and
industry applications. To the financial community, he has provided market and company due diligence on many of the major investments
and acquisitions within unified communications and conferencing over the last 15 years. He is a featured speaker and moderator at industry
conferences and private company events - specializing on the future impact of current technology developments. He regularly consults with
end users, established vendors, emerging companies, and the financial community. Prior to co-founding Wainhouse Research, Marc was an
early member of PictureTel and Polycom - holding positions as market analyst, and in product management, sales management, and business
development - spending 13 years working within the industry. He can be reached at mbeattie@wainhouse.com.

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