The future of business communications

I spoke earlier at Interop Las Vegas about the future of modern business communications. Read on for an summary of my presentation.

IT is consumerizing – over the last 5 years, we’ve seen

consumer-grade technologies becoming robust enough
enterprises shift their stance on acquisition, management and deployment of consumer technologies
IT responsibilities divided into a centrally controlled (enterprise-owned) model and a market-driven, user-selected model

driven primarily by these factors:

Economy: 43% percent of knowledge workers in US enterprises with 500 or more employees already use non-company-owned equipment on enterprise networks and systems.
Connectivity: We live in a world with an increasingly ubiquitous, pervasive and affordable communications infrastructure, which encourages new acquisition and delivery models, especially those using the web.
New technology: A combination of affordable devices, low-cost communications, widespread ownership means that access to and acceptance of new technologies is growing.
Employees: Employees bring their experiences and expectations from the ‘real world’ into the work environment – this is particularly relevant when considering an increasing population of digital natives in the workforce.

Skype is a great example – we started out as a consumer product, but now 35% of our users say they use Skype for business purposes. *

The key, however, is that saving money is just the start – you can use Skype to save time, and most importantly, stay ahead.

The Skype for SIP and Skype for Asterisk betas let you make really low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles around the world from your PBX system, and video calling, IM and presence make for richer conversations, enhancing collaboration and improving efficiency. Plus, Skype’s increasing availability on mobile phones and other mobile devices means you can use it while on the go.

And the proof, as they say, is in the pudding:

20% of our users make Skype video calls for business purposes †
95% say they are saving money *
62% say they communicate better with customers using Skype *
70% say they are using it while traveling on business *
80% say they are seeing increased productivity *

Thousands of companies are already using Skype for Business – how about you?

* Source: Skype user study of 4,000 users in the US, UK and China conducted in March 2008
† Source: Results from a December 2008 online survey of 2452 active Skype users in the US and UK

Comments

This all sounds nice, but what about the human element of customer service?

Allowing customers to go unconnected for hours or days, while hopelessly searching for a human to help them is no way to build a company.

If the product is good enough in that it makes a user's life more efficient, organized, and/or easier to communicate with, it's going to make the jump from individual consumers to the enterprise. The iPhone unleashed a flood of business user requests for the IT department to support its capabilities, and Skype is next in line. Skype allows employees within a large organization to easily communicate with each other, and as it is becoming more widely adopted in the enterprise facilitates inexpensive (mostly free) two-party and conference calls. That there are businesses focused on a Skype PBX ( http://www.on-state.com/virtual-pbx.html) and Skype call center ( http://www.on-state.com/call-center.html) is a testament that Skype's business use will proliferate within corporations in the coming years. The low-cost for Skype communication coupled with very affordable devices will only aid in the enterprise adoption; paying $600 for a phone is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

The final point of interest here is the amount of business users saying they communicate better with customers using Skype. 62% is amazing, and will only get better as more people and enterprises adopt with Skype. When combined with a business presence system like OnState, the burden is removed from customers who are trying to track down an employee in your company. A business presence system allows them to seamlessly communicate with business employees, regardless of where they are, using traditional desk phones, mobile phones, and Skype, to name a few. This should further increase the 80% of people who see increased productivity. Great research!

Is it possible to open a separate business account so that I can be online for my business clients at certain times and online for my friends and family at other times?

How is Skype changing the legalities of doing business on a global scale? What do I need to know about laws and regulations of another country before I, for example, give professional advice to someone halfway around the world?

I represent a small unit in an organization with several thousand employees (I am not exaggerating). We recently tried to switch our phone service to skype business but we ran into the following problem: skype limits the amount of initial credit it will accept to something like $100 (there is some variation depending on the method of payment). Since we are trying to sign up about 30 new numbers for skype-in, this clearly does not do.

We tried contacting skype several times about this issue but skype will not relent on the limit - not until we have established a business history, will our credit limit be raised. Mind you, getting in touch with skype was already quite inconvenient since you have to jump several hoops and you do not get any names or personal contact with whom you can interact.

This is very unfortunate on several levels. It does not speak well about skype's ability to provide good customer support to businesses and it certainly makes it harder for me to convince other units to switch to skype. We are not an obscure operation, our name is well recognized internationally. If skype cannot determine our credit worthiness or likelihood of fair use (trust me, we are not about to open an adult phone service), I find it difficult to believe that skype can seriously provide a business solution beyond anything but a few well-chosen anecdotes to dress up the website.

using RSS
via Bloglines
using Newsgator
with MyYahoo
with Google
with MyAOL
with netvibes

The future of business communications

Comments

Comment on this post

Recent posts

Archives