Enterprises expect high levels of engagement from UC suppliers, IDC survey reveals 
ConvergenceAsia staff
29/04/2008

IDC has recently published its study, Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Unified Communications Survey 2007: Are Enterprises Jumping on the Unified Communications Bandwagon?, which analyses the enterprises' usage and adoption trends related to enterprise telephony and unified communications (UC) in the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan (APEJ).

This report presents findings from 1,218 CIOs and IT managers from enterprises in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the PRC, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

"IDC's survey revealed that 58 per cent of the enterprises currently equipped with traditional PBX and key telephone systems want to replace them in 1–2 years. These enterprises will provide an up-sell opportunity for UC vendors and their partners," says Shalini Verma, Research Manager for IDC’s Asia/Pacific Telecommunications Research.

While traditional telephony has widespread adoption in APEJ, enterprises in the region are also using low-cost/free VoIP services extensively. However, a very high proportion of these enterprises are planning to replace their current free or low-cost VoIP service. This opportunity throws the field wide open for the desktop application vendors, telecom operators and network equipment providers within the UC ecosystem.

Enterprises adopting UC solutions will base their buying decision on cost of the solution as well as comprehensive technical support. As UC solutions impact a variety of systems, applications, and devices, enterprises expect the UC suppliers to play a bigger role throughout the life cycle of the solutions.

One of the big challenges faced by enterprises is the absence of in-house skills for UC. Hence, they expect the UC supplier to not only deliver in terms of technical support but also provide advisory services and roadmap. They are essentially expecting high levels of engagements from the unified communications suppliers from the planning, through the design, implementation and maintenance stages.

Furthermore, given that UC solutions need to leverage some of the existing applications and telephony systems that the enterprises have, the CIOs are keen to continue working with the existing suppliers.

While lowering the cost of communication is the immediate impetus for both UC solutions and enterprise telephony equipment vendors, the next wave of adoption is clearly driven by the need for collaborative applications and solutions. This is apparent from the type of UC applications that enterprises are planning to deploy in the next 1-2 years, according to the survey.

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