Forrester analyst Henry Dewing calls into question the ROI associated with unified communications deployments in a TMC article, saying IT managers often fail to calculate the base rate of services a UC deployment replaces, inflating the purported savings of these systems. Dewing said the expectations of both the size and speed of a return on investment in UC often are not in line with actual productivity and monetary gains.
Others interviewed for the article also said the ability to determine the real costs savings can be difficult if services replaced by a UC deployment were not billed separately prior to the deployment.
The nebulous ROI of UC has led some businesses to start small to see how users interact with the system and benefit from it before rolling it out to more of its workforce.
For more:
- see the TMC.net article here [1]
Related articles
Seeking a definition for 'unified communications' [2]
Cisco sees $34B UC, collaboration market [3]
Links:
[1] http://hosted-voip.tmcnet.com/news/2009/08/23/4335877.htm
[2] http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/seeking-definition-unified-communications/2009-06-04
[3] http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/cisco-sees-34b-uc-collaboration-market/2009-06-01