Avoiding UC potholes

Most of the "potholes" for implementing unified communications are non-technical in nature, says a recent CIO blog. Organizational changes to implement UC affect multiple groups within and outside of IT; the resulting "melting pot" of different agendas can have a negative impact on the successful deployment of UC.

Fear of the unknown, resistance to change and legacy policies can all stand in the way of a successful UC implementation. The top five challenges that typically appear during a UC deployment include: Uncertainty around UC ownership; an end-user culture that prevents adoption; new legal electronic discovery requirements; poorly planned support structure changes; and incomplete presentation of costs and benefits to executives.

Lawrence Imeish, author of the blog post and a principal consultant at Dimension Data, suggests that to avoid the potholes, ownership of UC needs to be "decisively" assigned to a person or group with no room for doubt on who has the final say in UC matters. Communication of the objectives, benefits and costs must be clearly communicated to all stakeholders, and support structure changes should be made well in advance of any migration to UC, with the ability to provide support on day one.

For more:
- CIO blog discussion

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