Engagement Options

Unified Communications Strategy

Burton Group can assist organizations develop a strategy to deliver unified communications. Traditionally the business case for unified communications has been built around the promise of cost efficiencies resulting from converged voice/data networks and infrastructure consolidation. Today the business case is in flux as real time applications are increasingly positioned as a critical success factor for meeting strategic business objectives. Communication vendors today, however, lack the market presence, platform breadth and developer relationships to deliver the framework for real-time collaborative applications. Burton Group works with the enterprise to sift through the market hype to build through our structured methodology a framework to roll our unified communications services in a series of phased projects implemented over time.

Burton Group begins this engagement by capturing information sufficient to document the existing unified communications architecture and to identify key areas to be discussed in an on-site meeting to discuss:

• Telephony and presence
• Instant messaging
• Video conferencing
• Mobility and presence
• Speech (IVR, VRU)
• Unified messaging
• Enterprise messaging
• Audio conferencing
• Web conferencing

Normally this portion of the engagement is completed during a 3-day on-site visit. Burton Group will arrange interviews in conjunction with guidance provided by the client. Burton Group anticipates interviewing between 15-20 individuals depending on specific customer requirements.

The goal of the interview process is for Burton Group to gain an understanding of the "vision" of the organization’s information systems and business representatives, in order to determine from an applications point of view those future business directions that are likely to affect the Unified Communications (UC) architecture. This task will also allow us to establish a complete and thorough understanding of the organization’s environment and business goals sufficient to determine whether the current UC architecture is likely to meet near-term and future requirements.

The next step in this engagement is to develop the UC strategy. During a 3-day meeting at a location convenient to the client, Burton Group and the UC architecture technical team members would hold a “brainstorming session” to discuss the future-state UC strategy and roadmap. This strategy will target a 3-year period using the following as a framework to develop the strategy:

Burton Group consultants will prepare for this meeting by developing a presentation of possible architectural choices, the relative advantages/disadvantages associated with these choices, and views on the potential success of each choice (based on market shares, vendor support, technical maturity, etc.). Burton Group will generate an initial alternatives framework and present those to the group to discuss and reach consensus on the recommended solution. Burton Group will also facilitate a migration discussion designed to identify and prioritize key tasks that the organization must undertake to implement the target UC infrastructure. Outsourcing strategy shall also be discussed during the course of the workshop and migration strategy development.

At the conclusion of the “brainstorming session,” the entire team will come away with an understanding of the team’s consensus opinions regarding various architectural elements; Burton Group will document these “stake in the ground” decisions, as well as a high-level migration strategy into a final report. The implementation plan will be delivered as a high-level description of the actions required to migrate from the as-is architecture to the to-be model. The plan will include:

• High-level gap analysis of the existing UC architecture
• Identify inter-dependencies and develop high-level integration strategy
• Identify time frame for the migration strategy
• Develop preliminary transition approach and roadmap

The duration of this engagement is typically between 8 and 12 weeks

To start this engagement, call Jack Stackhouse at 615-547-1595