Q+A: Chris Smith, head of Vodafone Business Services

Holmes: Enabling staff to work more flexibly can increase morale

How big an operation is Vodafone’s unified communications arm?
I head up the business services division, which comprises 500 people. Many of the staff work in areas such as secure communications, hosted email and applications and become involved in unified communication (UC) projects on an ad hoc basis. We have about 300 people working specifically on UC, including engineers, people on the support desk, project managers, architects who design the programmes for big enterprises, programme managers to manage bigger rollouts, and consultants who help our clients create a business case for the deployment of UC.

What UC services do you offer?
We have our Vodafone One service, which is aimed at large corporations and comprises integration of a Vodafone-provided enterprise telephony switch with mobile and UC applications such as Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS). We would deploy a PBX from Avaya, Nortel or Cisco, integrate it with the Vodafone mobile network as well as the enterprise telephony network and a Microsoft desktop OCS – this software shows a user’s presence to others connected to the system.

Vodafone One started to be rolled out at the back end of last year and was piloted initially with partners and friendly customers – we now have six customers signed up to the service.

Do you have a service for firms that do not want to invest in all that new equipment?
Yes, we have Vodafone Net, which is aimed at small and medium-sized companies. Within this service, the PBX is hosted in the cloud, meaning smaller companies don’t need to invest in a new infrastructure. This service was launched in September last year.

We invested considerably in the telephony infrastructure so that we could offer Vodafone Net and now have an IP Centrex solution in the network, which supports software that can offer PBX-type services to small business mobiles and fixed lines. These include call forward, hold, conference line and hunt grouping. Desktop and mobile phones have the same set of features and employees are given a single number for both. Many companies will choose a geographic number – which tends to be important for small businesses with local customers.

What further services do you anticipate offering in the future?
Integrated videoconferencing will be the next big service. Many companies use it, but often it involves staff having to move to a meeting room. Integrating HD video onto a desktop will improve efficiency and staff communication. Widespread videoconferencing will help businesses cut back on travel.

What business benefits can companies expect from these solutions?
Companies will be looking to reduce costs, and I would estimate that a big company opting for our Vodafone One solution will save between 20 and 30 per cent on their telephony bill, although of course this depends on their specific business case.

A big call centre, for example, might be able to implement a solution that allows its staff to work from home, which would create benefits such as reduced operational costs.

To be able to implement a UC solution for a call centre we would look at call traffic to mobile and fixed-line phones, then use our ROI business analytics tools to look at the spend profile and how best to re-engineer the telephony to reduce it.

The softer benefits are that staff can work more flexibly, which can increase morale, and businesses will be much better connected to their customers, who will always see their calls answered, and by the person best suited to helping them. If a sales guy is out, his voicemails, which will be connected to his email inbox, can be automatically forwarded to someone who is available to deal with them.

Read how Eclipse Scientific made its communications system easier to manage and how IT leaders can ensure the transition to UC goes smoothly