Using Unified Communications techniques, the Information technology can enable the enterprise to have knowledge workers located nearly anywhere they want to work, at this point. This provides for greater flexibility for the enterprise as well as the employee.
For the employee it provides for a choice in lifestyle, living where they want to live, as well as reduction in time spent commuting. According to the US census, the average worker spends more than 100 hours a year commuting. During this time they consume approximately 150 gallons of gasoline, which in these days of $3 per gallon of gas is about $500 of after tax income.
For the enterprise, telework allows for greater diversity in the organization, drawing upon individuals from many cultures and perspectives. Diversity of perspective usually allows for more ideas in a shorter period of time – a more innovative and productive environment. It should also reduce costs on office space and other fixed investments. It also enables easier movement of work between locations based upon time zones, hopefully solving the problem more quickly. As new work locations start their day they can be brought into the enterprise processes transparently to the end user.
Unified Communications involves the use of Voice-over IP technologies to provide transparent access to individuals over voice, messaging and video. Where in the past the data and voice networks were managed and accessed separately, we’re moving into an age where information delivery is taking place over the same mechanism regardless of format, based on standards like SIP. Unified communications is becoming the de facto source of the context of the individual: where they are located, what role they’re playing, what they’ve worked on in the past, as well as their availability. The focus will be on “employee identity” at the core. Once an organization makes the transition to the approach it will enable:
- Better access to experts – Pools of expertise can be defined within the enterprise and that pool can be addressed directly. Anyone within that pool can respond as they are available. This will reduce the constraints upon the individual. This pooling approach will also allow for the distribution of work in automated workflows.
- Reduced response time to events – When an event takes place where a decision needs to be made or assistance given, the enterprise can draw upon the context information to send it to the people who are actually available to respond. Escalation techniques can be defined so that response time can be defined and controlled more effectively than ad-hoc relationship based approaches.
- Reduced travel costs – As organizations begin to develop a common understanding of how to access an individual, it will not matter if the person is in the same building, on the same continent or working at home. They are represented in the enterprise in a simple and consistent way that can be accessed reliably.
- Accelerated project delivery – Knowing how to find individuals or groups with equivalent capabilities removes latency from projects. Being able to find the status of the people on the project and pull together a conference call on the fly and reach a consensus quickly will improve the agility of organizations and reduce time to market.
The organizational change management issues associated with this shift definitely need to be understood though. This is not something that should be rolled out at the grass roots level, since it can easily shift into something unsupportable.
When combined with workflow techniques that capture the context of the enterprise, the work environment can be made response while still environmentally conscious. All of this will enable an enterprise to reduce the latency in the decision making process and accelerate value generation.
