I am, therefore I travel.  I travel across the country and around the world working with large enterprise customers and looking at the business value of various IT strategies.  Of late my focus has been on Unified Communications (UC) and its potential for improved collaboration and cost savings and as a platform for innovation and competitive advantage. 

UC has been discussed for many years, but it has now finally evolved to real solutions with demonstrable cost-savings and productivity improvements.  In this era of decreasing budgets and increased competition no one can afford to ignore these benefits, therefore most organizations (probably yours) are either developing their UC strategy or are well along the way to UC implementation.  And, they are all recognizing that UC means a lot more than just throwing some voice over IP.  Thus, it requires a well thought-out road map to ensure maximum benefit across all aspects of their business.

In this environment, it is critical to ensure that you are taking full advantage of all the resources available to you to maximize the benefits of this planning/implementation process.  Microsoft has a well thought-out UC strategy that combines multiple communications platforms into a single end-user experience, building from the familiar installed base of Microsoft applications already running at most enterprise organizations. 

Whether you ultimately decide to use Microsoft for some or all of your UC strategy, it makes sense to take advantage of the company’s resources to build a comprehensive UC roadmap for the future.  Yes, I know they are a “Vendor” with capital V, but I have seen a lot of companies leave money on the table (sometimes a lot of money) because they haven’t leveraged their existing Microsoft relationship as a tool to help in this UC evaluation process.  With this in mind, here are 5 steps you can take to improve your Microsoft interaction and take advantage of available resources.

1. Obviously, the first step is to consider Microsoft as a key player in the UC arena.  You probably already have Exchange/Outlook for messaging and perhaps OCS for IM/Presence.  Why not build from this familiar base to develop a UC strategy?  While you may not have thought of Microsoft as a voice provider in the past, the company has an interesting approach to PBX integration and migration that makes excellent sense in an era of decreased capital budgets and helps reduce hardware obsolescence issues.

2. Talk to your Microsoft account team.   Make sure your Infrastructure Optimization (IO) Mapping is up to date and then and ask for their support in building a UC roadmap.  With an up-to-date IO Map and your account team’s knowledge of your business and culture, they can navigate the wealth of information available at Microsoft to bring the right tools and information for your evaluation.

3. Also, work with your account team to leverage interaction with the Microsoft partner ecosystem and even other customers to gain further insight into the UC evaluation/implementation process.  These introductions will help you gain valuable third-party information in support of your UC efforts.

4. Make sure you're using all the benefits of your SA or EA agreement. Are you using the free support calls that your agreement provides? If not, you should be.  Don’t be afraid to request UC information and white papers.  Ask how your current implementation could be enhanced and migrated to take advantage of new UC capabilities.

5. Finally, do you have Exchange Deployment Planning Services (EDPS) funds left for this year?  You can now use this resource for UC strategy development and have access to both Microsoft and third-party consultants for the process.  Many of the engagements I’ve had over the past year have been paid for in this manner.

Since you’re already looking at your UC strategy, why not take these simple steps to improve your Microsoft relationship, garner additional support for the development of your UC strategy, and save money?  When you do, please keep an open mind to the new avenues that UC will open up for your business.  For example, the ability to save time, travel, and facilities costs by empowering your people to work anywhere. 

During one of my recent engagements, I asked the CIO for his input regarding working from home.  His response was, “I absolutely support my people working from home – after they’ve spent 8 hours in the office.”  Obviously corporate culture plays a role, but UC will be a powerful tool for your organization and a platform for innovation going forward.