Defining A Global Sourcing Strategy For Unified Communications Is An Iterative Process

Most global firms with distributed international operations will implement unified communications (UC) solutions gradually over the next three to five years. During the past two years, Forrester has discussed this with several clients who are using or plan to deploy UC applications such as presence, instant messaging, and unified messaging progressively, learning as they go. The main reason given for using a phased deployment for UC is that communications sourcing responsibility typically is decentralized. Business executives in the different markets and regions control the communications budget and purchasing, making centralized "global" UC decisions difficult to execute. To be more effective in deploying UC globally, sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals should initiate discussions about UC's value between business and IT stakeholders. They also should work within IT to define a standard strategy for UC sourcing to prepare their organization for broad UC adoption.