The 2009 Outlook For Unified Communications In Europe

Forrester survey data on unified communications (UC) from Q1 2008 showed great enthusiasm for UC, with 81% of European enterprises reporting that they were at some stage in a UC implementation. Since then the world has changed beyond recognition, with IT spending forecasts for Europe revised down significantly. From discussions with major vendors and leading multinational corporations, we see some evidence of a slowdown in spending and rollout plans for UC. But several leading firms have told us that they are convinced that the benefits of UC justify sticking with existing plans even though their IT budgets are under pressure. To minimize cash outlay, and to leverage service providers' and systems integrators' professional services expertise, we suggest that firms take a fresh look at rapidly maturing managed and hosted UC services. However, Forrester recommends that companies always start by quantifying the potential savings from UC with a business case, and then as a second step consider the use of managed and hosted UC services to reduce capital expenditure (capex) and to simplify UC deployments.