In spite of the untold dollars spent on marketing the term,Unified Communications (and/or Collaboration—UC or UCC) has been the victim of unclear definitions at best and is often defined differently by vendors and their customers. UC is not a single product or technology. It’s a collection of functions that, ideally, are integrated into a single user interface. These services most often include all or a subset of the following:
- Strategic Roadmaps And Examples
- Free Roadmap Planner
- Strategic Roadmap Pdf
- Strategic Roadmap Template
- Roadmap Planner 1 9 – Strategic Communication Tools
The composite roadmap is an invaluable tool for understanding the relationships and dependencies across roadmaps. This methodology drives a strong connection between strategic intent and execution because key stakeholders are aligned with the context, facts, and decisions guiding future efforts. Communications roadmaps are used by businesses to help ease and simplify communication between leaders and departments. These tools can be used in many essential business activities such as the following: 1. Strategic Planning 2. Product Development 3. Project Management 6. Describing Processes and Procedures. A strategy roadmap describes the what and the why.An execution plan describes the how. A strategy roadmap is not a visual Gantt chart of activities with start dates and end dates. It describes what the organization must change, and why the changes are required, in order to achieve the strategic vision. An execution plan describes how the organization will deliver the outcomes described in.
- Voice over IP (VoIP), IP Telephony (IPT) and/or IP Contact Center (IPCC)
- Unified Messaging (voicemail and email)
- Secure Instant Messaging (IM)
- Audio, video, and web conferencing
- Desktop productivity software
- Scheduling and calendaring tools
- Shared online workspaces
- “Service enablers” – Presence awareness and management, Location-based services, Directory services
My work with AT&T customers across all vertical markets and segments indicates that one of the biggest challenges companies face regarding UC is the development of a strategy that closely aligns with the goals of the business, efficiently delivers the features that users need, and generates positive economic value. At AT&T, we believe a comprehensive UC strategy based on the following four “pillars” addresses these customer needs:
- Defined Service Catalog: The UC services a customer needs to provide end users, ideally based on what business problems they solve or new capabilities they generate
- Detailed Solution Architecture: The vendor platforms a customer intends to use and how they will be integrated
- Transformation & Migration Plan: What, where and when the customer is planning to deploy, including the resources & staffing the company will need
- Defined Delivery & Support Model: The operational support model that identifies where the components will be installed and who will monitor, manage and administer the solution
AT&T Consulting has created an eight-step approach, outlined below, for helping customers develop these required components and provide clear alignment between the needs of the business and the associated technical, operational and financial requirements and constraints.
- Define a guiding vision
- Identify & document business, technical and functional requirements
- Evaluate current voice and data environments
- Identify & develop viable solution alternatives
- Evaluate alignment between chosen solution capabilities & requirements
- Develop a step-wise transformation roadmap, based on the chosen solution
- Perform financial analysis & develop a business case
- Plan for continuous service improvement
In this first of a series of posts on UC, we’ll discuss the first step: Defining a guiding vision.
Defining a Guiding Vision
As Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass famously said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” This applies to UC as well as any other technology implementation or migration. In order to be successful, it is critical to begin with the end goal in mind.
In many organizations, UC tends to be a “push” to the Lines of Business (LOBs) and end users (e.g., “This is a great new technology and you should use it”) whereas for maximum business benefit the solution really needs to be a “pull” in the opposite direction. Without this grounding in business needs, UC can end up being a technology that is deployed for its own sake rather than as a set of tools and enablers for moving a company forward.
To begin changing this dynamic, an open question-based approach often helps. For example, what kinds of problems or challenges exist in the business unit that could be addressed with UC? What “pain points” and “cost buckets” are you aware of that could be resolved or at least improved using UC capabilities? And on a positive note, what new capabilities do you anticipate UC will provide? Are there new ways of interacting with your company’s ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers that UC could enable? How would that differentiate your organization from your competitors? Are there new sources of revenue that could be generated using UC or is your primary focus cost savings and avoidance? Is the company planning to acquire other firms, expand organically or contract due to divestiture?
In its simplest form, what do you need UC to do and what would it mean to your organization? The answers to these and other questions can help you develop a guiding vision for UC.
The guiding vision should be based on the needs of the organization doing the planning—not the UC provider.Share this quote
Startupizer 2 3 1 – advanced login handler. A great example of a guiding vision for UC comes from a recent UC Strategy & Roadmap engagement we delivered with a consumer goods manufacturer in the Midwest. This customer had identified several “business imperatives” and definitions of what it wanted its UC solution to do for the company. One of its biggest challenges was the amount of time it took for business decisions to be made and the results subsequently communicated throughout the organization. As a result, one of the principles of its guiding vision for UC was to provide “the right information to the right person at the right time.”
The customer realized (and correctly so) that this should be a plank in its UC vision so that downstream decisions, such as how to include mobility in the company’s UC strategy or which user types should be addressed, could be made in keeping with this context. Other customers may have similar or completely different expectations for what the UC solution needs to provide. The key takeaway is that the guiding vision should be based on the needs of the organization doing the planning—not the UC provider.
In the 2019 Gartner Strategy Agenda Poll, 60% of corporate strategists cite slow strategy execution as their biggest challenge for the year. The objective sounds simple enough: Define the organization’s strategy and make resource-allocation decisions to pursue it. So what goes wrong?
Explore the latest: 4 Imperatives for Streamlined Strategic Planning for Functional Leaders
Strategic Roadmaps And Examples
The problem — paradoxically — is that many organizations lack a coherent plan for their strategic planning that properly translates lofty enterprise goals into functional objectives.
The mission for functional leaders is to identify initiatives that will drive enterprise growth ambitions
Before the process even begins, it’s critical for functional leaders to commit to keeping a strategic mindset and not allow themselves to be hijacked by short-termism, tactical execution plans and other “check the box” activities.
All too often, concerns about meeting short-term targets, fear of failure and a preoccupation with operational issues overwhelm aspiration. The mission for functional leaders is to identify initiatives that will drive enterprise growth ambitions — and unlock the capacity (time, budget, talent and technology) needed to fuel them.
Streamline Strategic Planning for Disrupted Times
Quick guide for functional leaders on how to focus only on what's necessary and sufficient for a strategic plan.
A methodical step-by-step approach for functional leaders
These nine steps provide a guide by which functional leaders can ensure a rigorous approach to strategic planning in a way that effectively prioritizes the successful execution of critical initiatives, whether functional strategic planning takes place on a calendar basis or is more of an ongoing reassessment of priorities.
Step 1. Be strategic about costs and budgeting
Before you even start your functional planning process, make a commitment to take a strategic approach to cost management and budgeting, wherever and whenever you decide which initiatives to pursue and fund.
View your function’s cost architecture through the lens of business value and view cost optimization as a continuous discipline focused on directing resources (time, capabilities and budget) to strategic innovation and growth initiatives. Be clear on the best budgeting approach(es) for your function’s needs, considering what type of purpose-driven budgeting best supports your strategy execution.
Free Roadmap Planner
Read more: Avoid These Cost-Cutting Traps
Step 2. Outline expectations
At the outset, clearly define the enterprise and business context for all stakeholders to prevent managers and executives from misunderstanding one another and derailing the process. Outline the responsibilities, process timelines and expected outcomes for each participant, especially in cases where the planning and budgeting processes cross functions. Identify who among the stakeholders will ultimately sign off on your strategy/budget plans.
Step 3. Verify the business context
Interview business leaders and have them describe the current and desired future state of the business, lay out the goals and capabilities required to support and enable those business aspirations, and specify suitable metrics to gauge progress against those goals.
Be clear what impact business priorities and challenges will have on your function’s imperatives, opportunities and risks, and therefore what you need to emphasize, deemphasize or stop doing.
Step 4. Assess capabilities
Evaluate the maturity and importance of key functional capabilities required to support the overall business goals. There shouldn’t be a big difference between the function’s self-assessment and business partners’ perceptions of its strengths and weaknesses. Generate a prioritized list of functional capabilities to bolster or gaps to fill to support business goals.
Step 5. Set objectives
Develop a prioritized list of objectives with discrete and measurable steps that describe how a specific goal will be accomplished. Each strategic business goal can be supported by a few objectives with a time horizon of one to two years.
Objectives should be specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and tied to a near-term deadline to ensure timely completion. “Having alignment on paper is meaningless unless you’ve defined your objectives in a specific, measurable and actionable way,” says one CFO.
Develop an action plan that stipulates how the objectives will be met, including specific measures to track progress, and metrics that are robust but simple enough to quantify that progress effectively.
Strategic Roadmap Pdf
Step 6. Look to fund innovation and growth
Strategic growth objectives should be ambitious by definition, but they still have to be funded — with budget, talent and technology. The challenge is how to allocate scarce resources to the most critical initiatives and growth investments.
“Instead of directing investments to those who shout the loudest, we use prioritization criteria to bring more objectivity into how we allocate our investments,” says a functional executive at one financial services firm.
Deprioritize funding for less strategically relevant initiatives
Start with a rigorous view of your baseline budget — the resources required to conduct all ongoing functional activities. Then develop a sound plan, anchored in strategic objectives, of the trade-offs your function can make to keep resources moving toward key initiatives. Be sure to deprioritize funding for less strategically relevant initiatives, and look to better leverage underutilized resources. And, make sure you have a clear understanding of the relative cost, risk, time and benefits of potential cost optimization initiatives.
Step 7. Put your strategy on a page
Strategic Roadmap Template
Capture the elements of your strategic plan on a single page. Gartner suggests creating a template outlining where the functional organization is, where it is going and how it will get there.
Communicate how you are adding value today and demonstrate how you plan to impact future business across the coming year. Include a statement of strategy, a before-and-after description of the state of the function, one or two critical assumptions underpinning the strategy, and five to seven initiatives required to meet the functional objectives established to support business goals.
Read more: The Art of the One Page Business Strategy
Step 8. Drive the plan home
Roadmap Planner 1 9 – Strategic Communication Tools
Do this by articulating the objectives and strategy across the function and company. The one-page strategy template is a helpful tool, as it makes the plan easy for employees to consume, but you’ll still need a deliberate process for communicating the plan — and ensuring that key constituencies understand and agree with it.
You need a clear and consistent message that drives buy-in and commitment from your functional leadership team, engagement and motivation among the workforce to implement the plan, and understanding across the enterprise of how your priorities are changing, and why.
Step 9. Prepare to respond to change
Once the strategic plan is adopted and shared, it’s critical to measure progress against the objectives, revisit and monitor the plan to ensure it remains valid, and adapt the strategy as business conditions change:
- Monitor triggers to track the effectiveness of the strategic plan
- Cancel underperforming projects quickly
- Track and validate assumptions periodically
Lastly, make sure you have an agreed-upon action plan for the specific steps to take or decisions to make when monitoring triggers an alarm to increase the chances of success.