Change is good. Really!

For a lot of us, change can be scary, even if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. I recently experienced this when buying a new car. I loved my aging car even though it was having numerous problems associated with an old car with excessive miles. With no money down and a smaller monthly payment than I was paying previously, I was able to get into a brand new car that offered increased reliability and all of the latest and greatest features available on the market.

My only question was, why did I wait so long to make the switch?

Unified communications can lower costs, streamline processes, and take corporate productivity to new heights. So why aren’t you embracing it more quickly? Customers are sometimes faced with adoption obstacles such as a large capital investment, long deployment times, and limited resources that discourage them from implementing a unified communication solution.

A hosted or cloud-based unified communication solution negates these concerns and offers a more flexible and predictable solution that will enable you to be more effective and efficient. We help you develop a business case for deployment of a unified communications solution that aligns with your organizational needs by answering the following questions:

1.        Do you need to support a growing mobile and virtual workforce with features that foster collaboration and cross state communication? 

2.         Are you interested in reducing the total cost of ownership while extending communications and collaboration to the maximum number of employees?

3.         Are you looking to centralize management, streamline business processes and multiply the capabilities of a lean IT staff?

If you can answer ‘yes’ to one or all of these questions, you could be a good fit for a hosted unified communication solution from SNET, since it reduces overall costs, centralizes management, offers infinite flexibility and features, and enhances communications continuity. We encourage you to make the switch, and remind you that change can be a good thing!

The Big SIP

Right now, a lot of businesses are looking to SIP to save money by using a single IP pipe to their provider- like SNET- for voice calls and reducing or eliminating recurring network charges. But that’s really just the start. The current uptake in SIP services is an indicator of what the future holds: SIP is big.

You may have already heard of SIP. And if you haven’t, the chances are good you will very soon.

SIP is a communications protocol that is becoming extremely popular. How popular? Consider this: Infonetics (www.infonetics.com) reports that in 2011, telco companies saw their revenues from SIP-based services jump 128%. So, even if you are not yet thinking about how to use SIP in your business, the chances are good that one of your competitors is ahead of you.

Very simply, SIP—the initials stand for Session Initiation Protocol—radically simplifies communication between people, places, devices, applications and services. Just about anything that can be tagged with an IP address can be connected via SIP. It simplifies how quickly people can connect and collaborate. And it eliminates the need for a lot of phone lines and extra hardware. In fact, many S-NET customers have reported a return on investment (ROI) of 6–12 months by investing in SIP-based solutions. 

But what makes SIP so revolutionary is not simply its ability to save money. SIP changes how you think about using communications in your business.

 Here are six SIP scenarios. See if any apply to you:

You have multiple business locations. Each one must have a local phone number. But you want calls to those locations to get routed to a central service center where they can be more efficiently handled by people with the time and training. In the past, to get this kind of capability you might have had to rent 800 numbers and/or extra lines that sat unused most of the time. SIP gives you the best of both worlds: local presence and the cost efficiencies of centralization.

You have a mobile phone, several e-mail addresses, a bunch of landlines and a slew of IM contact names. You are tired of giving out all your contact information. With SIP you won’t have to: SIP establishes an “address of record”—an AOR—that provides a single, unifying identifier as your “public address.” People can reach you without having to know each of your unique device addresses or phone numbers.

You find it annoying to keep letting people know about your availability, i.e., “for the rest of the day, call me on my mobile.” Let SIP do this for you. SIP can make call-routing decisions for you by checking your calendar or seeing when you last checked your e-mail or used your mobile phone.

You are handling a conference call from your hotel room, but have to check out and want to keep the call going on your mobile. Or, you are on your mobile, but need to view a document and would like to transfer the conference call to your tablet. SIP makes all of that possible.

You operate a customer service operation using agents working from home. You want them to be able to serve customers using e-mail, instant messaging, Web chat, video, or a phone call. Rely on SIP to make it happen.

You use various programs in your business to keep track of sales, inventory, production scheduling, etc. When a problem arises, i.e., a shortage in a particular part, you would like to have a click-to-conference button on the program itself so you can quickly see who is available, initiate the call and share the application. SIP makes that possible. In fact, many applications using dynamic linked libraries (DLLs in Windows and shared libraries in Linux) are ready to be connected using SIP.

Key Trends Defining Unified Communications and how SNET Defines Communications

Key Trends Defining Unified Communications and How SNET Defines Communications!
Defining Unified Communications (UC) has always been a bit of a moving target. And that’s made many people wonder if they really need it.
In the beginning, UC often meant things like being able to see your voicemail and e-mail together on a PC.  Or having software you could put on your PC to control your phone and directory. The operative initials were as much PC as UC.
Now Unified Communications is being redefined. Mobile devices are a big part of what’s bringing about the change. Collaboration technologies are part of it. And so are improvements in the underlying communications infrastructure—IP, SIP, 4G and more.
At SNET Communications, we have just completed work on our SNET Communicator- which allows you to have a client running on whatever device you use- Droid, iPhone, Tablet or iPad- and see the status of your office phones, chat and even have a video call. Of course, you can still click to dial, have voice mail messages appear as email messages and all of the usual benefits of screen pops!
IP and SIP: The “unified” part of UC has always been primarily about getting your phone and computer to work together using the Internet-based IP and SIP protocols. This made it possible to have your PC and your phone on one network. But the bigger benefit was that a phone call itself was now able to be handled as a digital file (i.e., like an e-mail.) Just as you can easily have one e-mail go to multiple addresses, you can have calls go to multiple devices and numbers: business phone, mobile and home phone. Just as you can have dozens of people on an e-mail chain, you can have dozens of people on a conference call—without having to use a conferencing service. Just as you can easily manage different e-mail accounts, you can have multiple incoming lines for different segments of your business—a key way to create a better customer experience.  The benefits are substantial. That’s why sales of IP-based business systems grow in the double digits every year and are a driving force behind the UC revolution.
UC Apps: Everyone loves their mobile phone, in part thanks to all of the mobile apps that are now available. You can use your mobile to check the weather, do your banking, find a movie, etc. Now you can also get a UC app. SNET has one .It lets you tightly integrate you mobile phone and your office system: Manage your office directory. Set up conference calls. Make a call directly from a text. Getting the right app to marry your mobile phone to your office communications system is a major step forward for UC.
Collaboration: This is one of the hottest buzz words in business today. In fact, the terms “unified communications” and “mobile collaboration” are often used interchangeably. They are both all about bringing the right people together with the right information in the right context. “Presence” is a big part of this.  Having presence capabilities let you see at a glance who in your organization is available and how to reach them quickly.
Video: Today, anyone with an Internet-enabled device, a webcam and free software can make a video call to almost anyone else in the world. It’s estimated that more than a third of Skype-to-Skype calls now include video, with peaks as high as 50 percent during the holidays. This rapid spread of video calls in the personal, consumer market is driving the growth of video in business. Also, the SIP standard provides capabilities that simplify how video integrates and connects, opening the way to regular use of video with the same ease as voice and messaging communications. Businesses are also discovering that the smart use of video conferencing can give you new levels of flexibility in partnering, assembling teams and competing for top, full-time talent. For all of these reasons, video is becoming a larger part of the UC equation.
SNET Communications (www.snetconnect.com)  has a wide range of resources on our website that look at all aspects of UC—where it is today, and where’s it’s going.

ShoreTel Posts Significant Losses

ShoreTel Inc. Stock Downgraded (SHOR)

NEW YORK  -- ShoreTel (Nasdaq:SHOR) has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings from hold to sell. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

• The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Communications Equipment industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 257.3% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from -$2.38 million to -$8.51 million.
• Despite any intermediate fluctuations, we have only bad news to report on this stock's performance over the last year: it has tumbled by 62.89%, worse than the S&P 500's performance. Consistent with the plunge in the stock price, the company's earnings per share are down 240.00% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
• The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Communications Equipment industry and the overall market, SHORETEL INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
• The gross profit margin for SHORETEL INC is rather high; currently it is at 66.20%. Regardless of SHOR's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, SHOR's net profit margin of -15.10% significantly underperformed when compared to the industry average.
• SHORETEL INC has exprienced a steep decline in earnings per share in the most recent quarter in comparison to its performance from the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, SHORETEL INC continued to lose money by earning -$0.25 versus -$0.29 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings (-$0.05 versus -$0.25).

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Shoretel, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and sale of Internet protocol (IP) communications systems for enterprises in the United States and internationally. ShoreTel has a market cap of $233.3 million and is part of the technology sector and telecommunications industry. Shares are down 35.9% year to date as of the close of trading on Wednesday. 

We feel that this is significant because Shoretel recently acquired M5 Networks a hosted provider and because we feel that this is a sign of hard times for telecom systems hardware providers.

Are you ready to go from Management 1.0 to 2.0?

In the current issue of Selling Power Magazine (April/May/June 2012), there is an interesting article with management guru Gary Hamel. He is thought to be one of the most influential management thinkers today.

Hamel describes two types of management- Management 1.0 and Management 2.0. Management 1.0 is the management style that we all have been taught for the past 100 years- standardization, specialization, hierarchy, alignment, control and the use of extrinsic controls.

On the other hand, Management 2.0 is based on developing adaptive, innovative and engaging places to work. The allows companies to meet the increase in competitive intensity worldwide. It allows companies to outgrow competitors or the economy by encouraging innovation and making it a systemic capability across a company's processes.

Hamel makes some predictions:

• We are moving to a world where everything in configurable by the ultimate consumer.
• As our economy becomes more of a service economy, value gets created in the interaction between employee and customer.
• In order to make organizations more innovative we need new practices and new principles.
• The most efficient companies will be the most democratic.

Okay. So what does this have to do with technology? Basically, everything.

You will need to set up processes that are extremely customizable and that involves a lot of flexibility. Let me give you an example- as the population ages, more and more of your employees may have a parent or spouse to care for. You will need to adapt your infrastructure and work practices to accommodate employees who, for obvious family issues, will have to work from home. Your communications infrastructure will have to adapt to this, your connectivity will have to adapt- your space and energy requirements will change - and so too will your corporate policies on security.

As interactions between customers (a.k.a clients, patients, guests,patrons etc...) become more important, you will have to adapt and perfect the art of customer interaction. You will need tools to measure performance, evaluate employee interaction, and standardize the customer experience to ensure that it creates value.

With a more distributed workforce, you will need to ensure internal communication to make sure that there is a cohesive esprit de corps. Mobile workers, tele-workers, remote offices need to be part of the total corporate body- not far flung fiefdoms or domestic exile. Remember, discipline from goofing off is a Management 1.0 principle. Management 2.0 companies rely on peers as motivators. The logic is simple- if what you do is transparent to your peers, they can see whether or not you are adding value.

The whole area of the technology cloud is an enabler for transforming your company from a Management 1.0 to a Management 2.0 company. Hosted PBX allows your remote employees to communicate freely, easily and cohesively. Hosted Call Center gives you the tools to enhance customer employee interactions and monitor performance. Managed wide area networks and managed cloud security give you the ability to connect your remote locations securely.

See how our clients have evolved from Management 1.0 to Management 2.0

Does your Vendor Know Small and Midsize Business?

The rules of engagement for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) are changing. Speed, flexibility, responsiveness, personal service—the traditional hallmarks of small and midsize business success—can no longer be taken for granted. Your customers are a click away. And so are your competitors, especially large, global companies who are making smart use of technology to become more responsive and customer-driven. To remain competitive, small and midsize companies need to evolve their technology strategies and infrastructures to meet these new challenges. The stakes are high: the investments you make today absorb scarce resources and will set you on a path that will impact your business for years to come. How can you be sure that you are investing in the right solution? Obviously there are no guarantees, but your best insurance against making a costly mistake is to choose a vendor that is truly focused on the small and midsize market and isn’t just trying to fill the sales funnel with a lot of smaller clients. Look for vendors with these characteristics: Right-sized for SMEs: Small and midsize businesses are constantly adapting to rapid shifts in the market. The right technology for your business is one that is designed to adapt to the way you work, with plenty of capacity and a wide range of software options. Be wary of underpowered consumer solutions or systems that were designed for larger enterprises but now have been “dumb downed” for the needs of small and midsize companies. SME leadership: What is the company’s track record in meeting the expectations of the SME market? Is it a market leader or an also ran? Has the company innovated when it comes to SME solutions or are its real breakthroughs reserved for the better paying, larger clients? Cost control and investment protection: Look beyond the initial acquisition cost. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is as important, if not more important to SMEs, than the initial outlay. How does the offering stack up in terms of ongoing operating costs, administration or upgrades? Embracing new technology shouldn’t necessarily mean getting rid of older solutions, particularly if you are staying with the same vendor. Reliability and energy efficiency: Every vendor will tout claims for reliability and consistent performance. It’s important to vet these pronouncements either with existing clients or independent analysts. Also, look carefully at the investment you will still need to make in backup capabilities. Does the solution have proactive diagnostic capabilities that will make your job easier? Are there alternatives to acquiring redundant hardware? Finally, how does the solution stack up in energy consumption? Is it really green?

Employee Morale and Productivity Go Beyond the Paycheck

In a recent article published by Inc. Magazine, employers are looking for unique ways to improve employee morale in 2012. Increases in paychecks are no longer the happy-maker that they used to be.  Alternatives sighted in the article include ‘over communicating’, ‘celebrating wins’, and ‘keeping it real’.  All in all, the biggest factor for most employees is the ability to have work-life balance.http://www.inc.com/margaret-heffernan/how-to-keep-up-morale-in-2012.html?nav=linkedin

Once an anomaly for baby boomers pulling all-nighters at the office to keep up with the Joneses, work-life balance actually has a standing chance with today’s technologies– it’s called TELEWORKING.

For many business owners, just the thought of allowing employees to work from home is daunting – they perceive it to ensure lost control, lack of insight into employee productivity, and simply an administrative nightmare.  However, according to Forbes'  ”How Flexibility Can Boost Employee Productivity”, teleworking is more about adapting your work environment to accommodate for the ways in which your employees most thrive – the end goal being to increase productivity. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccl/2011/06/29/flexibility-can-boost-employee-productivity/.

According to an article published online by the Teleworking Coalition “Will We Need Any More Office Space?”, teleworking, once considered an alternative workspace strategy, began as a corporate cost-saving measure.  While cost savings is still a predominant motivator, other factors have emerged to make the trend more compelling for employers; employee satisfaction, enhanced productivity and better teaming. As such, the use of teleworking has become not only an alternate to leasing or buying more office space – it’s become a strategy to secure top talent, increase employee productivity and job satisfaction, and in many instances, improve the overall effectiveness of a workforce.

S-NET's revolutionary Q Box allows the teleworking employees to use lower cost circuits such as cable modem and DSL - without worrying about outages or poor voice quality. It allows businesses to connect remote offices into their system.