By now, you’ve read all about VoIP’s potential to cut phone service and equipment costs, provide a more efficient converged voice/data network and offer enhanced call routing and management. You’re convinced that the technology is a good fit for your enterprise. All that’s left is to develop and deploy the system. That’s easier said than done, of course. But developing a VoIP system also isn’t as daunting as many potential adopters believe.
For most enterprises, VoIP system design and implementation will be one of the largest IT projects they will ever encounter. Designing a VoIP system from the ground up poses numerous risks, including budget overruns, potentially crippling design flaws, poor service quality, weak security and various other nightmares. Yet careful planning can lessen, if not completely eliminate, VoIP system development pitfalls and help organizations bring their project in on time and on budget.
While every VoIP system is different, depending on its owner’s size, needs and goals, the same basic migration strategy is shared by nearly all VoIP adopters. Here’s a step-by-step plan that will help you get your enterprise on the road to VoIP with the least amount of agony:
Business Considerations
The first step in transitioning to enterprise VoIP is to establish the project’s business case. Follow these steps to ensure that VoIP will make both operational and financial sense for your organization.
Collecting Requirements: How will VoIP affect key managers and departments? Now is the time to seek advice and comments in the form of one-on-one discussions, interviews, group meetings and questionnaires.
Determining Impact: With requirements in hand, you’re now ready to determine VoIP’s impact on your organization. The stakes are high, since users must be able to seamlessly conduct business before, during and after the migration. Your task is to determine precisely what operational goals you expect to achieve from your future VoIP system (improved collaboration, real-time conferencing, media streaming and so on).
Costs/Benefit Analysis: With your goals in place, it’s time to determine VoIP’s costs and ultimate benefits. It’s important to understand all migration costs, including hardware, installation, training and maintenance. Simultaneously, you need to estimate VoIP’s financial savings and productivity benefits along with the risks of staying with the older technology.
Technical Issues
With the VoIP system’s business case established, it’s time to begin considering its technical structure. Here are the steps to follow:
Selecting the Architecture: All VoIP systems are not alike. At this stage it’s time to determine what form your system will take. The choices include centralized versus distributed call processing and hybrid versus pure IP. If you don’t yet understand the various architectures, and their benefits and drawbacks, it’s time to begin learning.
Leveraging Existing Telephony Assets: As you ponder the various architecture choices, you’ll also want to decide which parts of your existing phone system can be incorporated into the new VoIP system. While there’s a definite cost benefit to reusing as much equipment as possible, resist the temptation to sacrifice necessary features and performance characteristics for relatively small financial savings.
Evaluating the Data Network: Since the planned VoIP system will likely converge with your existing data network, now is the time to consider how the current network infrastructure will mesh with the new project. Many organizations view their VoIP system project as a logical time to revamp or replace their data network.
Migration Planning
Finding a Consultant: If you haven’t already selected a VoIP consultant, now is the time to begin screening candidates and accepting bids. Look for a firm that not only has an extensive VoIP track record, but has deep experience working in your field.
Selecting Vendors: With your consultant, you’ll want to survey the VoIP market to select vendors and products that will seamlessly mesh into your new system. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds, since comparing products feature-by-feature can be a confusing and time-consuming process. As you examine various technologies, your consultant should be able to provide product insight and analysis.
Developing a Timeline: A VoIP project conceived and deployed in a rush will probably fail to achieve its owner’s expectations. On the other hand, a project that drags on for many months or even years will likely exceed its cost estimate while throwing its owner’s voice telephony strategy into seemingly endless turmoil. That’s why it’s important to develop a timeline with specific, achievable milestones and goals. The timeline should be flexible enough to accommodate surprises, but not so loose that it saps momentum. It’s also important that the project doesn’t interfere with critical enterprise events, such as tax season (at an accounting firm) or the holiday rush (at a retailer).
If you follow these steps, you’ll get your VoIP system off on the right foot. Even if you ultimately decide that your enterprise isn’t yet ready for VoIP, you’ll have a better understanding of your organization’s basic voice telephony needs and infrastructure and will be better prepared to reconsider VoIP at a future time.
Source: VoIP News
