NetEnrich Survey: UC Adoption on the Rise, but Problems Persist

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 3, 2016) - NetEnrich announces results of a survey of nearly 200 U.S. IT executives at mid-market and enterprise companies with revenues between $250 million and $8 billion. The survey, which ran online in October and November, asked IT leaders to share their insights on the state of Unified Communications (UC) deployments, including what they see as the key challenges facing companies exploring and implementing these systems today.

Unified Communications refers to the notion that a company can operate its entire messaging activity (phone, fax, email, VoIP, IM, etc.) through a single networked system. When implemented successfully, UC can streamline processes, increase productivity and enhance communications, while eliminating device and media dependencies. Evidence of these benefits can be found in the NetEnrich survey. For example, 58% of respondents said their UC system has been fully deployed and is generating a quantifiable return-on-investment.

But UC deployments can be challenging, too, putting IT executives and end users in a bind. According to the NetEnrich survey, over 50% of respondents said they have day to day quality concerns with their UC systems, and 27% said they do not have enough skilled resources (CCIEs, CCNA, Network, VM) to fully manage their UC deployments. Meanwhile, 15% of respondents said that their expenses for UC management are at least 10% too high.

Other interesting findings from the NetEnrich survey include:

• 18% spend too much on UC staff resources and retention
• 18% find out about UC problems from users, while one-third say they're the first to know
• 36% spend too much time reacting to UC performance issues, and more than one-quarter of internal IT projects are on hold as a result
• 17% experience voice quality problems in their UC system a couple times each quarter, and 14% encounter problems a few times each week
• Only 20% have automated all their UC support elements, such as monitoring, workflows, user provisioning, process and tasks; 10% still do everything manually
• 87% have their own IT staff and resources for day to day UC support
• 11% use a managed services provider for support and another 11% use a PBX vendor

"There's little debate among enterprise IT leaders as to the business value created through successful UC deployments," says Chris Joseph, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at NetEnrich. "The question is whether companies and users can count on UC systems performing as expected, and whether companies have the resources in-house to manage these implementations? As we can see from the data, the answer is not necessarily. It would therefore behoove companies to align themselves with partners, such as NetEnrich, that have extensive experience deploying and managing large-scale multi-region UC deployments."

About NetEnrich
NetEnrich combines industrialized services and a proprietary automation platform to deliver next-gen IT infrastructure management, and operations services from on-premise to cloud. This new world approach to IT operations reduces costs up to 40%, while mitigating risk, providing control, and driving innovation. NetEnrich has over 1,000 clients including large enterprises. NetEnrich is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. To learn more about NetEnrich, visit www.netenrich.com.