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Hampshire Hotels & Resorts - A Dynamic Hospitality Enterprise

Transforming Megatrends into Mega Opportunities

The Growing Role of ITDepartments in CorporateGreen Strategies

The Dynamic Enterprise

Dear Customers,

As creatures of habit, both individuals and organizations have historically been resistant to change. This is primarily because of the discomfort and uncertainty that it invariablyintroduces. In today’s environment, however, few can afford to ignore the need to adapt to an always-changing landscape. The dynamics of a global economy, the constantintroduction of innovative technologies and the relentless emergence of competitors havecontributed to what many are calling a transformation imperative.

Individuals – employees, customers and partners alike – are consequently demandingenvironments that don’t just support transaction processing, but enable them to shareknowledge so that they can interact to meet both personal career and corporate objectives.This dynamic sheds light on the growing popularity of things like social networking services,blogs and wikis – and other technologies that fall under Web 2.0 over an all-IP infrastructure.It is a phenomenon that is forcing enterprises to reconsider how they respond to user needswhile addressing critical network security concerns.

The emergence of social networking over a common communicationsplatform is also breaking down the silos that separate peers. It is evenreducing the distance between C-level executives and the mostinnovative and creative thinking that is occurring on the front linesof organizations.

At the center of all this is a holistic view of information, made up of both explicit knowledge, structured into databases; and tacitknowledge, based on peoples’ experience, expertise and talent. The latter was previously untapped. It was untapped because it wasnot accessible to a wide audience.

New collaborative usages such as Enterprise 2.0 services are offering new opportunities to transform this knowledge into actionable information, enriched by contributions,comments from virtual teams and ultimately strengthened by the “wisdom of crowds.”Real-time communications are poised to play a critical role in what we call connectedknowledge – or the ability to get the right information from the right person, on the rightdevice, at the right time, whether at the office or in a mobile environment – to make a difference in a business situation.

This is the foundation of our vision for The Dynamic Enterprise, where network, people,processes and knowledge are interconnected in real time to transform interactions intobusiness opportunities.

The articles that follow have been created by people who interact, contribute, share andcommunicate critical insight and intelligence in non-hierarchical, interactive communicationsenvironments. They are the pioneers of The Dynamic Enterprise community. We invite youto join us as we explore the possibilities.

Sincerely,

Tom BurnsPresident, Enterprise Products GroupAlcatel-Lucent

This is the foundation of our vision

for The Dynamic Enterprise,

where network, people, processes and

knowledge are interconnected in real time

to transform interactions into

business opportunities.

1Manage your subscription and take advantage of all additional resources provided in our online edition: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/enrich

i Letter from our President of the Enterprise ProductsGroup, Tom Burns

2 Introduction: The Rise of The Dynamic Enterprise

4 Trends: Transforming Megatrends into MegaOpportunitiesIn responding to key megatrends, organizations need to carryout a broad-range assessment of their communications strategies.

6 Trends: Fostering Open Innovation in The DynamicEnterpriseOrganizations that overcome a variety of barriers can fosterinnovation and process improvement to derive a powerfulcompetitive advantage.

8 Trends: Connected Knowledge – Connecting the Brains of the Enterprise in Real TimeOrganizations become Dynamic Enterprises by using “search,find, connect” anywhere, anytime, via any device.

View Points

10 Market Perspective: Context-aware Communications for Competitive AdvantageIntegration of information about people’s location, availability,knowledge and device choice is enabling context-drivencommunications.

12 Case Study: Hampshire Hotels & Resorts – A DynamicHospitality EnterpriseLearn how this enterprise is saving millions while enhancingcustomer experience in a highly competitive and globalhospitality industry.

16 Case Study: Annecy Hospital Upgrades to State-of-the-artCommunications InfrastructureIn-room terminals provide access to unified files for enhancedpatient services.

20 Case Study: A1 Lofts Creates Networked CRM Solution to Manage GrowthA high growth construction company taps new networkingand open source technologies to support rapid expansion –holding the line on costs.

24 CIO Perspective: Business Transformation and the Role of Strategic CIO LeadershipThe role of CIOs is changing, as they fulfill an even moreproactive role in corporate strategy development.

Features

28 The Growing Role of IT Departments in Corporate Green StrategiesFor enterprise CIOs to play a strategic role in climate changeprograms they need to understand the issues and how to usetechnology to add value.

32 Transforming the Face of Customer ServiceAn incremental approach to transforming the customerexperience using a framework that defines exceptional servicein four dimensions.

36 Managed Unified Communications: Empowering Dynamic EnterprisesStrengthen service provider position in high value enterprisemarket and boost employee productivity with managed unifiedcommunications.

40 Building Enterprise and Service Provider Partnershipswith Managed CommunicationsEnterprises can focus on their core business by leveragingmanaged communications from service providers.

44 Protecting Citizens and Critical Services with BroadbandCommunications SolutionsCarrier-grade and interoperable solutions ensure that allagencies receive critical multimedia communications.

49 Energy Transformation TechnologiesEvolving energy technologies drive the need for a cohesivecommunications strategy.

53 User-centric Security and The Dynamic EnterpriseA user-centric approach to security offers improvedproductivity, facilitated regulatory compliance and lower total cost of ownership.

table of contents

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introduction

one of the most established players inthe hyper-competitive hospitality industry.We see how Hampshire Hotels & Resortshas reinvented how information andcommunications serve as a competitivedifferentiator by centralizing,consolidating and integrating keyresources to reduce costs.

We look at how Annecy RegionalHospital Center, as the largest hospitalin the department of Haute-Savoie inthe French Alps, is deploying a state-of-the-art communications infrastructure.In addition to delivering medicalexcellence and a superior patientexperience, Annecy wanted to exemplifythe 21st century communication andtechnological capabilities of a trulydynamic enterprise.

We also explore how A1 Lofts, a growingconstruction firm in the United Kingdom,cut the shackles of legacy systems andharnessed the power of intra- and inter-organizational collaboration to partnerwith suppliers and customers.

A New LandscapeIn 10 years, the explosion of bandwidthand proliferation of new services havechanged a lot of things for consumersand corporate professionals:

• The volume of data traffic stored andtransmitted has grown by an order ofmagnitude. Instead of measuring themanagement of kilobytes or even

The Rise of The Dynamic EnterpriseBy X. Martin

1 Alexa.com ranking as of 9/29/08: Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Windows Live, Facebook, MSN, MySpace,Wikipedia, Blogger

Some of you may remember whenthe available bandwidth to accessthe Internet from home (accessiblethrough dial-up mode) was only56k. Fewer will recall how ITprofessionals cheered at the leapfrom 2400 baud to 9.6 kbps. Thatwas state-of-the-art in the late1980s. Even in the 1990s,downloading an image was barelyconsidered, and downloadingvideo was not a regular occurrence.

Things are dramatically differenttoday. At any given moment,

huge numbers of knowledge workers and Millennials spend a growing amount of time on YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia,Facebook and MySpace. These services carry massive amountsof multimedia content – and are among the most activecyberspace sites.1 While accessing these, we are also engaged in several conversations, using professional e-mail to advanceprojects, process transactions and plan next business steps fromour laptops or a smart mobile device.

The increasing speed of data has correlated directly with the acceleration of business dynamics. Survival in today’senvironment is dependent upon the ability of enterprises toprocess transactions quickly and accurately, respond to customerpreferences or market forces in an agile manner, and collaboratewithin and between organizations in real time.

Cases in PointThese characteristics epitomize the strategies that have beenimplemented by the case study subjects presented in this editionof Enriching Communications.

In this issue, we feature an article on the transformation that hasoccurred with the United States’ Hampshire Hotels & Resorts,

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megabytes, we are now likely to discuss terabytes and evenexabytes of data.

• Where we once were happy to work in a batched or“asynchronous” communications environment, today there is a growing desire – often a need – for real-time multimediacontent across multiple screens, applications and services.

• The balance of power, in terms of who sets the agenda, hasshifted. Where once IT professionals and vendors determinedwho had access to information resources, today users activelyinfluence the adoption of new products and services, and atwork, increasingly demand the capabilities available to themin their private lives.

• Financial and operational requirements have changed toreflect emerging priorities to efficiently compete in marketswhere rivals, services and customers change dynamically.Success is achieved by those who recognize the direction of change and are able to move quickly to exploit the shift.

This is reshaping the enterprise communications landscape and triggering new challenges. We are challenged to managethe complexity of reducing business latency while enabling amobile workforce – all in a secure environment. We are lookingfor ways to expand services and capabilities by creating newprocesses to include partners and customers in an extendedconcept of the workplace. We are also under pressure toimprove performance by accelerating market innovation andinternal processes in order to meet both top and bottom lines.

Responding to these challenges requires enterprises to be agile,mobile, knowledgeable and fast. Becoming a Dynamic Enterpriseis about maximizing strengths while putting the right servicesin place for the right people to address business imperativeswhile preparing for the future. To have a significant competitiveadvantage, enterprises need to understand the importance ofinterconnecting core assets, namely the network infrastructure,the people, the processes and the knowledge.

The articles included in this magazine address the serviceimperatives for enterprises and present ways to improve businessoperations, strengthen relationships with customers and simplifycommunications, while delivering superior service to theworkforce. To that end, in this issue we explore:

MobilityAn increasingly mobile workforce is redefining the logicalboundaries of the enterprise. Fixed-mobile convergence,ubiquitous access to information, demand for end-to-endservices along with increased broadband usage are openingopportunities for carriers and enterprises to work together todeliver a seamless experience to any location, on any device.

Efficient communicationsEmployees are introducing a consumerized approach totechnology and business processes. The proliferation of devices,combined with increased mobility and remote/home workingpractices, create new challenges and opportunities for the ITdepartment. IT leaders are developing new ways to supportthese emerging requirements while delivering service levels to corporate users in a consistent and reliable manner.

SecurityThe way a user interacts with acorporate network has changedsignificantly due to trends in mobilityand new access devices. In the past,securing the network put a burden onusers: the checks and blocks led tofrustration and inefficiency. Today, user-centric security is adapted to modernpractices and provides stronger securitywithout impacting productivity.

Customer experienceCustomer Relationship Managementintegration, as well as integration of the contact center operations into acomplete customer service value chain,are among the latest opportunities forcompanies to differentiate themselves in order to keep and grow theircustomer bases.

Connected knowledge The concept of connected knowledge is probably the next big thing in theenterprise communications arena.Where the trend is to add intelligenceon top of communications to reducebusiness latency, this intelligence has, to-date, been limited to structuredinformation. Complementary tostructured information is tacitknowledge. However, tacit knowledge is often inaccessible because it is storedin people’s heads, in paper documents oron hard drives. Supported by Enterprise2.0 services adoption, tacit knowledge isbecoming more accessible to companies,fostering innovation by sharing brainpower in real time.

In addition to these service imperatives,we also present a discussion on greenand eco-sustainability. We can’t imagineany dynamic enterprise that doesn’taddress both transformation andenvironmental care.

We are excited to share our thoughts for The Dynamic Enterprise. If, like us,you’re convinced the future is not alwaysan increment of the present, it’s likelythis magazine will help you explore new,promising and innovative directions.

Xavier Martin is Head of Strategic Marketing,Enterprise Solutions Division, Alcatel-Lucent, Paris, France.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

trends

positive advice about products orservices that meet or exceedexpectations.

The implications are significant for bothbusiness-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprises.

• B2B organizations must establishpartnerships with their customers,rather than relying on simplertransactional business models thathave previously governed relationships.Communications technologies willplay a major role in the inter-organizational collaborative platformsthat make relationships more resilientand durable. It is easy to change vendorswhen the only key to the relationshipis a 10% discount. It is more difficultto leave partners who have become an integral part of the supply chain.

• In the B2C space, it is difficult tooverstate the relationship that can be created by effective customerinformation management andcommunication. The customerrelationship management sector hasevolved in recent years from a set ofdatabases accessed by specificemployees, to comprehensive andintegrated computer and telephonysolutions. These same technologies,when ported to the Web, areinstrumental in supporting self-helpservices that greatly improve customer

The last 10 years have seen drastic changes in the way enterprisesoperate. Dramatic developments in communications arechanging the way organizations grow revenues, achieve profits,increase market share and compete in an increasingly digitaland global marketplace. The need to reach anyone, anytimeover any device, or to reduce operational costs are just a coupleof trends driving enterprises to deliver Unified Communicationsand Collaboration. In this environment, it is important tounderstand the key megatrends that must be addressed:• The empowered customer• The drive for profitable growth• The global and dynamic marketplace

In this article, we explore these trends and discuss howestablished and emerging communications technologies helpenterprises optimize their positions in the marketplace.

The Empowered CustomerHappy customers are a prerequisite to profitable business.However, in some industries meeting customer demands hassometimes taken a detour – focusing on processes andtechnologies, rather than on the customer.

The development of social networking communities has allowedcustomers to reassert themselves as the principal focus of mostcommercial activities. Customers expect prompt service, andwith the World Wide Web, they can quickly replace providersunwilling or unable to meet their needs. Moreover, the rise of social networking has given customers a platform forbroadcasting their displeasure. As a result, corporate reputationscan quickly be tarnished by even the most mundane failure of service.

The good news is that the reverse is also true. Consumers alsotake pride in “talking up” services and recommending offeringsof quality providers. There is status associated with passing on

Transforming Megatrends into Mega OpportunitiesEnterprises harness major shifts in communications

to strengthen market position

By C. Dubois

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loyalty. Today, we see a rich and vibrant exchange of data anddollars between merchants and satisfied customers.Consumers have demonstrated they are willing to exchangedetailed personal information with organizations that earntheir trust and maintain that trust when the data is used tooffer innovative services that enhance convenience.

The Drive for Profitable GrowthGlobalization has created a new imperative for how growth ismanaged by large, medium and small businesses. While stillinfluential, regional markets do not provide the protection –they may have, as little as a decade ago – against global trends.As a result, we are less likely to see the strategy of pursuingaggressive market share acquisitions at the expense of profits.

Today, stakeholders are aware of their investments’ status anddemand consistent delivery of shareholder value. Unlike thefirst dot-com bubble, profit status is more likely to drive shareprice. Consequently, the pressure to optimize capitalexpenditures and manage operational expenditures persists.Removing waste, redesigning processes and consolidating assetsrepresent hallmarks of effective management. They are theonly way that sustained and consistent growth can be achievedwhile managing risks in a dynamic global economy.

As a result, the role of automation, systems integration, efficientasset utilization, business process optimization and globalsourcing are critical disciplines that must be mastered byorganizations of all sizes.

Information and communications play two important roles in business management:• They provide the basis for the execution of automated

processes.• They offer a window for tracking process improvement at

a granular level.

This ups the ante for reliable and secure networks, virtualprivate networks, fixed-mobile dual-mode services, hostedand/or managed deployment services and virtual private branch exchanges. These are the glue that holds the newprofit-oriented enterprise together.

The Global and Dynamic MarketplaceThe center of global economic activity is rapidly shifting.Emerging markets are growing faster than those in Europe orthe United States. Extremely rapid growth is expected fromBrazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries). The roleof information and communications technology, to establishcontacts with these populations as consumers and potentialworkforce members, will be tremendous. Consider the following:

• Home to over 40% of the world’s population, the BRICcountries form the core of an emerging global middle classthat will number over 1 billion people by 2015. According to eMarketer Inc.,1 BRIC countries will account for over 1.7 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with over 680million subscribers expected to access the mobile Internet.

• Research from The Nielsen Company 2

shows that entertainment-themed websites are the most popular with mobileInternet users in the BRIC markets.This stands in stark contrast with themore mature American and Europeanmarkets, where information and newsdraw the most mobile Internet browsers.

Clearly, businesses that want to tap intothese fertile and growing markets willhave to approach them differently fromthe industrialized economies. It willrequire a realignment of investments,resources and partnerships. It will alsodemand a flexible approach to changemanagement, supply chain managementand global corporate governance.

Underpinning all of this will be theneed for secure, reliable and agilecommunications networks that cansupport multimedia traffic overterrestrial and wireless networks.

ConclusionTo meet the requirements presented by these megatrends in an increasinglyglobal and digital economy, dynamicenterprises will need to carefully assesstheir communications strategies toaddress the increased demand forbandwidth in all major markets. Theywill need to transform network servicesand business processes to offer UnifiedCommunications in a seamless, fast,reliable and secure manner. They willalso need to address the increased demandfor archiving services via owned andoperated or shared storage – all of thiswhile delivering value and reducingcosts. Alcatel-Lucent understands thedemands on The Dynamic Enterprise andis well positioned to deliver value-addedservices that can empower enterprises.

Cor Dubois is Vice President, New MarketDevelopment, Chief Marketing Office, Alcatel-Lucent, Paris, France.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

1 http://www.emarketer.com/Reports/All/Emarketer_2000493.aspx?src=report2_home, eMarketer Inc. 2 http://nielsen.com/media/2008/pr_080812.html

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trends

For years organizations have used IT to automate processes and– whenever possible – remove the human factor from routinebusiness practices. The definition of routine processes in the ITenvironment has typically revolved around transaction processing.And everybody knows that machines are both faster and moreaccurate at doing this kind of work. The competitive equationof the past was consequently pretty simple to calculate: Thosethat do more with less, win.

In recent years, however, that equation has changed. It is stillimportant to be operationally efficient, but the emergence of a global digital economy has introduced higher levels ofcompetition – challenging both talent bases and cost structures– from unexpected geographic locations. While it is still importantto do more with less, today it is also important to actuallychange the way things are done in response to acceleratingmarket and competitive dynamics. In other words, the survivalimperative today revolves around the ability to innovativelyalter business processes quickly and effectively to meet customerdemands or counter competitive threats.

This rapid and qualitative adaptation to changing globalconditions is not something that machines do well on their own.Innovation, however, is exactly what people do best. As a result,many enterprises are finding it necessary to do a better job ofreintroducing – and reintegrating – humans into the processequation.

In so doing, the ideal of developing effective IT infrastructuresis increasingly being replaced by the notion that effectiveInformation and Communication Technology (ICT) platformsshould be established to support better human decision makingand human interactions. There is a growing consensus thatcollaboration – within organizations as well as with customersand suppliers – represents the next frontier of business process

innovation. And this is completelyaltering the role that IT and ICT shouldplay in supporting innovation in TheDynamic Enterprise.

Breaking Silos, Building BridgesInnovation is, first and foremost, a creativeprocess. And when you are dealing withan existing situation – legacy technologiesand business procedures, for instance –innovation calls for breaking with thepast to create something new. For manyorganizations that have been around formore than a decade – or even less – thebiggest structures they must break downare the departmental silos that have:• Isolated resources from each other • Impeded meaningful interaction

among people, processes andtechnologies that are critical to thesuccess of the organization

While “breaking silos down” may havedestructive connotations, this idea canbe tempered by the equally creative andconstructive idea of building bridgeswithin and between organizations tosupport a new level of interactivecommunications among staff and criticalapplications. These bridges will connectpeople across different geographies,organizations and technologies. Theywill foster innovation by allowing for

Fostering Open Innovationin The Dynamic EnterpriseBy O. de Romemont

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the recognition of individual and team contributions andreward them accordingly. These bridges will also create a newarchitecture for the enterprise and will have a dramatic impacton how business processes are initiated, designed and deployed.

In their broadest sense, enterprises must lay the foundation forexpanding the amount of information that is exchanged as wellas extending the way in which information – and knowledge –is shared. Put more simply, more people and systems must beable to send more information over a greater variety ofmediums throughout the extended dynamic enterprise.

Open InnovationOpen innovation is an emerging management concept thatstrives to break down systemic and cultural barriers to goodideas. Its goal is to avoid the pitfalls associated with insularthinking that leads to a “not-invented-here” mentality, whichcan have lethal consequences for organizations in today’senvironment.

Instead, open innovation calls for organizations to establishdifferent levels of collaboration with a wide variety of playersin the overall ecosystem. This certainly includes tightening andextending communication links with partners, customers andsuppliers. But the concept can also embrace – when appropriate– exchanges of ideas with competitors. There are twooverarching implications of open innovation:• Good ideas are everywhere• Implementing new processes and technologies based on these

ideas will demand collaboration and cooperation within andbeyond corporate boundaries

Open innovation provides cross-expertisebenefits. Today, more than ever, it isimperative that technologists appreciatego-to-market strategies and valuepropositions, and business executivesunderstand the power of technologiesand how to exploit them in the realworld. Open innovation must beharnessed to continuously improve the business processes that will ensuresuccess in today’s global businessenvironment.

Olivier de Romemont is Vice President, Innovationand Partnership, Enterprise Products Group, CTO,Alcatel-Lucent, France.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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Knowledge taps into the collective facts, concepts, experiencesand know-how held by a group of people and requires an ongoingexchange between members of the group. It provides the contextfor how people think. Knowledge is not just information.When connected – available to a system, for example – andaccessible quickly and widely enough, knowledge becomesextremely useful and can be transformed into real opportunities.

It should be noted that there are different types of knowledge:structured knowledge and tacit knowledge. It’s widely agreedamong the analyst community that only 20% of any enterprise’sknowledge is structured knowledge – the kind that businessprocesses rely on to work properly. It can be coded, stored andmaintained in databases or other media for people to access.

Unlike structured knowledge, tacit knowledge is knowledgethat people carry in their minds or keep in their own personalenvironments and is therefore more difficult to access. Its transferrequires personal contact. Because tacit knowledge has beenfound to be crucial to innovation and increasing the efficiencyof processes, it is important for the enterprise to collect andshare it.

Enterprise 2.0Methods for developing collective and shared knowledgeamong employees are changing for a number of reasons:• Traditional tools (such as e-mail for collaboration) considered

revolutionary when they were invented, are becoming lessefficient due to the volume of communications that usersmust manage every day.

• The boundaries between personal and professional lifestylesare blurred. Collaboration, mobility, consumerization, hyper-connectivity and sustainability are now part of everyenterprise’s priorities.

• Millennials (defined as those born from 1981 to 2001), alsoknown as Generation Y, are entering enterprises and evenmoving into management positions. They are driving a shiftin the way communications technologies are being used.

• Organizations realize that they need to recruit, develop andretain employees by providing them with state-of-the-artworkplaces.

For all these reasons, organizations areadopting Web 2.0 tools like wikis, blogsand social networking platforms such as those used by Facebook and YouTube.Now known as Enterprise 2.0 solutions,these tools give employees the ability to collaborate, exchange ideas, innovatethrough discussion streams, be a part of the final decision-making process andaccess information previously “hidden”or not formalized. As informationbecomes more accessible, people whopossess different kinds of informationalso become more accessible and areidentified as experts on specific topics. It then becomes a matter of searchingfor and finding the right informationand the right people.

Connected KnowledgeHowever, search and find doesn’t alwaysyield the results employees are lookingfor, which can be frustrating. This is where“connected knowledge” – the idea ofmaking information and knowledgeaccessible anywhere, anytime via anydevice – becomes relevant and important.Bringing together the Enterprise 2.0solutions described above with real-timecollaborative communications (alsoknown as Unified Communications and Collaboration) transforms simpleinformation into real knowledge becauseit becomes possible to communicate withexperts in real time. How? After identifyingthe expert or group of experts, UnifiedCommunications and Collaboration toolsintegrated into social networkingplatforms allow users to click-to-call,click-to-chat and click-to-conference(audio, web and video), choosing mediabased on rich presence indicators.1

1 Rich presence refers to desktop IM presence plus telephony presence.

Connected Knowledge – Connecting the Brains of the Enterprise in Real TimeBy A. Ohayon-Dekel

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In addition, users can record the call, the chat conversation or the conference and transform it into a new document thatcontains the knowledge of all participants. This new documentcan then be made available to other people encountering thesame type of questions or problems.

Business LatencyValue is being driven more and more by knowledge and accessto information. When we don’t have access to the rightinformation at the right time at the right place – and via theright device connected with the right people – our final decisionsare not conclusive. This is where enterprises encounter businesslatency; for example, slow operations and long time-periodsbetween the identification of a problem and its resolution. By using connected knowledge (the integration of socialnetworking platforms with Unified Communications andCollaboration tools), enterprises take a big step towardminimizing latency and consequently maximizing customersatisfaction. Connected knowledge also improves the efficiencyand agility of enterprise interactions with customers, partnersand suppliers. It enhances connections between employees andtheir peers and speeds innovation. In addition, it reduces thecost of creating “dynamic enterprises” in today’s businesslandscape, providing a significant competitive advantage.

Connecting Knowledge to Save LivesOne of the best illustrations of the power of connectedknowledge comes from the healthcare sector. Alcatel-Lucent is deploying an end-to-end solution with one of its partners, a leading global healthcare provider, to connect EmergencyMedical Services (EMS) with critical medical knowledge andresources back to the hospital.

Super fast, high-bandwidth wireless IP communications andSIP-based collaboration applications allow EMS teams toexchange important files (such as photos, live video and medicalimaging), arrange treatment over mobile VoIP and save crucialminutes in the early treatment of patients. Armed withinformation received from the point-of-care, staff in the hospitalcan make better decisions and help direct, not only the rightmedical resources, but also fire services, police and hazardousmaterials teams. Intelligent call routing, along with presenceand location information, helps locate medical specialistsimmediately, giving first responders direct access to experts and allowing real-time collaboration among highly qualifiedhealthcare professionals.

In any situation, connecting knowledge in real time and fromany location translates into better resource management, reducedtime to action and cost savings. In healthcare, it also translatesinto lives saved.

Exploiting Connected KnowledgeConnected knowledge gives the enterprise a powerfulcompetitive advantage. In addition to driving revenue byfighting latency and improving efficiency, it also strengthensrelationships between employees and their peers and betweenenterprises and their customers and partners. Building internal

and external communities of interesthelps to remove barriers and facilitatedaily work, making the exchange ofinformation more efficient and lesshierarchical.

As part of The Dynamic Enterprise vision,Alcatel-Lucent is building partnershipswith social networking platforms tointegrate Unified Communications andCollaboration functions for enterprises.As an innovator in the industry,Alcatel-Lucent is leading the way toenable Enterprise 2.0 tools with UnifiedCommunications and Collaborationtools through a simple connector (Web Services), facilitating connectedknowledge for enterprises.

Annie Ohayon-Dekel is Director, Strategic BusinessDevelopment, Enterprise Solutions Division, Alcatel-Lucent, Colombes, France.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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market perspective

Today’s CIOs are asked to envision an organization whereemployees, customers, partners and suppliers are able to reachwhatever person or information they need whenever they wantand from wherever they are. This is a place where employeesare highly productive, customer service excels and businesshums along nicely. The Yankee Group calls this the AnywhereEnterprise. Alcatel-Lucent defines it as The Dynamic Enterprise.While this presents a nice vision, it does beg several questions:Who is the most knowledgeable person to contact? How does aservice representative fully understand the customer requirement?If the matter is time-critical, who is the closest person with theanswer? Which individuals are available? Where is the devicethat I need to communicate with that person?

There are many more questions that need to be answered inthe day-to-day activities of any individual. So, while technologytrends are moving us closer to the vision, something else isrequired to truly deliver on the Anywhere Enterprise. Thatsomething is context.

For the purposes of this article, context is defined asunderstanding who the user is, where they are located, whetherthey are available, which device they can be reached on and if they have the required skills or knowledge. The maincomponents of context are as follows:

• Presence: In the simplest terms, the presence of a user is an indicator of whether a user is available. If the user shows“available,” the person investigating the user’s presence shouldfeel free to contact them. Presence has expanded greatly overthe past few years to the point that it is very easy to knowexactly what a user is doing. Users are able to show statusmessages such as “busy,” “on the phone,” “in a meeting”

or even user-defined messages such as“In Boston office today; please call meat 617-555-1212.” Presence can alsoindicate the best possible device onwhich to reach a user.

• Location: The location of a user is anindicator of where the user is. Locationinformation can be gained from avariety of sources, including RFIDtagging devices, information collectedfrom cellular phones or corporatecommunications devices.

• Unified Communications (UC): UCis critical to context because it ties allof our communication and collaborationtools together. Part of context isunderstanding whether the user’spreferred communications tool is, forexample, a desk phone, video, cellphone or chat. UC can bring thesetools together in a single interface and also allow that interface to bedelivered in a mobile world.

• Integration with knowledge andknowledge systems: The ability tointegrate into knowledge systems providesthe user with an understanding of whoin the organization is the most qualifiedto answer a certain question, solve aproblem or attend to a required task.

Context-aware Communications for Competitive AdvantageBy Zeus Kerravala, SVP Enterprise Research Group, Yankee Group

Note: This Market Perspective does not necessarily represent the views of Alcatel-Lucent.

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In some cases, context can be extended from users to devicesand objects in an organization. This is common in environmentssuch as manufacturing, hospitals or the entertainment industry,where devices are an integral part of the business process.

Why Context is Important to Communications Context can bring required intelligence to a user when tryingto locate the best person or device. Let’s consider the real-worldexample of a hospital environment. Today, when a patient alarmis triggered, the hospital clinician attending to the patient needsto react quickly. If the situation requires escalation, the clinicianwill usually need to involve a doctor in the process to adequatelytreat the patient. With traditional communications, the clinicianmay need to ask a number of individuals who the best doctor is and how to reach them and then leave messages for severaldoctors through a number of mediums such as e-mail, paging or voice communications.

With context-aware communications, the clinician would beable to go to a single interface and search a keyword such as“cardiac” to find a list of all qualified doctors. The presencestatus “available” would identify those who are accessible, savingthe clinician time by eliminating the need to locate doctors whoare not “on call.” The clinician would then further refine thesearch and focus only on those doctors on the current premisesor campus. Finally, when the correct doctor is identified, theclinician can then know the best method to communicate withthat doctor, saving the clinician time by sending one messageor making one call.

By using context-aware communications, the clinician is ableto take a traditionally manually intensive, communications-heavy process and streamline it to just a few mouse clicks to reach the correct individual in the shortest time possible. In the example of the hospital, this could make the differencein a patient receiving the proper care in the correct time. The result could be as dramatic as saving the patient’s life.

Summary Seamless connectivity, social networkingand advancements in mobile technologyhave made it much easier for us to reachpeople “on demand.” However, theflexibility that this technology has createdalso added a significant amount of humandelay into many of the processes. Context-aware communications can streamlinemany of today’s communications-intenseprocesses and allow organizations tocreate new ways of interacting, builtaround collaboration. Context-awarecommunications allows companies to take full advantage of many of thetechnology advancements of the pastfew years and bring productivity tounprecedented levels. Organizationsneed to make delivering context-awarecommunications a priority or risk rapidlyfalling behind the competition.

Zeus Kerravala, is Senior Vice President, EnterpriseResearch Group, Yankee Group.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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Photo: Courtesy of H

ampshire H

otels & Resorts

Hampshire Hotels &Resorts – A DynamicHospitality EnterpriseBy Riyaz Akhtar, Executive Vice President of Development, Hampshire Hotels & Resorts

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In the hospitality business, success is contingent on the ability to proactively meet – evenanticipate – the needs of ourguests. Technology plays a key role in delivering this valueproposition.

Our ability to keep track of guestneeds and desires, while managinga myriad of other critical assets by using communications andinformation technologies providesthe basis for:

• Enhancing the guest experience• Achieving competitive differentiation• Raising repeat visit ratio• Increasing operational efficiency

Because our industry is both competitive and global, we areseeing a technology race among the top hotels, as we strive todeliver the best possible experience, while holding the line oncosts. We recently partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to do just that.

A Fresh PerspectiveWith responsibility for IT across our properties, my mandate is to deliver operational savings to Hampshire Hotels & Resortsand use technology to enhance and differentiate guest services.We had taken a very traditional approach to our IT projects,designing applications and systems to deliver functionality. Wehad projects around optimizing elevator control systems, andwe had separate projects to improve reservation systems. Weaccessed each system differently and the information in eachsystem was confined. Then, as a result of our close partnershipwith Alcatel-Lucent, we turned our thinking around and putthe two concepts together. As a result, we were able to realize a leap forward in operational savings, flexibility and, mostimportantly, guest services.

Exploring the PossibilitiesAfter meeting with Alcatel-Lucent, we had an opportunity to review a number of technologies, including networking,telephony, management, security and Unified Communications– and began exploring which technologies could positivelyaffect key operations of all properties. We looked at how WiFiphones could optimize operations. We looked at optical gearthat could connect hotels and centralize operations. And weexplored how applications like MobiCall could resolve guestissues by integrating automated concierge services, contactcenter technology and other relevant operations.

By this time we knew that to make thiswork we could not have a typical vendor/client relationship. We needed to buildon the close partnership we had withAlcatel-Lucent to make HampshireHotels & Resorts a more DynamicEnterprise.

Partners in ActionIt became clear that this was both a strategic and urgent imperative forHampshire Hotels & Resorts, so wedecided to put this business transformationinitiative on the fast track.

Two weeks after the project wasconceived we invited Alcatel-Lucent –with their partners Pinnacle and Jetcom– to meet with us. Together we outlinedthe main components of our ITinfrastructure transformation.

Within four weeks of that initial sessionwe expanded the team to include thehotel General Managers (GMs), our VPof Sales, our Chief Marketing Officerand Chief Operating Officer, as well astechnical liaisons. We reviewed the ideas,provided feedback and detailed more of our business goals and issues.

In week six, we expanded our team againand agreed on a basic design. At tenweeks, we fine-tuned the plan. Twelveweeks after we originally sketched outideas, we finalized and approved our plan.

From the Network to the Guest RoomWe knew that to merge our systems our first step would be to connect ourproperties with a centralized Wide AreaNetwork (WAN) environment. Weopted to do this using dark fiber and byconsolidating voice and data traffic inthe Astoria. We developed an infra-structure that provides almost unlimitedcapacity. The new system also allows usto better use resources by sharing capacity.And because it is centralized, it is easierand less costly to manage and monitor.

case study

Photo: Courtesy of H

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otels & Resorts

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We can now determine instantly whether our allocation ofInternet and PSTN connections are sized properly.

We also spent a lot of time looking at how to innovate ouroperations with a strong networked contact center. This approachgives us the opportunity to consolidate services like reservations,concierge and other operations and provides opportunities forus to up-sell and cross-sell much more effectively. As a result,we make efficient use of our employees and properties.

Transparently delivering a superior guest experienceWith the WAN in place, we shifted our attention to developinga comprehensive strategy for the technology and service elementsat each property. Prior to this initiative, we had multiplevendors, service contracts, operating systems and differentservices and applications in each of the hotels. We also reliedon cell phones to contact employees at different sites.

This is changing. All properties now have access to metroethernet connections that support voice and high-speed wiredand wireless Internet. Our guests now get consistent servicelevels at each of our properties. Due to the fully redundantnetwork, if a link goes down each hotel can help the other.

And we resolve issues faster by enhancing staff mobility. Wehave selected Alcatel-Lucent dual-mode phones that supportVoWiFi when we are on our properties and operate over thepublic switched network only when necessary. The WiFi coverage

also ensures that our executives knowwhere staff is by tracking and reportingon the movement of any wireless devicein the hotel. If someone is havingproblems with a faucet the GM canlocate the nearest repair person to help.

Bringing the digital experience to the guest roomThe deployment of interconnectedsystems plays a tremendous role in theguest room automation and experience.We are installing video cameras on thedoors. If someone knocks late at night,the guest can verify the person’s identityby looking at their phone screen orchecking with the hotel. Safety andsecurity is enhanced for the guest!

When we began to plan the network, I told the team we needed to make thetelephone relevant again. Each phoneswitch used to earn the hotel about$240,000 USD (€ 175,000) per year.Today we don’t make money from thephone or derive much tangible valuethat benefits our clients. We wanted tochange that – at a minimum we wantedthe phone switch to be a central part inhow we deliver services.

We think the door camera connected to the phone system helps. So will theconcierge. Our guests will be able to diala concierge (who will be servicingmultiple properties thanks to our callcenter) or get help from the automatedconcierge – and they can do it in anyone of several languages.

The rapidly expanding peer-to-peertelephony market also provides anopportunity for Hampshire to recapturerevenue by introducing a SIP-based peer-to-peer Internet calling service. With acompetitive flat-fee call package, guestscan call anywhere in the world from thein-room device, which could end upbeing more cost effective for the guestthan their own mobile device.Additionally, the LCD screen on the in-room phone could provide the guestservice directory as well as the roomservice menu making the phone aninformation center in addition to acommunication device.

When a guest checks into the hotel, theroom lights and temperature controls areturned on. When the guest enters theroom they may adjust the temperature

Photo: Courtesy of H

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otels & Resorts

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and lighting to their preferred settings. A sensor will trigger thesystem when the guest leaves the room and the lights and airconditioning will switch to stand-by mode. The same sensorwill recognize when the guest returns and switch to activemode, with lights and temperature returning to the guest’spreferred settings. The preferences can be stored and used onthe guest’s return visit – to any of our properties. This allowsHampshire to benefit from energy savings and helps us be abetter corporate citizen by being environmentally conscious.

Hampshire Hotels’ Business Benefits Our IT infrastructure consisted of a series of siloed systems and applications that made it difficult to share and cross-analyzeinformation. As a consequence, assembling the necessaryinformation to make the best informed decisions provedchallenging.

To address this, we have connected everything over the IPnetwork. We have standardized both the wired and wirelesslocal area networks throughout our properties. All hotels arenow using an architecture based on Alcatel-Lucent’sOmniSwitch, OmniStack and OmniAccess technologies.

WiFi supports both guest high-speed Internet traffic and staffoperations, and we have taken measures to ensure that all ourbuildings are covered, so there are no blind spots in our hotspots.Also, the LAN was built for scale and performance providingroom to grow.

Our GMs now have a universal view of all systems – of allproperties, from all properties. We’ve consolidated the systems,so they now interact. For example, if the fire alarm goes off wetrigger alarms with the communications systems so our GM isable to meet the fire department.

With universal control and visibility of critical assets, we canmanage properties and systems from a distance. Guests are saferwith the systems connected – we know when a dangerous lifesafety (such as fire or medical emergency) situation arises andcan notify people rapidly. Repairs are made quickly. If somethingbreaks we can identify the closest maintenance person to fix it.And we can automate our business processes because everythingis connected with our communications network.

Millions in Savings and CountingBased on a very conservative analysis, we anticipate a total ofapproximately $6.25 million USD (€ 4.5 million) in recurringannual cost savings as a result of our network upgrades. Inaddition, the power savings from this solution has acceleratedthe return on investment. Many elements of this projectcontribute to these figures as follows.

Just by connecting the properties and centralizing voice anddata traffic and many of the operational functions, we estimatea $2.6 million USD (€ 1.9 million) saving per year. In theprocess, we optimize resources, improve room availability forguests and provide more consistent service.

By eliminating multiple service contracts, a large portion of ourcell phone bills and many operating issues, we estimate thatwe’ll save another $775,000 USD (€ 564,000) per year. On top

of that, we conservatively estimate thatour LAN and WLAN architectures willsave $280,000 USD (€ 204,000) annually.

When we consider the operationalefficiency of now having a universal viewof all systems, we estimate the operationalsavings to be another $980,000 USD(€ 714,000) per year.

Also, the addition of the guest roomintelligent temperature and lightingsystem will save 40% on our electricalbill alone – which translates to over $1.6 million USD (€ 1.17 million) peryear. It also helps us to be recognized as eco-friendly. We are one of only fourhotels in New York registered with theU.S. Green Building Council. We arealso going through Leadership in Energyand Environmental Design (LEEDs)certification now. This appeals to theincreasing number of eco-conscioustravelers.

Using standards-based infrastructures,we have laid the foundation to find moreareas for savings. We have also changedthe focus and rationale for how we spendour technology dollars. Rather thanconcentrating on functionality, we areworking with our partners to conceiveand deploy projects that directlycontribute to the safety and convenienceof our most important asset … our guests.

Riyaz Akhtar is Executive Vice President ofDevelopment, Hampshire Hotels & Resorts.

To contact the author or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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case study

The digital hospital is no longer a dream: It is now an achievablegoal at the Annecy Regional Hospital Center (CHRA). With979 beds, the CHRA is the largest hospital in the Haute-Savoiedepartment in the French Alps.

Every year, our 2,400 healthcare personnel handle more than50,000 emergency cases and treat 70,000 patients, requiring300,000 hospital bed-days. In addition to providing an excellentmedical and patient experience, we want the CHRA to be anexample of a truly modern hospital.

In 2006, as part of our ongoing construction, we issued a callfor tenders to build a communication infrastructure – a powerfuland homogeneous infrastructure capable of deliveringinnovative projects, especially in the field of patient services.The architecture also had to meet security constraints, butwithout impinging on the availability of essential communicationresources in an environment where mobility is a dominantfactor. The project was part of an organizational strategy aimedat setting up an integrated IT system centered on unified patientfiles and utilizing a network of terminals in patients’ rooms.

The Shopping List: Ubiquitous Access for BothPatients and StaffThe CHRA had several objectives in setting up this ambitiousproject. The construction of a new, urban hospital with longcorridors and separate logistics and medical buildings demandedan innovative approach. We wanted our communicationinfrastructure to support a high-performance information systemthat converged voice, data and imaging, to put information atthe fingertips of our healthcare professionals wherever they areon the campus. The overall goal was to reduce time spentaccessing information, and to avoid repetitive tasks that addlittle value – in short, the pursuit of heightened efficiency.

Annecy Hospital Upgrades to State-of-the-art Communications InfrastructureBy Claude-Henri Tonneau, Director of Information Systems, CHRA

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First, we wanted to ensure that all medical personnel wouldhave the IT support they need, where they need it, to workmost efficiently. This would entail secure access to mosthealthcare applications and patient files from the patient’sbedside. In addition, staff would need to be able to access thehospital’s intranet portal using a synchronized and unifieddirectory, and to take advantage of the latest collaborativetools such as unified messaging.

Second, the hospital wanted to put a genuine multimediacommunication relay at the patients’ disposal.

Finally, there was a requirement to cater to the specific needsof mobile medical, nursing and technical personnel, who needto be quickly apprised of alarms, alerts and emergency calls viaa mobile terminal integrated into the communicationsinfrastructure.

The Solution: A Phased Introduction of Innovative ServicesAt the conclusion of the 2006 tender process, Alcatel-Lucentwas selected to supply the underlying communicationtechnologies as part of the infrastructure implementationproject led by NextiraOne.

Our earlier systems were a mixture of voice infrastructure anddata networks. Convergence was not possible between thesesystems, and indeed they had been put in place ad hoc, withoutan overall strategy. Our move into the new CHRA premisesgave us the opportunity to overcome these issues.

The existing systems were holding back the development of CHRA’s information systems, particularly in the area ofmanaging medical imagery and interfacing with externalnetworks. In addition, it was difficult to respond to increasingdemands on the system from both internal and external sources.Essentially, we were looking to simplify the technologies usedby concentrating on all-IP. We wanted to simplify our

infrastructure management, as well asincrease the quality of service offered andreduce purchasing and maintenance costs.

What’s more, our objective was to allowour healthcare professionals to refocuson their own roles by making all theinformation they need instantly availableto them. For example, Digital EnhancedCordless Telecommunications (DECT)has become a key multi-functional toolfor our staff by giving them access tomore than 10 status reports, allowingthem to manage emergency calls, logisticsflows, alarm reports, intercom calls andeven to see which doors are open.

The first phase of the implementationinvolved the design of a voice, data andimage-sharing network architecturewhich unified DECT mobile telephonywith a hospital communication solution(comprising telephony and messaging)and a Local Area Network (LAN)deployment. The partnership alsoprovided project management andtraining, and implemented anoperational service agreement tomanage any incidents.

In the second phase, which started in April 2008, more than 600 patientterminals were deployed throughout thefacility, with the aim of installing aseparate terminal at every patient’sbedside. This is the largest project of itskind in France to-date, in terms of thenumber of terminals deployed.

This major healthcare infrastructure initiative required in-depth technical expertise

and detailed project management. Alcatel-Lucent and NextiraOne responded to every

point in our call for tenders. Their project management and their quality assurance

planning proposals addressed all of our requirements. In short, they brought all of

their knowledge and experience to bear on this infrastructure project.

analog stations, core and distributionnetwork switches, as well as the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise IP PBX.The infrastructure connected remotesites over secure links to deliver unifiedmessaging and Mobicall alertmanagement.

Transforming HealthcareCommunications for the 21st CenturyWe are enthusiastic about the benefitsderived from moving to a converged, all-IP system. The simplification of ourinfrastructure afforded by all-IP withcentralized global system managementmeans that our IT team can quicklyexploit the new infrastructure. Now wehave a communication system that offersendless evolutionary possibilities, andmany projects that would have beenimpossible with our old system are nowopen for us to pursue. One example is aPicture Archiving and CommunicationSystem (PACS), which allows thearchive-based management of medicalimages. Imagery can be shared over thenetwork, enabling remote diagnosis andtreatment. A second would be theinterfacing of our systems with the outsideworld – other networks, healthcareprofessionals or establishments.

The benefits of a digital strategy forhealthcare institutions are alreadybecoming obvious. The technologies areavailable, and suppliers are ready to helpwith their deployment. Naturally, theprocess demands rigorous projectmanagement and an understanding of the world of healthcare management,as well as technical expertise, which iswhy we decided to partner with Alcatel-Lucent and NextiraOne.

The Annecy project represents one ofthe largest integrated IP-voice, data andmultimedia solutions in France to-date,and demonstrates how Alcatel-Lucentcan leverage its complete portfolio oftechnologies and end-to-end solutionsto support the successful transformationof healthcare systems. The result is patient-centric services that deliver a betterpatient experience and improved efficiencywithin a sustainable healthcare system.

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The terminals perform a variety of functions for both hospitalstaff and the patients themselves. For the medical and nursingpersonnel, access is provided to patient files, lab reports (whichwill eventually be accompanied by imaging), prescriptions,healthcare plans and so on.

As for the patients, they can take advantage of a wide varietyof entertainment sources, including TV, the Internet, Video onDemand (VoD), telephony, games and audio books. Additionally,they can access medical services relating to their treatment,such as information on the hospital and its facilities, pathologiesor tests and information about preventive healthcare. Theterminals are also used to carry out end-of-stay quality surveysto allow the administration to gather feedback from patientsand to improve future healthcare provision.

This second phase of the project was implemented in partnershipwith Netlogon, the specialist multi-play integrator (for theintegration of healthcare data and multimedia content). Theproject involved the deployment of an expansive range ofcommunications terminals and infrastructure, including DECTbase stations and terminals, IP-voice/multimedia terminals,

The Annecy Regional Hospital Center (CHRA)

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Alcatel-Lucent’s solutions enable the design and deployment of a secure and easily managed converged network infrastructure– both wired and wireless – to facilitate consolidation and cost-reduction. Intelligent, rich presence and collaboration servicesenable knowledge-sharing to improve patient care and safety.The integration of IP-voice into work-flow and applications,based on an innovative user profile approach, regardless ofdevice, makes people and knowledge more accessible – keys to any successful dynamic enterprise. Significantly, a migrationpath from traditional voice to IP-based voice services protectsexisting investments.

Claude-Henri Tonneau is Director of Information Systems, CHRA.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send email to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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Our company, A1 Lofts, is anexpanding project managementcompany specializing in attic(loft) conversions around London.Our customers are typically homeor property owners who want toconvert their attics into livablespace. Here in the UnitedKingdom, we have real estatedevelopment policies that restrictthe amount of land that we canactually build upon. Accordingly,many people see their attic spaceas an ideal investment

opportunity. Homeowners who want more room – but lovetheir neighborhoods or cannot afford a larger house – canconvert an attic to make it into a living space. A number of ourclients convert attics into apartments and earn rental income.

So far, we have completed more than 800 loft conversions, andin recent years, we have worked on between 160 and 240projects per year, with a backlog of around 200 orders. At anygiven time, we have 40-45 projects underway around London.

Our managing director, Steve Mills, started the firm with acolleague and his daughter. Our business has been growingsteadily since 2000, from tens of thousands of pounds annuallyto more than £14 million ($26 million USD/€18 million) in2007. We have transformed from a small family business intoan organization comprising 22 staff in Chertsey, Surrey and anadministrative office of eight people in Grimsby, in the northof England.

A1 Lofts CreatesNetworked CRM Solutionto Manage GrowthA scalable solution for sustainable expansion

By Alistair Ewen, General Manager, A1 Lofts

case study

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Firefighting to Cope with GrowthOne of the main challenges that has emerged as our businessgrows and operations expand is making the transition from theinformal structure of a small family business – where threeprincipal employees are “firefighting” to cope with the demandsof loft conversions and business operations – to a structure andbusiness model more properly suited to a rapidly expanding andgeographically dispersed business.

I was hired as general manager to assess A1 Lofts’ growth needsand develop a strategy for scaling up the business to meet thenew challenges. While I am a veteran of the loft conversionbusiness, one of my responsibilities is looking after A1’s ITrequirements. I engaged The Comms Company (TCCO) – a business partner of Alcatel-Lucent – to assess our existingprocesses, organization and equipment, a process which alsoidentified several needs. In light of the company’s ongoingexpansion and current business volume, TCCO concluded thatexisting processes and infrastructure did not lend themselves to supporting our growth needs. For instance:• With 30 employees split between two offices in Grimsby

(eight) and Chertsey (22), staff in both sites needed to bettercollaborate and needed improved visibility of what each sitewas doing.

• A process was needed to warehouse large drawing (CAD) filesin a common server location rather than wasting bandwidthby sending them between the two offices via e-mail.

• Critical business processes were spread over several differentapplications – many were handled manually.

• Remote access to applications was not available to remoteworkers.

TCCO’s study revealed the most pressing reason that A1 Loftsneeded a new system: We were having major problems sharingdata between our two offices. Our servers were constantlyrunning out of memory because people were e-mailing massivespreadsheet or drawing files to one another. Processes would be wastefully replicated as employees and contractors used ‘cc’or ‘reply all’ to assure collaboration and accountability. As a result, we created bottlenecks of data.

At the same time, our office in the north of England continuallyexperienced problems accessing data on our servers based in thesouth of England. We even reached a point where people werewaiting 5 to 10 minutes for a single Excel spreadsheet to open.

We began to recognize that our processes – especially ourcustomer relations and workflow – needed to be redesigned. For example, our managers and employees routinely printedeverything and put it into a file, or saved and locked away dataonto the hard drives of their computers. Therefore, if a managerwas away from his desk when a customer called for informationon a project, colleagues had to search through paper files orattempt to access the manager’s PC to find information.

This scenario was the main reason forour consideration of customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) systems to helpimprove communication between thetwo offices on customer relations matters.

We therefore undertook an initiative toidentify how our project managers couldbe more effective and use fewer peopleon their projects by streamliningworkflow, using less paper and makinginformation more widely available inreal time. We learned that if we couldtake the bumps out of our projectmanagement process, we could increaseour throughput of loft projects. Bymanaging more projects, including somewe wouldn’t have considered before, wewould be in a position to grow at aneven more rapid pace.

An Affordable Infrastructure to Support CRMA1 Lofts was ready to find solutions to its network performance, customerrelations and project managementproblems. We needed to grow our ITinfrastructure beyond the constraints of a group of interlinked PCs.

As members of the wider businesscommunity, we had long been aware of various CRM offerings. We had evenreceived a quote for one system, butjudged that the purchase price – set attens of thousands of pounds – plus theincremental cost of any future upgradesor additional functions, was prohibitivefor our company at that time.

Instead, we decided to work with TCCOto create a set of Web 2.0 applicationson an existing Alcatel-Lucent ExtendedCommunication Server (ECS) to makeweb-based CRM and file-sharingapplications available to our staff andpartners.

TCCO identified applications suitablefor A1 Loft’s requirements. They did thisby understanding A1 Loft’s businessprocess and installing the applicationson their test servers. TCCO thenmodified the applications to suit thedetailed requirements.

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The applications chosen were:• Drupal – an open source content management system (CMS)

that acts as a file repository for documents, drawings andphotographs that staff can access either locally, or over thevirtual private network

• SugarCRM – a provider of commercial open source CRMsoftware that runs the customer database and tracking tool for all the company’s processes

These applications were then integrated with Alcatel-Lucent’sECS – a pre-configured server designed for small and mediumbusinesses that need enterprise-class business telephonycapabilities.

By running these open source applications on Alcatel-Lucenthardware, a solution was built for approximately £8,000($14,700 USD/€ 9,970). What’s more, the solution offeredsignificant project management functions.

TCCO also identified, tested and implemented a click-to-callfeature, which dials a call from a contact in SugarCRM via ourexisting OmniPCX Office telephone system. Futuredevelopment is already planned, and it includes Short MessageService text messaging direct from the SugarCRM applicationto provide instructions to subcontractors. A monthly supportfee is charged to provide ongoing support, as well as to reviewand enhance processes as new requirements emerge.

Managing Customers and Growth vs. Paper andProcessesOur new CRM solution gives us the capability to check thestatus of each loft conversion by name. There is a home screenfor each project that allows A1 Lofts staff to see at a glance thestatus of that project, whether there are any actions that needto be taken on that project or if there are any outstandingissues.

The package allows us to monitor every aspect of a projectfrom the time we receive a sales lead to the point that a projectis completed. We can monitor salespeople as well as the staffwho follow up on the quotes that are sent out.

Once the projects have been allocated to a builder and, ifappropriate, passed onto our other office in the north ofEngland, all the key tasks that they need to accomplish areestablished. We can quickly see how long certain key pointstake to implement, and can monitor the performance of oursubcontractors and see how efficiently they are actuallyworking. After project completion, we can look back to findout exactly who did the plumbing, the plastering or the electricalinstallation, how long they took, how much the project costand who the salesperson was. Every key stage that we measureand manage is available to our staff. Anyone in the organization,wherever they are in the country, can access the correctinformation quickly and hence operate much more efficiently.

To keep pace with growth and maintain scalability, we canquickly and inexpensively obtain additional licenses for newusers. Our CRM installation helps us monitor every part of ourcompany and our individual projects. Furthermore, it allows us

to expand and manage our businessbetter, without having to change ouralready proven business concept andsystem.

In our northern office, we have seen a dramatic increase in the speed andefficiency of managing loft conversions.We have also noticed a dramaticreduction in errors, which is resultingin cost savings. Staff can open a projecthome page, see exactly what is going onand know that nothing has been missed,which has led to a more relaxed andefficient working environment. Even ourcustomer surveys include more positiveremarks about our efficiency andresponsiveness.

The CRM package also gives oursubcontractor colleagues – surveyors,architects, building contractors andtradesmen – an excellent projectmanagement tool that saves time andmoney. For example, our architects aretypically based in their offices and donot go out to the site to measure ourclients’ houses before drawing up plans.Instead, a surveyor measures the wholehouse and passes the dimensions to thearchitect via our CRM system. We alsouse CRM to pass all our photographsand any associated documentation tothe architect, thereby reducing ourpaper trail.

Our data transmission demands havebeen significantly reduced by our CRMdeployment. Previously, every projectgenerated a Word document of around147 pages, which was then sent backand forth between users in our twooffices. Over a week, our staff mightgenerate a 2GB (or larger) Excelspreadsheet. Now, our sales and projectmanagement teams refer to commondata elements that reside on serversaccessible to all A1 Lofts staff. We areable to reduce the amount of data thattravels between users because our staffworks simultaneously on the same data.As a result, storage costs and networkdemands have reduced considerably.

Mobile access has also proven anessential part of our business process.Sales staff, for example, can refer toCRM information remotely. This helpsthem stay up to date with accuratecustomer and prospect information at

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any time of the day. Project managers can update a project’sstatus from the field, which is helpful in ensuring that billing isexecuted in a timely manner. Our project managers can also useremote access to provide real-time guidance and reference todocuments and regulations for on-site colleagues, which cansave money and eliminate costly errors.

High-growth Firms Should Automate and Networkin Anticipation of DemandAny business that is poised to grow needs to consider thepotential benefits of robust networks, CRM and projectmanagement capabilities before an efficiency bottleneck isreached. While our experience has been excellent, we wouldhave been better off – and able to expand even more rapidly –if we had implemented our new system 18 months earlier.

Start-up businesses should start thinking at the earliest possibleopportunity about implementing even a basic CRM packagethat can grow with the business. The potential benefits of CRMsystems, in terms of efficiency and cost reduction, and theirpotential for facilitating scalable growth, will at some point becrucial to the success of any enterprise that plans to stay in thegame long term.

By introducing CRM efficiencies and discipline into businessprocesses early, start-ups and small businesses can equipthemselves with the basic building blocks they need to matchIT and communications support to the needs of a rapidlygrowing business in the future.

Alistair Ewen is General Manager, A1 Lofts.

The Comms Company (TCCO) can be contacted at: e-mail support@tcco.co.uk;web www.tcco.co.uk; or telephone +44 (0) 20 3301 3311.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send email to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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cio perspective

The CIO’s spectrum of influenceon business is evolving. Today,many CIOs are “mostlyoperational” – functioning as top-level managers supporting day-to-day, cost-centered IT assets as wellas overseeing the technical staffthat keeps a business running.However, there is an evolutiontaking place as progressiveexecutive teams recognizeopportunities to leverage ITinvestments as enablers ofbusiness transformation. This is

requiring CIOs to have a higher level of influence on howbusinesses change. It is a unique role that can be best served by a visionary, strategic CIO leader.

CIOs are increasingly being asked to participate in long-termstrategic business transformation initiatives, while concurrentlymanaging the IT organization and systems that support ongoingbusiness operations. Certainly, a CIO who is exclusivelypreoccupied with operational platforms and process improvementsmight not foresee business-changing opportunities inspired bystrategic technology innovations. As the evolving CIO rolebecomes more strategic, with innovation and transformationtaking center stage, we see a new generation of technologyexecutives at the helm.

Transforming Business Culture into Creativity,Collaboration and Innovation There is emerging boardroom-level recognition that a competitiveadvantage can be achieved by having a technology-grounded,business-savvy CIO leader. This type of CIO can facilitate the innovation of new solutions and services that are attractiveto customers. To inspire higher levels of innovation in anorganization, it is essential to leverage communication andcollaboration technologies that enable people to work bettertogether, produce more and deliver superior service experiencesto customers.

There are several levels at which a CIOcan play a critical role in transformingcorporate culture. One traditional way is to listen to colleagues across all businessunits, then, translate their input into atechnology strategy that supports theircollective needs. Although valuable, thisis still somewhat operationally focused.

A more strategic role involves the CIO,teaming with peer executives, to infusetechnology-powered business objectivesinto early strategy discussions. As a keycontributing player, a strategic CIO canintroduce emerging technologyopportunities to which only they may beprivy. They can make recommendations,and perhaps suggest new business models,to the executive team.

Productivity + Creativity +Collaboration = Transformation A CIO who can introduce technologyservices that enable people to be morecreative will be more strategic than onewho does not. When it comes toconnecting the dots to transformation,many, if not most, CIOs spend a greatdeal of their time looking foropportunities to enhance individualemployee productivity and streamlineoperations. This focus certainly deliverson the promise of achieving results better,cheaper and faster. But it is more akin toupdating processes than engaging inmeaningful transformation. Some CIOsspend a portion of their time helpingemployees become more creative. Thiscan be done by ensuring broader accessto the information resources they need

Business Transformation and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership By Dean Samuels, Chief Information Officer, Genesys

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at the time and place of their choosing – an essential elementfor any dynamic enterprise.

The new generation of strategy-oriented CIOs performs all of these functions and more. They invest their time producingplatforms that harness technologies that enable teams of people(including employees, partners, suppliers and customers) tocreatively collaborate. It is from this level of activity andinvestments that true and meaningful innovation results infundamental transformation.

Strategic CIO-Sponsored Investments Make Service Transformations Possible Evolving the CIO’s role from what has typically been an IToperations management function into a business-enabling rolecan inspire the creative and collaborative cultures that makesuperior service experiences happen. In today’s highly competitivebusiness climate, where all businesses must compete skillfullyfor customer attention and loyalty, it’s essential to invest“strategically” in technologies that make service excellencepossible. The new, strategic CIO’s unique insight into bothbusiness and technology allows executives to have an improvedperspective for choosing IT investments that yield the highestimpact for achieving business goals.

However, in many companies the old cost-centered financialmodel has not yet evolved to fund the strategic IT investmentsthat enable the type of cultural and service transformationsrequired to compete in this new business era. During budget

season, there is often a competition for funds to support strategic growthinitiatives. If the business-savvy,technology-aware CIO is not at thetable, opportunities to enhance service,innovation and productivity areforfeited, and the business culturecannot transform.

CIO Strategies Influence OurBusiness and Our Customers Our company is committed to strategicCIO leadership that contributes tobusiness transformations both internallyand for our customers (Figure 1). We can enhance:

• CIO leadership within ourorganization to support collaborativetransformations, enabling creativeinnovation, delivering enhancedsolutions and services for ouremployees, partners and customers

• CIO leadership for our customers tosupport solutions and services enablingtransformation strategies to delivercollaboration, communication andcreativity for their businesses

Figure 1: CIO leadership within our company and for our customers

At our company

to drive...

Strategic CIOleadership

Strategic CIOleadership

business transformation

by leveraging technologies of...

collaboration, communicationand creativity

to enable innovation for...

For our customers

to drive...

business transformation

by leveraging technologies of...

collaboration, communicationand creativity

to enable innovation for...

Alcatel-Lucent’s customersand partners

which providessolutions andservices thatsupport...

our company

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This presents an interesting relationship between CIOstrategies within our own company and within those of ourcustomers. As with our company, the stratified forces oftransformation also drive initiatives within our most progressivecustomers. Strategic CIO leadership, when combined withcollaboration and communication tools, can incite cross-organizational synergies. Stimulating a culture of transfor-mational change makes creativity and collective innovationpossible, especially in areas related to designing and deliveringunparalleled services to customers.

Making Transformation HappenBecause we are in the business of providing solutions that makeexceptional service experiences happen, we are in a fortunateposition to assist our forward-thinking customers in achievingtheir CIO-sponsored, IT-powered business and culturaltransformations. Likewise, we leverage these same technologiesto achieve our transformational business goals and improveservices to our employees, partners and customers.

Given today’s economy, limiting the CIO to purely anoperational function is not an option. Companies must embracethe innovations CIOs are uniquely positioned to deliver andcapitalize on the strategic breakthroughs made possible as theytruly create a dynamic enterprise.

Dean Samuels is Chief Information Officer, Genesys Labs, an Alcatel-LucentCompany, Daly City, California, United States.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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The Growing Role of ITDepartments in CorporateGreen StrategiesBy H. Ritchie, P. Wong

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The IT department may seem an unlikely place to find motivatedenvironmentalists. But that is precisely where many private-and public-sector organizations will find teams driving criticalclimate-change initiatives.

Taking on an eco-sustainability role, however, does carry someinteresting implications. For one thing, IT staffs will have todevelop new skills and perspectives about the role technologycan play in advancing environmental objectives. In addition to delivering high levels of technical performance and aligningtheir activities with key business objectives, they will have tolearn the language and the logic of sustainable growth – whichwill be necessary considering that 60% of global executives viewclimate change as important to consider within their companies’overall strategies.1

According to a recent survey of 280 IT executives conductedby CIO Magazine, more than 54% said their organizations haveinstituted environmental sustainability goals for their informationtechnology operations 2 for both business and social reasons. In fact:• 38% said that pursuing green IT and sustainable business

processes could contribute to significant reductions inoperating expenditures (OPEX), as the enterprise becomesmore energy-efficient.

• 38% reported that such initiatives would help theirorganizations be more socially responsible corporate citizens.

In short, there is as much of a business case for energyefficiency as there is a public relations case.

The Role of IT in Streamlining OperationsNew operational efficiencies enabled by technology – such as mobility, collaboration and business process optimization –have a significant impact on reducing the carbon footprint oforganizations. Teleconferencing, video-conferencing and tele-working, for instance, are all viable alternatives to commutingand long-distance business travel, and they allow companies toreduce their OPEX and their CO2 emissions at the same time.

In a recent Harvard Business Publishing blog,3 Mindy Lubber,President of Ceres, a leading coalition of investors and

environmental groups, talks about openwork strategies. She indicated that thenumber of corporate employees in theUnited States open working in 2007 wasexpected to be 12.4 million – nearlydouble what it was five years previously.

Many companies understand the valueof tele-working – not just for theenvironment, but also for overalloperational costs and for the ability to attract and retain good employees.

Sun Microsystems, for example, offersemployees the ability to work anywhere,anytime, using any device. This strategyenables them to cut carbon emissions by reducing energy use from employeesworking in their facilities and bydecreasing their real estate holdings. In2007, Sun’s award-winning Open Workplatform prevented 29,000 tons of CO2

from entering the atmosphere.

Additionally, a recent Sun study showedthat the energy saved by an employee whoworks from home just 2.1 days per weekequaled 5,400 kilowatt-hours (kWh) peryear. (The average home uses 1,000 kWhper month in energy.) Other environ-mental and socioeconomic impactsinclude reduced traffic congestion andless stress on urban transportationinfrastructures.4

Another example is West Corporation, a business process outsourcing companywith revenues of $2.1 billion USD (€ 1.5 billion) and more than 42,000employees in North America, Europeand Asia. They have set up aninfrastructure that supports 15,000virtual contact center employees.

feature

1 ©2008, How Companies Think about Climate Change: A McKinsey Global Survey, McKinsey & Company2 http://www.cio.com/article/196450/The_Greening_of_IT?contentId=196450&slug=&3 http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/leadinggreen/2008/08/telecommutings-small-carbon-fo.html

4 http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/openwork/planet.jsp

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Using Alcatel-Lucent’s contact center technology, WestCorporation’s virtual workforce shares information easily,operates with clear processes and capitalizes on cross-sell andup-sell opportunities. They do this so well, Frost and Sullivannamed the company its 2008 Contact Center OutsourcingCompany of the Year. Its employees also save nearly 85 millionmiles of commute time and $12 million USD (€8.8 million) ingas expenses, while gaining more flexibility. Most impressively,by reducing the number of cars on the road, West Corporationhas reduced CO2 emissions by 28,000 metric tons annually.And that’s just savings associated with commuting.

Alcatel-Lucent also supports tele-working and is equally pleasedwith the operational savings. The company undertook a projectin Belgium and has documented its impact. By encouragingBelgian employees to work at home and providing office spaceon an as-needed basis, we have saved 20% in associated realestate costs. The company also saved 11% in associated energycosts. The trial project has been so successful that we areincreasing formal tele-working programs.

In addition to reducing the need for employees to travel, we alsohave initiatives in place to make travel more efficient and reducetrucks rolls through smart transport/logistics and smart metering.These represent just two ways to turn energy reduction intoreality identified by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative.5

Reducing IT’s Environmental FootprintThe carbon footprint of Integrated Computer Telephonyrepresents about 2% of global emissions, according to ananalysis by The Climate Group in partnership with the Globale-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), and McKinsey.6 However,this percentage is expected to double in the next 12 years.

In response to these challenges, CIO Magazine’s survey reportsthat:7

• 64% of the IT organizations surveyed plan to reduce serverpower consumption

• 57% ask users to turn off equipment at night • 49% configure desktops not in use to enter sleep mode• 44% plan to upgrade or reconfigure data center cooling

infrastructure for improved efficiency

While this is a good start, there is muchmore to be done to streamline thecarbon footprint of the enterprisetechnology infrastructure. In 2007, theUnited States Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) produced a reportshowing that data centers in the UnitedStates have the potential to save up to$4 billion USD (€ 2.7 billion) in annualelectricity costs through more energy-efficient equipment and operations, andthe broad implementation of bestmanagement practices.8

The EPA recommends the industry pursueefficiency opportunities and policies thatcan lead to additional energy savings –as much as 25% – with even greatersavings possible with advancedtechnologies. We support theserecommendations and have seendramatic savings in our own operations.For example, in 2006 Alcatel-Lucentbegan consolidation of its data centersfrom 25 to six. By using more energyefficient equipment and energy-savingfeatures, we save more than $850,000USD (€ 668,000) on data centerelectrical bills and reduce CO2 emissionsby more than 500 metric tons each year.

A Call to ActionFrom our perspective at Alcatel-Lucent,we believe climate-change initiativesrepresent an opportunity for enterpriseIT leaders to strengthen their strategicrole. But to do this, CIOs will have tounderstand the issues, know where theycan provide value and how to make thebest use of technology.

NetworkEco-sustainable technologies

at each stage of lifecycle help reduce power consumption by as much as 30 to 50 percent

PeopleSave money by enabling

virtual workforceand making better

use of devices

ProcessFacilitate

eco-sustainableprocesses

KnowledgeMake real strides, by knowing

more about your network,people, process, technology,

and their impacts

Figure 1: Connecting networks, people, processes and knowledge

5 http://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources/publications/Smart2020Report.pdf6 ©2008, SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age, The Climate Group in

partnership with the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), and McKinsey7 http://www.cio.com/article/196450/The_Greening_of_IT?contentId=196450&slug=&

8 ©2007, The EPA 2007 Report to Congress on Server and Data CenterEnergy Efficiency

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Alcatel-Lucent recommends enterprises use a dynamiccommunications framework to drive eco-sustainability –interconnecting networks, people, processes and knowledge(Figure 1). The framework takes a broader view of eco-sustainability, providing ways to not only optimize IT footprints,but also to empower people, make processes more efficient andeco-friendly, and apply knowledge for more innovative solutions.

We have developed technologies and methodologies that helpenterprises: • Contain energy costs and reduce the costs of production,

goods and services• Limit the energy cost impact on balance sheets• Develop consumption analytics needed to identify maximum

savings• Gather data to monitor power consumption and device usage• Manage power and alternative energy sources to avoid

outages• Develop automated compliance strategies• Find new and innovative ways to do business • Substantiate eco-branding initiatives

We have joined the growing communityof CIOs who are engaged in an ongoingdialog to integrate cutting-edgetechnologies with emerging businessstrategies and important social issueslike climate change.

Heather Ritchie is Communications Strategist,Enterprise Products Group, Alcatel-Lucent,California, USA.

Patty Wong is Corporate Strategic MarketingManager, Corporate Marketing Organization,Alcatel-Lucent, Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA.

To contact the authors or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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feature

More than a decade ago, Ken Blanchard, author of The OneMinute Manager, outlined ways to turn customers into “RavingFans”1 by focusing on great customer service. However, thecustomer service challenge has since intensified as the numberof customer interactions and the number of service touchpoints increase simultaneously (Figure 1).

Blanchard did not write about a marketplace where a productis purchased on a mobile device, modified via the Web, queriedin a phone call and escalated to an outsourced agent in anothercountry. Yet, that is the path for a purchase that incorporatesprepaid airtime, custom ringtones and billing concerns. Howcan companies ensure that they consistently deliver exceptionalservice across this maze of customer service channels?

We propose a decision framework that focuses on practices andtechnologies to incrementally and cumulatively transform theface of customer service.

1 ©1993, Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service, Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles2 ©2006, The Customer Service Challenge: Creating the “Perfect” Customer Call, Accenture

Transforming the Face of Customer ServiceBy J. Heinen, K. Bell, D. Radoff

Source: Accenture

Mail

Web chat

Store/branch

E-mail

Web self-service

Phone

0% 20% 40%

When you seek advice, how do you get assistance?

60% 80% 100%

Figure 1: Customers seek service via multiple touch points 2

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The Direct Link between Customer Service andShareholder Value Better customer service and interactions generate increasedloyalty and satisfaction, which in turn, ensure better businessresults and industry-leading growth.

For example, new academic evidence shows that customersatisfaction generates greater shareholder returns – more than50% above a market index. A recent article examines theimpact on firm valuation over a 10-year period by employingmultiples and models borrowed directly from the practice offinance. The results indicate that a stock portfolio consisting offirms with high levels of customer satisfaction outperforms theStandard & Poor’s 500 index in cumulative returns – $312 USD(€ 242) versus $205 USD (€ 159).3

Bain & Company’s research into customer satisfactionmeasurements through “Net Promoter Scores” shows that NPSleaders outgrow their peers by more than 2.5 times.4 At themicro-level, the growth comes from increased purchases,openness to cross- and up-sell offers, greater wallet share,reduced defections and complaints, and customer-to-customerendorsements.

How might executives prioritize opportunities to transformcustomer service across touch points as diverse as storefronts tomobile phones in ways that produce raving fans or net promoters?

In the Accenture study, when consumers were asked toprioritize the single channel they prefer to use when short ontime, they overwhelmingly chose the phone (56%) when theywant to negotiate or discuss a transaction, followed by e-mail(35%) when they have a specific question or request and wantto review the answers and options on their own.

Integrating these two channels (and others) into a virtualservice center will link all the customer interactions into asingle conversation that is sustained over time and place,creating a rich customer service experience.

Building a Digital Bridge to CustomersHistorically, the systems and processesfor each type of customer interactionwere deployed separately – with poorresults. The physical site where customerservice people sat really mattered,because its dedicated communicationsystem often determined the extent ofrich communication. PBXs didn’t “talk”to one another, nor did customer serviceprofessionals in different contactcenters. Often they had differenttraining and business processes to servedifferent products or lines of business.

However, the technical barriers toconsolidating systems and processeshave dropped with emerging technicalstandards. For example:• Converged IP networks and standards

such as SIP break down barriers betweensites, and even companies, to helpcreate a virtual resource pool.

• vXML provides a voice interface toleverage existing Web applications andinfrastructure to help share answersand resources.

• Knowledge and context is becomingmore explicit and searchable to helpdrive consistent outcomes.

Nevertheless, management practiceshave not progressed as rapidly to allowcompanies to take advantage of thisbrave new world.

3 ©2008, The Long-Term Stock Market Valuation of Customer Satisfaction, Journal of Marketing (vol. 72), LerzanAksoy, Bruce Cooil, Christopher Groening, Timothy L. Keiningham, & Atakan Yalçın

4 ©2006, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, Fred Reichheld

5 ©2006, Seven Things You Need to Know About Marketing in the 21stCentury, World Business, James Allen and Rob Markey, Bain & Company

Bain & Company surveyed

executives of 362 firms.

80% of the executives

believed their companies

provide superior customer

experiences, yet only 8%

of customers agreed.5

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Developing a Meaningful and IntegratedFramework for Customer ServiceAt Genesys, we propose a framework for improving customerservice incrementally and cumulatively by looking at thecriteria for customer service success across resources,interactions and processes (Table 1).

Resources – defined as sources of appropriate knowledge –include product experts, account managers or others who areinvolved in resolving customer issues. But resources also extendbeyond human employees, with the adoption of sophisticatedtechnology such as speech recognition, text-to-speech,knowledge management and even animated customer serviceavatars. In a Web 2.0 world, resources can also include usercommunities where experts share their tips, tricks and feedback.

Key Steps to Transforming Customer ServiceThe most important element in developing a comprehensivestrategy is to transform customer service from the perspectiveof the customer. Define key steps by outlining how a customercan interact with your business in ways that are:

• Competent in leading to the desired result, with an easyescalation path to skilled resources

• Convenient and proactive, such as offering a single phonenumber for any purpose (rather than multiple numbers) and proactively notifying customers on events they mightotherwise query

• Personalized and aware of work-in-progress while creating a customer interaction history

For instance, Accenture uses “customer intention” to analyzecompany operations from an outside point of view. Thisperspective uncovered weaknesses in an organization that usedtwo different departments to handle product exchanges.

• The first department handled the“return” and then blindly transferredthe customer to a second departmentthat conducted a new “sale.

• With a blind transfer and notransactional continuity, the customerhad to repeat information, and thetransaction took too long.

From the customer’s perspective, theexperience was frustrating. Meanwhile,both departments reported good successmetrics – and the organization paidredundant sales commissions. Changingthe process saved $4 million USD (€ 2.9million) in streamlined operations andcommissions.6

Similarly, a Genesys customerimplemented proactive businessmanagement systems to gain insightsacross the enterprise and determine thebest levers for change. This wirelessprovider examined the end-to-endprocess associated with activatingaccounts and found that many servicecenters unnecessarily transferred customercalls. While this sustained their individualservice level goals, it also generatedexcess costs and greatly reducedcustomer satisfaction. By focusing on theunnecessary transfers, the company wasable to eliminate 40,000 call segmentsper month and save more than $1 millionUSD (€ 0.7 million) in annual operatingcosts per center.

• First call resolution• Customer survey feedback scores• Resource cost aligned to customer value

COMPETENTResources – people, Web andvoice self-service, “avatars,”community (other customers)

• Multiple channels available (any place/any device)• Multi-modal (for example, map sent to mobile based on voice request)

CONVENIENTInteractions – calls, e-mails,chat, outbound calls,SMS messages

• Based on work-in-progress• Updates proactively sent to show progress/status change

PROACTIVEProcesses – how interactionsare handled and by whom

• Based on customer segment or products used• Defining the best next action based on desired outcome

PERSONALIZEDCustomer intelligence – CRM, lead management,offer engines

Example of success metricsPrimary success criteria in customer serviceCustomer service elements defined

Table 1: Framework for customer service success

6 ©2007, Understanding Customer Intentions: Delivering a SatisfyingCustomer Experience, CRMproject.com, Accenture, Terry L. Walls

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ConclusionCreating great customer service experiences certainly involvestransforming company culture and investing in training people– as people are the literal faces of customer service. Technologyleverages their skills and abilities to transform customer service:

• Converged networks and presence technology can simplifyconnections so that every resource – agents, branch employeesand experts – can be accessed and leveraged to deliver greatcustomer service.

• Software can manage customer interactions with consistentbusiness rules across every touch point – phone, Web, workitem, video and mobile – and collect interaction details intoa unified view.

• Proactive business management software can create insightsinto operational performance, react to problems in real timeand build a rich database to manage and optimize operationsover time.

Companies that take incremental steps to deploy the rightcombination of resources, technology and processes to provideexceptional customer experiences will have a competitive edge.With the right strategy and a complete end-to-end solution,customers will be able to interact with the enterprise across allof today’s multiple channels – when and how they want.

Executives should care about proactively meeting customers’needs and having a means to measure customer satisfactionbecause, simply put, this is the key to overall success. In fact,companies that view service objectives from the perspective of the customer will not only bolster customer retention,strengthen brand identity and increase productivity, but also,ultimately, enjoy higher revenues, shareholder value and a healthier bottom line.

Joseph Heinen is Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Genesys Labs, an Alcatel-Lucent Company, Daly City, California, United States.

Karen Bell is Marketing Communications Manager, Genesys Labs, an Alcatel-Lucent Company, Daly City, California, United States.

David Radoff is Director, Public Relations, Genesys Labs, an Alcatel-LucentCompany, Daly City, California, United States.

To contact the authors or request additional information, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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A few short years ago, the concept of Unified Communications(UC) was more hype than reality. That’s not so anymore.Technology advancements and the arrival of communicationsand networking standards have spurred the evolution of UC.Businesses are starting to deploy UC across their enterprises.Managed UC integrates and automates a variety ofcommunications means – including telephony, e-mail,messaging, conferencing and collaboration services – into asingle, managed architecture that provides a consistent userexperience. Its purpose is to improve efficiency and productivity,enable awareness of a colleague’s availability and easecommunication with a variety of options.

The concept of UC has gradually evolved over the past decade.What started with few services such as contact lists, presenceand telephony available from the desktop, has expanded toinclude enhanced services such as rich business telephony, anymessaging and any conferencing, available on any device,including fixed phone, PC, mobile phone or dual-mode phone.

Ultimately, however, UC must extend beyond users’ PCs, fixedor mobile phones communicating over a corporate or cellularnetwork. It must deliver communications and web communicationcapabilities in real time whatever the user is doing and whereveran employee needs communication – in a colleague’s office, ona train, at a hotel or customer site in another country – usingthe devices and applications that are convenient to the end user.

This demand for mobility as well as the proliferation of servicesis prompting a shift from an enterprise ad hoc “do-it-yourself”communications environment, to a service provider “managed”environment. Outsourcing Unified Communications to aservice provider allows enterprises to focus on their core business,improve productivity and reduce costs while enjoying enhancedmobility capability.

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Managed UnifiedCommunicationsEmpowering DynamicEnterprisesBy C. Diquelou, M. Wang

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Understanding Managed Unified Communications Unified Communications is most often offered via a convenientuser environment – client- and increasingly web-browser-based– gathering all communication means and information. Forexample, it enables the user to check last call, play voice mail,search a contact in the enterprise directory, add the result in acontact list as well as click-to-start an IM or audio/video session,or web conference with a colleague.

Managed UC tools allow end users to choose the mostappropriate device for establishing a communication orcollaboration session. For example, PC-embedded soft phones,as well as mobile or PBX phones and personal digital assistants,can all be equipped to support this capability.

Beyond dedicated clients, UC enables communication capabilitieswherever communication is needed. Installing Outlook orLotus Notes plug-ins that let users simply click on an icon toinitiate a call or check e-mail and perform directory look-upsare just a couple of examples. Other forms of UC are integratedas web communication capabilities into traditional applicationsso that a user can simply click on a number or name found in aspreadsheet, word processing document or web page to initiatea call, instant message or e-mail.

Managed UC exemplifies the “One Number” concept where a user is identified and known by a single number or ID and isable to select the most appropriate device on which to make orreceive a call. An example of this is the combination of a mobilephone, PBX phone and a PC operating in a fully managed UCenvironment where the user selects the most appropriate device.

When managed UC systems are properlydesigned and implemented, eachcommunication vehicle follows the rulesof the enterprise and benefits from thebusiness services usually available onlegacy terminals: thus, screening rules,call forwarding, short private numberdialing, closed user groups, call retrieveand parallel ringing that are being usedon legacy systems today can be leveragedby UC systems tomorrow (Table 1).

Unify Employees withKnowledge and PeopleNetworking

According to industry statistics, only asmall portion of corporate knowledge isstored on enterprise databases. Mostknowledge is stored in the minds ofemployees, who then share what theyknow with others in the enterprisethrough some form of collaboration.That is why employee attrition can besuch a problem. If there is significantemployee turnover, a reorganization orrestructuring, much of that knowledgeand expertise can be lost from theorganization.

Table 1: Value - CIO/IT managers

Outsourcing communications services and infrastructure to a service provider offersa predictable operating cost, while allowing enterprises to streamline business processesand focus on their core business.

Lower total cost of ownership

With one Unified Communications infrastructure, the transition to IP multimediacommunications is smooth, while enterprise ICT investments and costly maintenanceare reduced.

Simplified management,control and provisioning

A Unified Communications solution can leverage the existing office environment,including popular desktop applications such as Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notesand any type of TDM and IP PBX.

Seamless integration

A recent study conducted by In-Stat and Wainhouse Research1, concluded that the market for Unified Communicationsproducts is forecasted to be $24.6 billion USD by 2012 with a compound annual growth rate of 7.2% over theperiod. Additionally worldwide UC services expenditures will exceed $24.1 billion USD by 2012, with 25% CAGR.

Driving the accelerated adoption of UC are the wide availability of IP broadband access, more capable mobiledevices and the technological advancement of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an application-layer control protocolthat can establish, modify and terminate multimedia sessions such as Internet telephony calls and IP MultimediaSubsystem (IMS), an architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia to any fixed or mobile user.

1 ©2007, Worldwide Unified Communications Product Forecast, In-Stat and Wainhouse Research, November 2007

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This opens the door to another important value proposition.Web 2.0 UC, with enterprise social networking, enables usersto define their work environment. They can select communi-cation capabilities and combine them with applications thatprovide ways to exchange their knowledge and experience justas they do outside of work. Companies that can efficientlyleverage and capture this knowledge are better positioned to successfully transform their business.

The Role of Open Network ArchitectureIn order for managed UC to address the needs of the enterprise,it is important to rely on an open network architecture thatsupports (Figure 1):

• Fixed and mobile environments, so that end users’ mobileand office devices have a consistent set of telephony servicesand can work with applications across both mobile and IPnetworks

• IP and legacy environments to ease smooth migration to anIP network

• Premises and public environments so that employees are ableto communicate, regardless of whether they are inside oroutside of their enterprise domain

• An access-agnostic solution to provide the right capabilitiesfor the IP environment and to ensure interoperability insideand outside of enterprise and service provider domains.

Applications and service deliveryenvironments should be opened inorder to let service providers, third-party developers and enterprisesintroduce new services withoutimpacting the underlyinginfrastructures.

• Independent network applicationsoffering separate services, with theopenness to support communicationcapabilities available on any UC andweb communication client applications.

These requirements are met by leveragingIMS as a standardized IP-based, SIP-centric, network-agnostic technologyintegrated with a traditional INapplication environment. The hybridapplication environment combines thebest of traditional IN technologies andstate-of-the-art Java-based applicationserver technology into an unmatchedapplication experience.

Enterprises and service providers mustdevelop an approach to managed unifiedcommunications that supports a hybrid

IPPLMNPSTN

TDM

Unified Communication: clients, plug-in, Web 2.0, mashup

IP

3G or 2G dual phone,SIP phones, web browsers

2G phonesPBX

VPN V-PBXOne number

and dualphone

PBXtrunking

Attendantand hunting

group

Networkaddressbook

MultimediaInstant

Messaging

INAP

RCS terminals

CAMELSIP

Open API

Figure 1: Open architecture to unify IP and legacy networks

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environment, including TDM-IP, fixed-mobile and premises-network services. This will help as service providers andenterprises work together to implement a smooth transitionpath leveraging their existing assets and services.

It is important to ensure that applications support open andsecure communication Application Programming Interfaces(APIs). This flexible approach will make it possible for serviceproviders and enterprises to deploy different UC models thatbest meet their needs. This openness is also key to facilitatingthe integration of enterprise IT tools across the managed UCenvironment, including Microsoft Outlook and LCS/OCS,IBM Lotus Notes and Sametime.

ConclusionThe promise of UC is finally about to be fulfilled. Alcatel-Lucent offers a breadth of Managed Unified Communicationssolutions that provide opportunities for both service providersand enterprises to benefit from this business environment.These solutions allow users to personalize, control and managecalls, messages, directories, collaborative work tools andinformation from any location using any device and anysoftware interface. With maturing IP and SIP/IMS-enablingtechnologies, service providers and enterprises can begindeploying UC. Solution options must be evaluated, and thekey to successful deployment and management will beleveraging and unifying existing assets, communications toolsand applications – as well as the wealth of corporate andemployee knowledge – while preparing for additional UCservices in the future.

Caroline Diquelou is Director for Solutions andMarketing, IP Communications and SDE ProductGroup, Alcatel-Lucent, Orvault, France.

Mingwen Wang is Marketing Manager and Adviser,IP Communications and SDE Product Group, Alcatel-Lucent, Antwerp, Belgium.

To contact the authors or request additionalinformation, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

• With the advent of IP-basedapplications – in particular, the webcommunity/Enterprise 2.0 applications– the life cycles of both technologiesand business processes haveaccelerated significantly in recentyears. As a result, the timelines oftraditional capital expenditures are outof synch with the speed of newtechnology developments.

• There is growing evidence thattechnology infrastructures that used to be closely associated with mission-critical activities are now increasinglyavailable as managed services where

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A number of trends are affecting the fundamental ways thatenterprises operate and how technology resources can bebrought to bear to support critical business processes. Thesetrends include the increased mobility requirements of today’sglobal workforce, the need to extend interaction andcommunication beyond the corporate boundaries to includecollaboration among vendors, partners and customers, as wellas the consumerization of corporate IT with the adoption ofEnterprise 2.0 features.

These and other developments are placing new demands onCIOs and their IT staffs. Typically, new demands have translatedinto new investments in both capital and operationalexpenditures for purchased equipment that must then bemanaged and maintained by IT. There are two problems withthis approach in today’s environment:

Building Enterprise and ServiceProvider Partnerships with ManagedCommunicationsBy L. Gyalog

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the communication equipment and applications are installedin the network of a third party. The third party then providesa managed service to the enterprise. The enterprise typicallypays a monthly fee or a usage-based fee. Managed servicesrequire neither capital investment nor maintenance from theperspective of the enterprise.

In this article we will explain how service providers can buildrelationships with enterprises to establish managedcommunications partnerships.

Strategic Impact AnalysisAs service providers develop their strategies for approachingenterprises with new and improved managed services, they willhave to make some important changes in their go-to-marketstrategies.

In the past, service providers have been very careful aboutidentifying a particular segment – such as small and mediumbusinesses or larger corporations. With few exceptions, serviceproviders have avoided targeting multiple enterprise segmentsdue to the complexity and cost associated with addressing thedifferent needs of the various segments, each of which requiresa specific sales approach.

For the same reasons, service providers have usually onlyoffered a limited number of managed communications services.Typically, carriers would choose from one of three managedcommunications services opportunities:• Networking services• Enterprise communication services • Customer care

And in most cases, they only offer a subset of communicationsservices (such as IP Centrex services within the scope ofenterprise communication services).

New technology developments – along with a growingenterprise appetite to outsource non-core activities – arechanging this dynamic. To grow their managedcommunications partnerships, service providers are increasinglyexploring how they can address multiple enterprise segmentsand the various enterprise communication needs.

Enterprise social software, also known as Enterprise 2.0, is a term describing social software used in “enterprise”(business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic softwareplatforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software,which imposes structure prior to use, this generation of software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure.1

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_2.0

Elements of an OfferingIn order to develop an effectivemanaged communications offering,service providers must fully understandthe needs and requirements of eachmarket element. These consist of:• The type of enterprise – for example,

manufacturing, finance, retail, printing– and the ability to support variouscommunication requirements thatneed to be adapted to differentemployee profiles.

• The size of the enterprise – rangingfrom small office-home office (SoHo),small and medium businesses to largeenterprises – defining not only therequirements in terms of scalability,but also the choice between premises-based equipment or hosted solutions.

• The number of sites in the enterprise.The enterprise can be a single-siteenterprise or a multi-site enterprise.The most challenging is themultinational company where, inaddition to site interconnectivity,various national requirements need tobe taken into account and implemented.

• The presence of an IT department thatcould not only define the exact needs(according to formal requirements andspecifications lists), but would also bein charge of maintaining the equipment.The absence of an IT staff shiftsresponsibilities to the service provider.

• The type of equipment that is alreadyin place within the enterprise. Thiscould be IP-based but could also beTDM equipment. Likewise, mobility isbecoming more and more important,so mobile phones (both 2G and 3G)need to be incorporated into theenterprise’s communication network.

• Collaboration capabilities. Typicalpresence servers that belong to anenterprise IT department only containpresence information for end pointsthat are directly connected to theenterprise. The additional value-add of the service provider is that they canoffer a network-wide address book andpresence information beyond theenterprise boundaries.

• Audio, video and web-basedconferencing

• A combination of premises-based andnetwork-based implementations tocapture all enterprise sizes. An idealcombination would be managed IPPBXs (on customer premises butmanaged by the service provider) andnetwork-based, multi-tenant IPtelephony applications.

• Fixed and mobile connectivity. Thisenables a service provider to offerunique services across the fixed andmobile network, for example, fixed-mobile converged services or a one-number service that includes fixed andmobile terminals.

Successful players in this market are alsoproviding multi-tenant, managedcustomer care solutions. This enablesenterprises to not only lower their totalcost of ownership (TCO) but also totake into account sudden peaks indemand. Likewise, service providers canattract businesses that would normallynot be in the position to acquire theseservices. This service includes premiumand toll-free numbers, web800, Internetcall-back, interactive voice responsewith speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities, contact center andso on. Service providers can use thissolution not only for their enterprisecustomers, but also for their ownpurposes; after all, every service provideralso needs a contact center.

It is also important to offer secure,flexible, value-added managed premiumVPN services such as:• Layer 3 premium IP-VPNs, which

deliver secure, scalable, reliable, highperformance IP networking withguaranteed quality of service (QoS) tomultiple enterprise sites at a lower costthan traditional leased lines, framerelay or ATM

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IPPLMNPSTN

INAP CAMEL SIP

IP PBX, 3G phone,2G dual phone, SIP phone,

Web browsers, RCSterminals (1H’09)

2G phonePBX

Service provider’s managed communications portfolio

Figure 1: Service provider’s implementation of managedcommunications

• Specific communication needs must be assessed. It is importantto establish the state of collaboration (including networkaddress book, presence information, instant messaging, click-to-call), conferencing (including audio, video and webconferencing – important for saving on travel costs) andcustomer care (ranging from a person at the reception to a full-fledged contact center).

• Specific data networking needs: It must be determined if theenterprise requires Layer 2 or Layer 3 VPNs and whethermanaged business access or managed security is needed.

By implementing a managed communications portfolio thattakes into account the above requirements, the service providercan address an extended base of enterprise customers with acomplete portfolio. This positions a service provider to notonly become enterprise customers’ one-stop shop, but also laysthe groundwork for establishing strategic partnerships withthem. Figure 1 shows a network view of a potential serviceprovider’s implementation of managed communications.

While service providers can leverage their core assets (accessnetwork, fixed/mobile/NGN/IMS network) to build managedcommunications applications, the optimal solution is toimplement network-agnostic applications.

Operational Impact AnalysisAs best practices for managed services deployments emerge,leading service providers are moving away from highly fragmentedand incomplete offerings to integrated, comprehensive andflexible business communication suites that include:• PBX-like capabilities that also contain IP Centrex and

Wireless Centrex capabilities to address the SoHo and smallenterprises

• VPN capabilities (to support virtual and/or multi-siteenterprises)

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• Layer 2 Carrier Ethernet VPNs using virtual private LANservice, which enable multiple enterprise sites to beinterconnected by combining the operational cost benefits,simplicity and transparency of Ethernet with the predictableQoS, reliability and scalability of MPLS

Finally, it is important to ensure that enterprises have a strongsense of control over how services are managed, provisionedand monitored. Providing control to the enterprise is vital. Not having control over the service is seen as one of the maininhibitors for an enterprise to migrate to a managed service.

A Comprehensive Managed CommunicationsPortfolioAlcatel-Lucent’s approach to managed communications isbased on three comprehensive solutions designed to addressenterprise challenges. The Managed Business Networkingsolution combines scalable, reliable business VPN services withbusiness access and business security services. The ManagedBusiness Communication solution delivers enterprisecommunication, collaboration and conferencing with a consistentuser experience. The Managed Customer Interaction solutionprovides fully integrated customer care, enabling serviceproviders and their enterprise customers to maximize customersatisfaction and retention.

Alcatel-Lucent can further support service providers that wishto develop or expand their managed services offerings in anumber of ways:• Bell Labs business modeling offers both generic and

customized business models to demonstrate the value ofmanaged communications solutions.

• The Market Advantage Program (MAP) helps serviceproviders sell to their customers through primary marketresearch and other go-to-market resources.

• Alcatel-Lucent also offers managed services to serviceproviders who can then resell them as white-label services to enterprise customers. An example of this is Business VoIP,which is currently being offered in the United States.

• Service provider and/or enterprise networks can be managedand operated on their behalf.

ConclusionToday’s economic climate is stimulating enterprises to focus on their core business, to lower their TCO for existingcommunications and to introduce advanced communicationswith minimal investment in equipment, applications and theskills required to manage them. This creates a tremendousopportunity for service providers and enterprises to buildstrategic partnerships around a complete portfolio of managedcommunications to address the needs of enterprise customers.

Laszlo Gyalog is Marketing Director, Alcatel-Lucent, Antwerp, Belgium.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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Protecting Citizens and CriticalServices with BroadbandCommunications SolutionsBy M. Shannon

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Governments and local authorities rely heavily uponcommunications systems to prevent crime or injury, detectthreats and respond to man-made and natural disasters.Enhancing resources to enable recovery has proven difficult.This is especially troublesome when failures and incompatibilitiesin existing communications systems can be catastrophic,resulting in chaos, confusion, delayed response and lost lives.

Some of the pressing issues inhibiting effective wirelesscommunications for public safety are:• Incompatibility of communications equipment between

agencies• Inability to share data between command and control

and first responders• Inconsistent budget cycles and funding • The absence of standards for communications evolution

In this article, we review the state of emergency managementagencies and describe requirements that critical networkinfrastructures must address to support the evolving firstresponders’ mission.

Beyond Land Mobile Radio TechnologyWhile the complexity of the first responders’ mission hasincreased in recent years, the availability of information toassist them to do their job has also dramatically increased. Thisincludes closed-circuit television video, HazMAT information,diagrams, blueprints, data and voice communications. Gettingessential information to the right people rapidly is crucial. Therecipients could be first responders on the ground or decisionmakers with the authority to deploy resources. The inability toshare information among agencies and first responders can putpeople and missions at risk.

Many national, state and local governments use communicationsnetworks and systems that handle voice well, but not voice,data and video traffic. These aging systems manage limitedamounts of data transmissions at very low rates.

First responders use two-way radios to communicate duringtimes of crisis. Radios connect multiple agencies to disparatedispatch centers. Most of these systems rely on the

functionality of Land Mobile Radio(LMR) technology, which cannot relayreal-time multimedia information.

The need for multiple agencies (such as police, fire, emergency medicine andcrisis-related first responders) frommultiple jurisdictions (including national,federal, state and local governments) in times of crisis has brought to theforefront the importance ofcommunications systems that facilitatecoordinated efforts. Government leadersneed a seamless communicationsnetwork, based on open networkstandards and operating proceduresacross wireless and landline networks,that supports all public safety agenciesand affiliated groups.

Managing the Complexity of the MissionThe need for communicationsinteroperability is not new. But thewealth of digitized information frommultiple sources is new and hasdramatically increased in recent years.

In the wake of the attacks on theUnited States in 2001, internationalprogress has been made to developstandards for first responder communi-cations. The Association of PublicSafety Communications OfficialsInternational (APCO) and the NationalAssociation of State TelecommunicationsDirectors (NASTD) are collaboratingwith federal agencies and industryrepresentatives to establish APCO 25, a standard-setting initiative for uniformdigital two-way radio technology forpublic safety organizations.

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Their efforts are guided by a four-part strategy to:• Enhance functionality with equipment and capabilities • Improve spectrum efficiency• Ensure competition among multiple vendors through open

systems architecture• Allow effective, efficient and reliable intra-agency and

inter-agency communications

Converged IP Broadband Networks for Public SafetyFortunately, major technology developments in networking,especially multimedia-capable mobile handsets, have caught up with the vision for how life-saving information can beexchanged in the field in real time. Enabling this vision areconverged any-to-any networking infrastructures enabled bythe transition from analog to digital technologies and theconsolidation of dedicated and disparate networks. Broadbandnetworks now deliver data, video and voice communications to multiple destinations.

A growing number of Emergency Management Services (EMS)operations around the world recognize the need to arm theirresponder personal devices with wireless high-speed data access.Communicating to a central command center and to otherresponders improves response time and community safety,ensuring all parties receive up-to-date accurate information.

New technology and market developments – such as real-timevideo surveillance, mobile interactive video and remotedatabase access – require increased bandwidth to operateeffectively. Leading first responder organizations are usingtechnologies such as WiMAX or CDMA to deploy broadbandwireless networks which support these multimedia needs.Existing critical voice communications continue to remain on separate established technologies; however, broadband canbe used for noncritical voice communication, which helpsalleviate the congestion on LMR networks.

New broadband network infrastructures must be able toautomatically recover from inevitable outages that occur duringemergency situations and ensure communications availability.

Building a Common PlatformDesigning a public safety network is a complex undertaking.Each public safety agency has specific needs based on operationalobjectives. But deploying a network has many constraints,including geographic location, terrain, regulatory frameworkand spectrum availability. All these factors must be consideredwhen designing the network.

Reducing response times, while coordinating emergencypersonnel, is essential to public safety. The foundation forcoordination is an integrated, mission-critical mobilecommunications network that is reliable and secure and can be upgraded with new services and capabilities as needed.

Although individual agencies require their own network, thechallenge is ensuring integrated communications across multipleagencies, enabling coordinated intervention by an array of firstresponders.

Many public service organizations haveexisting, analog-based voice networksand need to migrate to new networkswith IP capabilities. These agenciesmust ensure a smooth transition fromtheir legacy systems to a digital PrivateMobile Radio solution based on industrystandards such as Terrestrial TrunkedRadio (TETRA) or APCO 25.

To operate effectively, first respondersrequire crucial, large bandwidth services,such as, real-time video surveillance,mobile interactive video and remotedatabase access. For many organizations,the solution is to deploy a separatewireless broadband network using mass-market radio access technologies such as WiMAX or CDMA.

Since first response operations areusually publicly funded, they often facebudget constraints and public scrutiny.Traditional purpose-built componentsused in proprietary LMR networks haveproven expensive given the limitedvolume the market drives. New publicsafety broadband communicationssolutions built upon commercial, off-the-shelf carrier-grade products lowersthe cost of ownership by leveragingeconomies of scale, reducing equipment,network operations and maintenanceexpenses. This also enhances reliabilityand offers a variety of cost-effectivedevices.

A Case in PointOne example of a standards-basedmission-critical broadband wirelessinfrastructure is the Alcatel-Lucentpublic safety solution based onCDMA2000® 1xEV-DO Revision A(DO Rev A). DO Rev A meets thespecial requirements of mission-criticalfirst responder high-speed datacommunications.

Operating in the 700 MHz band, DORev A dramatically exceeds the limitedrange of solutions deployed in the 4.9GHz public safety band (approximately300 yards or less with line-of-sitecoverage). Broadband technologies inthe 700 MHz band range up to 29kilometers (depending on the terrain) inurban, suburban and rural environments,ensuring lower cost, higher capacitycoverage per square kilometer.

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And, broadband delivers the speeds and low latency needed tosupport real-time multimedia communications (Figure 1).

With peak transmission rates up to 3.1 Mb/s, DO Rev Atechnology supplements existing LMR networks supporting a range of advanced multimedia services, such as streamingvideo, multimedia messaging, web access and backup push-to-talk service.

The solution supports a growing spectrum of advancedcommunication capabilities (Table 1).

Fire services

Remoteusers

Internet

Ambulance

Police

Critical infrastructure High crime areas

Central dispatch

Command and control center PBX

AMDS

LMRCC

Security managementIP address managementNetwork management

Interworking andcollaboration

Broadbandwireless

capabilitiesto complement

LMR/TETRA

Secure informationaccess audit trail

CCTV videosurveillance

Automated emergencymessage alerts

Alcatel-Lucent servicescomplement existingresources and lowerstransformation risk

Mission-critical WANinfrastructure as a

foundation for videosurveillance and

mobile communications

Local government

Schools, hospitals,stadiums

Mission-criticalWAN infrastructure

Public wireline/wireless

Figure 1: Mission-critical WAN infrastructure for public safety applications

• Remote database access• Text messaging• Telemetry/remote diagnostics• Push-to-talk with fast call set-up• Web access• Voice over IP, including interoperability with legacy and new LMR infrastructure through the use of gateways

• Streaming video (surveillance, remote monitoring)• Broadcast (multicast) audio or video sent simultaneously to multiple handsets• Digital imaging• Automatic vehicle location• Computer-aided dispatching• E-mail• Mapping/GIS (geographic information system)

Table 1: Broadband-enabled applications for public safety

The standards-based CDMA solutionleverages the economies of scale ofcommercial 3G network deploymentand allows interoperability betweenpublic safety broadband and commercial3G wireless networks. As commercialCDMA networks evolve to 4G, thepublic safety 700 MHz solution willintegrate and leverage the improvedcapabilities of new technologies such as LTE.

A Turnkey Mission-criticalSolutionKey to the broadband wireless solutionis the fixed wide area network (WAN)that connects the antennae sites. Thismission-critical infrastructure enablesreliable broadband traffic betweenantennae sites and fixed locations withscalability to support evolving andgrowing information flow.

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A combination of microwave, IP/MPLS and optical technologiesare often utilized in this infrastructure. In addition, this WANenables the consolidation of traffic from the agency’s fixed sitesand mobile first responders for increased efficiency and flexibility.

Many public safety organizations are faced with limited in-house expertise to support new broadband wireless capabilities.To maximize network performance and availability, Alcatel-Lucent provides day-to-day management of the overallbroadband network while the agency retains control overpriorities, policies and network operation.

ConclusionField-proven expertise and a broad product portfolio uniquelyposition Alcatel-Lucent to deliver broadband wireless networksthat meet the most stringent requirements of homelandsecurity and public safety first responders.

Mission-critical infrastructure solutions include wireless, IP,microwave, optical and mobile radio conferring products andservices designed to enable vital and secure communication inthe field, as well as full interoperability among multiple agenciesand jurisdictions. State-of-the-art network management solutionsdeliver real-time provisioning and troubleshooting to ensuremission-critical networks always operate at peak efficiency.

Mark Shannon is Director of Industry and Public Sector Solutions Marketing,Carrier Business Group, Alcatel-Lucent, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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The energy utilities industry is very conservative. The combinationof long asset life and the absolute priority on safety and reliabilityhas meant that many of the technologies have not changedradically since the 1950s.

Now that is changing. Faced with the rapid shift in energy-consumption patterns, the move to green energy solutions andthe evolution of communications technologies, utilities arereassessing their energy delivery strategies.

This article explores the pressures that this industry is facing. It takes a look at how two of the big technology changes – smartgrids and smart metering – mandate the need for a cohesivecommunications strategy.

The Industry PressuresThere are four fundamental pressures on today’s utilities:• The changing pattern of electricity consumption, driven

by the extensive proliferation of air conditioning resulting in the peak period of electricity consumption moving to theheat of summer.

• The move toward green energy solutions, epitomized by theEuropean Commission, which requires (among other things)20% renewable energies in overall EU energy consumption by2020.1 This is not uniquely European: politicians everywhereare pressuring utilities to accommodate environmental change.

• Consumers and regulators alike are demanding highly reliableenergy delivery, vital in maintaining an efficient nationaleconomy.

• Financial stakeholders require better operational efficiency.Large-scale investment in new energy infrastructure is to beavoided where feasible.

Given that the basic electricity infrastructure lacks the flexibilityto track swiftly changing market pressures, utilities areexamining two complementary approaches to increasing theefficiency of their networks:• Intelligent networks• Smart metering

feature

Energy TransformationTechnologiesBy P. Johnson

1 © 2008, Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package, 2854th Council meeting Transport,Telecommunications and Energy, Brussels

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Intelligent networksIntelligent networks (a term covering smart grids, substationautomation and distribution automation) aim to improve theutilization of the network assets by monitoring and controllingthem far more closely than previously possible. For example:• Make the energy-carrying capacity of a network dynamic

by measuring in real time climatic conditions such asinstantaneous temperature or the cooling effect of the wind,thus enabling better network utilization.

• Today’s distribution networks have little real-timemeasurement or control. Intelligent technologies will providea far more accurate picture of demand, energy flows andnetwork incidents, yielding a major improvement in energyreliability and asset utilization.

• The modern techniques of “condition monitoring” –monitoring the network assets for telltale signs of performancedegradation – allow a very accurate forecast of equipmentfailures to be built. This means that assets can be replaced ona just-in-time basis, delivering significant investment savingsand increased energy reliability.

The benefits of intelligent energy networks are huge. Theyextend the lifetime of the assets, optimize power flows, increaseenergy reliability and enable investment to be focused where itis most needed.

Smart meteringSmart metering is primarily intended to make consumers more conscious ofenergy consumption, thus leading toreduced consumption during peakperiods and an overall reduction in theproduction of greenhouse gases.

Informing the user is merely the firststep: facilitating the desired action byconsumers requires two other capabilities:• The use of tariffs to encourage energy

consciousness (whereby highinstantaneous demand during periodsof peak demand is charged a premiumprice)

• Direct control of major householdappliances

A fuller exploration of these topics canbe found in the Alcatel-Lucent whitepaper, Smart Metering – Enabling GreaterEnergy Efficiency.2

Smart metering brings its own set ofchallenges. This is a new application

Microwave

IP/MPLSMultiservice

edge and core

Ethernet/SDH/SONET/WDM

Transport

MultiserviceAccess

• Teleprotection• Legacy SCADA• Legacy telemetry• Other legacy operational services

MPLSservice routerSDH/

SONETMUX EoSDH

module

Packet-basedservices

TDM-basedservices

• IP SCADA• IEC 61850 services• IP CCTV• Operational voice• Enterprise services

Figure 1: The typical transformation infrastructure for utilities

2 ©2007, Smart Metering – Enabling Great Energy Efficiency, PeterJohnson, Alcatel-Lucent White Paper

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using new technologies – the smart meters, the communicationsnetwork to access millions of devices and the platform tomanage them.

Communications as the Key EnablerAs stated above, the technologies used in the energy networkshave not changed radically since the 1950s. Thus,communications networks have, in general, been built up overseveral decades using ad hoc, application-specific technologies,with little network sharing and, in many cases, with littlemanagement or control.

To deliver the benefits of intelligent networks and smartmetering, a homogeneous, reliable, flexible communicationsinfrastructure is essential. Today, it is feasible to create a singlecohesive network that will support:

• Latency-critical applications such as teleprotection• Existing modem-based SCADA applications• Intelligent network and smart metering applications using

modern communications protocols• IEC61850 Ethernet-based services for future automation

applications• Other future applications, such as closed-circuit TV (CCTV)

for physical security, which will expect the latestcommunications protocols to be supported

This results in a typical infrastructure as shown in Figure 1.

In this architecture, the multi-service optical transport layerensures the support of both mission-critical operations such asteleprotection services, with their very tight technicalrequirements, and existing applications using traditional TDM-based protocols. Simultaneously, it efficiently transportspacket-based data for new services and applications on thesame infrastructure.

The IP/MPLS layer supports new packet-based applicationstraffic, including substation automation, smart metering andsecurity services with a virtualized network using Layer 2 andLayer 3 VPNs. Corporate voice, video and data applicationscan also be supported, with traffic management features ensuringthat mission-critical operational traffic is given priority.

This network architecture delivers high reliability with securesupport of mission-critical operations traffic. The associatedend-to-end management capability makes this network easy tomanage, allowing utilities to lower the skill barrier for staff.

Alcatel-Lucent has been helping utilities make theirtransformations successful. It has allowed existing applicationsto be migrated and supported without disruption and hasenabled systems operators to realize the consequent efficiencyand reliability improvements.

For those starting down the road to energynetwork transformation, Alcatel-Lucent’sexperience suggests a number of steps: • By starting with the high-voltage

substations, a modernized multi-serviceTDM and Ethernet transport footprintcan be established that will support allutility services.

• Substation transformation to Ethernetservices will be driven by asset life cyclemanagement or new plant construction.New Intelligent Electrical Devices willsimply plug in to the transport footprintestablished earlier.

• Distribution automation and smartmetering should be considered ascomplementary activities (where theregulatory regime permits). In this way,an access network can be built thatsupports both these applications in asingle, cohesive network. This requiresthat the complete future accessrequirements are considered at theoutset of the project, otherwise utilitiesrisk perpetuating application-specific,vertically integrated networks, therebyaggravating communicationsinefficiency.

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ConclusionEnergy utilities are on the cusp of the first real technologychange in network and metering technologies since the 1950s.This change is predicated on the requirement for a robust,reliable and flexible communications network that will supportexisting mission-critical applications as well as the evolution to modern smart grid and smart metering technologies.

This is an area in which Alcatel-Lucent has a wealth ofexperience with utilities worldwide, which it stands ready toleverage as the utilities industry continues its transformation.

Peter Johnson is Vice President Utilities, Industry and Public Sector, Alcatel-Lucent,Maidenhead, United Kingdom.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send e-mail toenrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

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Managing enterprise security risk has always been a challenge.Today, as end-user realities evolve and the pace of change in enterprises accelerates, the challenge of managing risk to enterprise assets is also growing. An increasingly mobileworkforce is bringing new demands for anytime, anywhere,converged communications. Innovative new technologies haveled to a flurry of new end-user devices and applications,enabling new capabilities that are further driving end-userdemand. And more stringent regulatory requirements areincreasing potential liabilities.

The Dynamic Enterprise is a term that describes an organizationthat is constantly evolving to quickly adapt to its marketenvironment and differentiate itself from its competitors –must simplify communications, strengthen relationships andincrease productivity in a continuous transformation process.

A dynamic enterprise has four key assets which it mustefficiently and securely interconnect:• The network, which is the foundation for the enterprise

communications infrastructure• People, which includes employees, contractors, partners and

suppliers• Processes, which are critical for compliance• The knowledge in their organization, which is typically

in people’s heads or scattered across multiple databases

By securely interconnecting these four assets, a dynamicenterprise can quickly adapt to new market environments anddifferentiate itself from competitors. And it can benefit fromsimplified communications, stronger relationships and increasedproductivity to enable continuous and transformative growth.

feature

User-centric Security andThe Dynamic EnterpriseBy F. Cosquer

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One recent and promising approach that allows dynamicenterprises to securely share the knowledge in theirorganizations and reduce the risk associated with fast-evolvingend-user realities is to bring security closer to people. In practice,that means reinforcing security at the points where end usersconnect to the corporate networks and reinforcing security formobile user communications.

To fully understand how this user-centric approach to securitycan help dynamic enterprises evolve their risk managementstrategies, it is helpful to first take a closer look at the securityimpact of today’s new end-user realities.

New End-user Realities and Security Impact To be successful and profitable, dynamic enterprises mustsecurely accommodate the new end-user realities. For instance:

• Enterprises must allow end users to connect to their networksfrom anywhere – from the more obvious need to supportconnections from remote offices, hotels and airports to theless obvious need to support new, blended lifestyles that allowend users to connect from home or from a café. Additionally,end users expect to be able to connect anytime and from awide range of devices.

• In addition to accommodating new connection patterns,enterprises are also pushed toward allowing users to benefitfrom any available connectivity. This means supporting bothwired and wireless technology. With increasing penetration of 3G networks, enterprises must also support connectionthrough service provider networks for extended coverage.

• Enterprises must allow end users to access corporate resourcesfrom anywhere and at all times. This capability increases therisk that sensitive information will fall into the wrong handsand, as a result, increases potential liabilities and businessimpacts for the enterprise.

Managing Risk with User-centric SecurityMost approaches to security in the enterprise have focused onprotecting the network infrastructure with no or little

attention to end users. As a result,traditional security functions andassociated devices, such as firewalls andintrusion detection and preventiondevices, deal mainly with network-levelprotection. Although still part of theoverall security story, such an approachhas limitations in light of the newsecurity challenges described in theprevious section.

User-centric security helps enterprisesreduce the risk associated with fast-evolving end-user realities by reinforcingsecurity closer to end users. User-centricsecurity is not the same as user security.

User-centric security is about answeringpeoples’ needs in ways that preserve theintegrity of the enterprise network andits assets. User security can almost seemlike a matter of protecting the networkfrom the user – securing it againstvulnerabilities that user needs introduce.User-centric security has the greatervalue for enterprises.

For user-centric security to be realized,enterprises must create secureenvironments within which end userscan go about their business. They mustbe surrounded by security solutions thatare integrated as a fundamental conditionof their working environment, as opposedto intrusive, reactive security measuresthat can reduce end-user productivityand limit mobility. This approach requiresreinforcing security at the corporatenetwork connection points and for mobileusers’ communications as well asmanagement of user-centric security(Figure 1).

Figure 1: User-centric security reinforces security closer to end users

An open and flexible approach supports existing, complex environments, protects investmentsand can leverage a wide ecosystem of partners for reduced time-to-market

Secure the user-awarenetwork edge

Secure mobileusers’ communications

Manage user-centricsecurity

Flexible

A secure, open architecture based on the ITU X.805 standard, provides a structured andstandards-based approach

Securityby design

Designed for both enterprises and service providers, enabling service providers to leveragetechnologies for customer premises equipment or as part of managed services offerings

Business-grade

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Managing User-centric SecurityManagement is a key component of any user-centric approach– from identity, to audit, to in-country-specific policies andregulations. There are two key objectives that enterprises needto keep in mind at all times:

• Simplicity is security’s best friend. Although this fact hasbeen stated often, it remains a challenge.

• Reuse offers a clear path to protect capital expenditures andcontain operating expenditures. Deployment of a securitylayer should maximize the existing architecture and ensureseamless integration with existing operational tasks andprocedures. The latter will also increase simplicity byreducing training time and leveraging existing skill sets.

One approach to achieve simplicity and maximize reuse of theexisting environment is to centralize functions and convergesecurity management and network management under a singleframework whenever possible. The following describes threeareas where this type of centralized approach can be applied.

Centralized AAA servicesIt is a good practice to use existing Authentication,Authorization and Accounting (AAA) standards and extendtheir use for all devices in a unique repository (for example,desktops, laptops, IP phones, mobile handsets). With thisapproach, Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service(RADIUS) can be used for all new devices. This allows for easy

overlay deployment within the existingsecure architecture. It also helps ensureseamless deployment of Layer 2authentication methods, such as IEEE802.1X for IP phones.

Centralized policy management for all usersAll user policies must be integrated andfederated with the directories andsystems already being used to manageuser identities in the enterprise. A user-based profiles approach allows forsecurity management and networkmanagement under a commonframework and enables a set of attributesand user roles to be mapped withoptimal abstraction. Users are defined inreference to roles (for example,employee/engineering, contractor/finance,visitor/briefing center) as well as networkcriteria (such as subnets, MAC range,VLAN).

Enterprises also need to custom-definetheir quarantine rules and ensure theycan be applied in a multi-vendorenvironment. The advantage goesbeyond provisioning to includeoperational procedures, such as centralisolation and remediation of policyviolators down to port, device and user,anywhere on the network – wired,wireless or remote. Interaction ofnetwork devices with a centralizedpolicy management system facilitatesthe deployment of quarantinemechanisms against faulty users andcontains attacks that may occur both at the edge as well as in the network.

Centralized monitoring and logs for audit and complianceFull visibility is fundamental to detectsuspicious traffic or activities andprovide actionable information forbetter control. To avoid managing anoverwhelming volume of raw data,monitoring and logging systems shouldsupport a per-user/role traffic classificationwith both real-time and historical data,including applications usage. Inaddition, for efficiency in operationalprocedures, the solutions should providea dashboard that summarizes all collectedsecurity statuses and provides the abilityto view and audit key user data drillingdown to low-level events as necessary.

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Finally, two properties will protect the evolution of themonitoring and logging platform:

• Open interfaces for event collection and correlation withsupport for a complex ecosystem (third parties) as audit andcompliance requirements evolve

• Hierarchical-based implementation for scaling, to supportgrowth of the network and its user base

The benefits will be fully realized with a user-friendly interfacethat allows IT staff to understand the overall security status ata glance and make it easy to generate customizable reports forauditing purposes.

ConclusionThis user-centric security approach allows dynamic enterprisesto support the evolution of everyday end-user realities andquickly adapt to the changing competitive landscape byimplementing:

• Reinforced security at the edges of the extended corporatenetwork where mobile end users are likely to connect

• Enhanced mobile user security with dedicated securityfunctions embedded in the communications devices on whichthey rely

• Simplified and user-centric management of security with aunified interface, converged security management and networkmanagement under a unique framework whenever possible

There are several advantages to this structured andstraightforward approach to user-centric security. They include:

• Improved productivity as a result of automated securityfunctions and reduced end-user involvement

• Regulatory compliance facilitated by bringing key securityfunctions closer to end users and the devices they carry

• Lower total cost of ownership by unifying of securityfunctions and operational procedures

With a full portfolio of solutions and multi-vendor professionalservices, Alcatel-Lucent is committed to supporting dynamicenterprises as they evolve their risk management strategies.1

By leveraging innovative technologies from Bell Labs andservices teams with a global presence, Alcatel-Lucent deliversalways-on security.

Francois Cosquer is Chief Technology Officer, Security, Alcatel-Lucent, EnterpriseProducts Group, Colombes, France.

To contact the author or request additional information, please send e-mail to enrich.editor@alcatel-lucent.com.

1 http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/enterprise/en/solutions/security/index.html; http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/enterprise/en/solutions/security/security_portfolio.htm

the dynamicenterprisePublisher: Alcatel-Lucent, société anonymeRegistered Office: 54 rue la Boétie, 75008 Paris, FranceTrade Registration: RCS Paris 542 019 096ISSN: 1960-7652

Director of Publication: Ben VerwaayenGlobal Editorial Director: Ruth KilleenGlobal Managing Editor: Joyce MaskArt Director: Phil ColeOnline Editor: Christine ManganelloGuest Editor: Xavier Martin

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Note: Currency conversions published within were calculatedusing the daily rate at the time of article development.

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