Author: Gary Barnett
When it comes to reducing IT costs, the network/telephony layer is a good place to start. But, reducing costs also usually involves eliminating complexity. And, both objectives are difficult to achieve when you’re using proprietary solutions that are hardware-centric.
I’m sure your IT department is currently incorporating standards-based solutions into their enterprise architecture. They are using those solutions to leverage existing investments, eliminate vendor-lock in, save money and time, and reduce risk. You should be taking the same approach in your contact center - for the exact same benefits - deploying standards-based solutions that will make your center IT-ready.
You see, the network layer, which transports data from here to there and back, has become a commodity – meaning that it all does basically the same thing. The differentiator is the applications sitting on top of the network layer. But your IT staff still wants the flexibility to select their transport of choice and use whatever option best fits the needs and budget of your business – open source Voice over IP (VoIP), such as an Asterisk IP-PBX, closed source VoIP or traditional voice. Leading IT organizations also want to be able to easily migrate you from traditional switching technologies to SIP-based VoIP, single-site to virtual contact center, centralized to localized management or any combination thereof.
There may be a major obstacle standing in your way … you may be faced with a hornet’s nest of proprietary solutions that currently comprise your contact center and limit your options.
Incorporating SIP 2.0-compliant solutions into your contact center empowers your IT staff to leverage other investments that have SIP-based capabilities. As a result, you will be able to use a single network layer for all interactions, reduce proprietary hardware dependencies and isolate the impact of change.
In fact, Aspect Software is so serious about the importance of SIP that we recently attended SIPit 22, an event dedicated to refining the SIP protocol and its implementations. We were one of only 50 companies to attend this year’s SIPit 22, which was coordinated by the SIP Forum.
And, last year, we introduced our SIP Power Through Choice program and challenged all of our contact center peers to guarantee the compliance of their SIP-enabled solutions with SIP 2.0 devices. We’ve also created an interoperability lab as part of our R&D investment, which pre-certifies “pipes and plumbing” from the leading infrastructure companies to ensure the interoperability of our standards-based solutions. These are just a few examples of how we are providing you greater choice and control, and you should be looking for this type of commitment from all of your contact center vendors.
Do you feel like your proprietary solutions are holding you back?
