Simplicity, ease of use and reliability topped the list of priorities of CIOs and IT/telecom professionals in a recent survey conducted by ShoreTel.
The IP communications vendor surveyed 475 potential customers about what they believe are most important factors when choosing a communications system. The majority of the responses focused on simplicity and ease of use.
Among the survey results, 80 percent believe ease of use and reliability are the most important unified communication capabilities, while 76 percent view ease of management as the most important.
Nearly 81 percent of respondents expressed a desire to simplify their communications system. However, more than half – 53 percent – have not yet set goals to make this happen.
When ranking the causes of complexity in their current communications systems, integrating communications system with business processes was the highest at 44 percent, followed by integrating new equipment with legacy systems, at 38 percent. Number of remote or mobile workers and range devices came in third and fourth at 29 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Respondents also cited issues with their technology providers. When asked to rate their frustration level with technology providers, and specifically market leaders in the VoIP or unified communications category, 65 percent of respondents responded being frustrated by the high number of invisible costs after purchase. Another 63 percent were frustrated by systems that proved difficult and costly to manage, and 57 percent of respondents said they were frustrated by complex systems that are difficult to use and learn, as well as support issues such as with remote users.
“There’s a great opportunity for resellers to serve as trusted partners to their customers, better understand their needs and work together with them to develop the best plan for achieving their communications goals. Channel partners can help customers map out a plan to remove complexity from their existing systems while leveraging existing investments, improving business process integration, and efficiency and lowering their total cost of ownership,” said Gina Jacobs, senior director of Marketing Communications for ShoreTel. “Channel partners understand all the moving parts of a major purchase like this – training needs, space requirements, network issues and deployment challenges – their role is crucial in keeping complexity out of the IT environment.”
