Unlocking operational savings through effective SIP deployment
While many observers have commented about the impressive presence and data tagging capabilities of the SIP - Session Initiation Protocol – open standard, at Sabio we have always believed that the real potential of SIP lies in its ability to go beyond existing VoIP protocols by separating the telephony layer from applications. In practice this gives organisations the freedom to select both the optimum communications hardware infrastructure and call pricing plans for their business, and also start to deploy some of the next generation contact centre applications that take full advantage of the technology.
We’re convinced that the initial mainstream deployment of SIP-based technologies will be driven by SIP’s ability to significantly reduce the overall total cost of ownership of contact centre technology infrastructures through approaches such as resource virtualisation and more cost-effective trunking.
We project that SIP – and its deployment using innovative next generation architecture solutions such as Avaya Aura – has the potential to help businesses to significantly lower their overall telephony and infrastructure costs, play a key role in simplifying today’s complex communications networks, and prove an important enabler for the delivery of next generation customer service.
Consolidating and supporting multi-vendor environments
Avaya Aura’s open standards approach, for example, opens up a broad range of possibilities for both existing Avaya customers as well as organisations who currently operate within a multi-vendor environment. For contact centre operators particularly, infrastructure solutions such as Avaya Aura will play a key role in streamlining infrastructure costs and opening up the potential of powerful multimedia, multi-channel contact centres to a broader range of organisations.
A key component for contact centres will be the new SIP-based Avaya Aura Session Manager that centralises communications control and application integration. Session Manager orchestrates a wide array of communications applications and systems by decoupling applications from the network. As a result, services can be deployed to individual users depending on what they need - rather than the traditional model of providing services based on where a user works or according to the capabilities of the system to which they are connected.
Before platforms such as Avaya Aura, organisations with a mix of communication systems from different vendors at separate locations always found it difficult to streamline their business communications activities. Session Manager can now help organisations to integrate and simplify their existing infrastructure, combining existing PBXs and other communications systems – regardless of vendor – into a cohesive, centrally managed communications network.
Unlocking further savings with Avaya Aura
Once organisations have begun the process of consolidating their different systems they can start to unlock further operational savings through more efficient support and management, simpler application deployment and streamlined provisioning, as well as the adoption of more cost effective call routing and enterprise dial plans.
Sabio believes that organisations that are currently reluctant to invest in their communications infrastructure - because of current restrictions on their capital expenditure – should seriously assess the cost implications of centralising and rightsizing their current connections to the PSTN and developing more efficient dial plans.
Our experience is that the potential value of the operational budget released by applying more effective telecoms cost management can go a long way towards funding the initial implementation of a broader SIP architecture – particularly in the contact centre sector where carrier costs have always been high.
These significant opportunities - and the potential bottom line benefits that can be released – are placing a significant premium on experienced Avaya BusinessPartners that can offer the proven contact centre expertise, networking and communications management skills, as well as the ability to develop the next generation applications that can maximise the potential of the Avaya Aura platform.
