Siemens IT Solutions and Services Introduces Unified Communications and Collaboration Service Offering
Dramatic cost reductions and improved productivity
NORWALK, Conn., March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Inc. new Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solution has the potential to dramatically lower travel costs, increase productivity and reduce the carbon footprints of their customers. As one of the world's largest users of UCC in the world, Siemens has transformed their own expertise with this burgeoning technology into a full set of services designed to help their customers change the way they communicate with co-workers, clients, and vendors.
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The concept of Web meetings, voice, video, and file sharing connectivity is not totally new and a number of companies made significant investments in expensive prototype technologies in the early 90s. But with the latest UCC technology, companies are able to dramatically improve collaboration with colleagues and customers while increasing efficiency and dramatically reducing travel costs.
UCC technology combines the power of collaboration with voice, video, office business suites and file sharing across all media. It allows people in different physical locations to work productively by eliminating the cost and time demands of travel and allowing geographically dispersed teams to connect instantly. The integration of voice, video and standard calendar tools dramatically improves collaboration by allowing clients and co-workers to meet, see each other visually, share ideas and simultaneously work on documents and projects.
"We use UCC extensively within Siemens and it allows you to mimic being there without actually having to travel," said Ray Crowe, Director of Portfolio and Strategy at Siemens IT Solutions and Services. "With colleagues in 190 countries, it allows anyone in our organization the freedom to access colleagues anywhere in the world without the hassle and cost of airline travel.
The technology is becoming increasingly attractive as companies around the world continue to shed costs. Last year, U.S. companies cut travel budgets 30-40 percent and -- despite the recovering economy -- are unlikely to return to prior levels of expenditures.
Crowe said that Siemens is realizing substantial savings with UCC in comparison to normal travel or even conference call usage. The cost for a phone bridge for a typical 30-minute conference call with Germany, for instance, runs roughly $25. Airline and hotel travel for a two-day trip to Munich ranges from $2500-$4500. According to Crowe, using the Siemens UCC reduces the cost to only a fraction of that expense while providing access to greater resources and improving productivity. "I can work in my office right up until the time of the meeting, see and share documents and get back to my other work upon completion of the meeting. The cost savings and work efficiencies are amazing." Overall, Crowe said that Siemens has realized savings of almost twice what was originally projected.
Siemens offers a suite of technology-agnostic solutions with the best-of-breed technologies. It can be integrated with any telecommunications technology and commonly used office suites to easily schedule availability and share documents for meetings and projects. One of the most useful features is instant calendaring, allowing someone seeking an appointment to peruse participant calendars and schedule appointments when schedules are clear. "The simple ability to ensure that the people you are trying to see are available and ready to work is a powerful UCC advantage. It all but eliminates telephone tag, missed meetings, and scheduling miscommunications."
"Siemens can bring all of these elements together in a fashion that makes sense for almost any company," said Crowe. "With our own global UCC implementation, we've really become a laboratory for seeing what works best in a variety of environments. We consult with our customers at the outset to determine the impact of UCC on their infrastructure and design a solution that fits the needs of their organization. At the other end, we provide robust application, user support and service desk capabilities to ensure that the solution evolves along with their business," he said. "We can help our customers make intelligent decisions on some of the toughest questions they're facing in this environment."
Siemens is seeing adoption of UCC technology increase dramatically upon introduction. "It becomes a very peer-driven collaboration tool," noted Crowe. "Once a few users or groups adopt it as their primary means of collaboration, participation quickly snowballs. Our European colleagues have moved away from the traditional conference call and rely on UCC almost exclusively for meetings. The larger the volume of adopters in an organization, the more quickly you can achieve a significant return on your investment."
UCC technology makes particular sense for industries in which high touch customer service and inter-office collaboration is important. Companies in areas as diverse as financial services, manufacturing and utilities are ripe for an innovation such as this.
"If you want to continue to cut costs without sacrificing quality, improve your collaborative innovation, reduce your environmental impact, and perhaps even improve the quality of life for your employees by reducing the amount of travel required of them, then UCC may be a solution for you," said Crowe.
About Siemens IT Solutions and Services
Siemens IT Solutions and Services is an internationally leading provider of IT solutions and services. It covers the entire IT service chain from a single source, from consulting to system integration, right through to the management of IT infrastructures. In addition, Siemens IT Solutions and Services complements the portfolio offerings of the Siemens Sectors with IT solutions. With its comprehensive know-how and industry-specific knowledge, the IT provider creates measurable added value for its customers. Siemens IT Solutions and Services employs more than 35,000 people and posts annual sales of about $6.3 billion, of which over 75 percent are generated outside of the Siemens Sectors. More information at: www.usa.siemens.com/it-solutions.
SOURCE Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Inc.
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