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UC adoption programs support users and business goals

Transforming a business with unified communications takes more than deploying new apps and services. End users must adopt the services and incorporate them into their daily workflows. For many organizations, a formal adoption program educates and supports users through the deployment process and beyond to ensure UC adoption success.

“In understanding the business, the people in the roles are equally or more important than the technologies,” said Wainhouse Research analyst Marc Beattie.

The transition to new UC and collaboration services is not a one-and-done deployment. A formal adoption program and process will ensure any new technology helps the organization achieve its business goals, he said.

The key to a formal UC adoption program is to teach end users how the new tools can improve their workflows. But this education must be tailored to specific job roles to be successful.

Customize collaboration workflows

One example of UC adoption success involved a Verizon healthcare customer that upgraded its telephony and video meetings platform for its 2,000 employees, including doctors, nurses, physical therapists and support staff. Amid the rollout, Verizon worked closely with users across the organization to educate them on how the new technology contributed to their business goals, said Brian Gorney, managing director of strategy and program development at Verizon.

For example, the cardiology department needed to deliver training to third-party clinics and residents. Gorney said Verizon worked with the department to show how the new platform could improve the sharing of training information, as well as other information like MRIs and ultrasounds, in a HIPAA-compliant manner.

“To build a strong framework for your program, think about the different personas in your organization and customize the services appropriately,” Beattie said in a recent webinar.

Support UC adoption with vendor partner

A formal UC adoption program can’t always be done easily in-house. A Verizon-sponsored report from Wainhouse found organizations that use vendor-led adoption programs see more overall success than organizations with do-it-yourself programs.

The report, which surveyed 197 IT project managers, found that vendor-led programs were more robust than do-it-yourself programs and offered more services to support UC adoption, such as pre-boarding and onboarding, performance optimization services, and integrated app assistance.

Organizations should also look to vendor-led programs that offer lifecycle support, which is focused on business outcomes and ensuring organizations achieve the results they want by deploying new technology, said Michelle Emerson-Russell, global director of collaboration sales at Verizon. Identifying business goals and establishing key performance indicators to measure against during and after a deployment can determine the deployment’s success and the lifecycle support needed.

The majority of survey respondents said using adoption and lifecycle services led to better outcomes for both IT and end users. IT saw faster adoption of new capabilities, lowered costs and better ROI. End users were able to get work done faster, get more work done and made better decisions, according to the report.

“Both adoption and lifecycle starts with the end users and how the tools can improve their ability to do their job,” Gorney said.

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