Lowering the Cost of Communications, and Six More Real

Benefits of Lync Enterprise Voice

by Zeus Kerravala
June 2013

Lync Enterprise Voice and Lync video can improve worker productivity and
streamline business processes, while lowering the overall total cost of
communications. Lync Enterprise Voice and video enables the following benefits:

ZK Research
A Division of Kerravala
Consulting

Lowers the total cost of communications. The cost savings from Lync
comes from multiple factors. Exhibit 1 shows the main areas of costs savings
and how they are derived. The relative percentage of each category will vary
by organization, but in general, the bulk of savings will come from longdistance charges, conversion to SIP and lower day-to-day maintenance costs.

Exhibit 1: Cost Savings from Lync Comes from Multiple Sources

Long distance charges

Low cost or free on-net calls, least cost routing

Trunking charges

Consolidation of trunks, conversion to SIP

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System maintenance

Reduction in spares, faster upgrades, lowercost hardware

IT personnel

Reassignment of IT staff, more tasks done with

front line support

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Moves, adds and

changes (MAC)

MACs evolve to a self-service model driving the

cost of a MAC from an average of $300 to zero

Mobility

Wi-Fi calling, unified messaging, mobile UC

Source: ZK Research, 2013

Improvement in worker productivity. Employee productivity gains can be

realized from integrating voice and video functions into business applications.
A software-based UC solution, such as Lync, can be used as a development
platform where developers can build click-to-chat, click-to-call or click-to-video
based applications.

Better bang for the UC buck with existing UC solutions. The features
enabled with Lync Enterprise Voice, combined with integration into business
applications, will drive up usage of the UC tools and make workers much
more efficient, providing rapid return on the UC investment. ZK Research
studies estimate integrated voice features can save workers an average of
four hours per week.

Consolidation of infrastructure. Legacy communications systems often

require system hardware to be resident in every location. Lync can change the
architecture to reflect more modern applications. Lync servers can be centrally
deployed in a data center, and functionality can be distributed over the WAN,
similar e-mail, CRM or other business applications.

2013 ZK Research
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Lowering the Cost of Communications, and Five More Real Benefits of Lync Enterprise Voice

Faster time-to-market. Historically it could take weeks or even months to deliver new communications
features to workers, as each system in each location had to be touched. A centrally deployed
implementation means the system can be updated in a single location (or twice for redundancy) and every
worker has the new features.

Supports a strategic BYOD initiative. The mobile device of today has far more capabilities than a laptop
did just a few years ago. Mobile devices can be used for real-time video services and have high-quality
audio capabilities, making them ideal for remote collaboration. A corporate BYOD implementation should
include Microsoft Lync to maximize value.

Lay the groundwork for video. Video is a powerful enterprise communications tool. Lync video simplifies
deployment and, more importantly, creates an easy-to-use interface for workers. Even if it will not be utilized
immediately, its important to have the infrastructure and solution partnerships in place to accommodate
video when feasible for the organization to move forward.

Part 2 of 5 in the Beyond IM and Presence: Best Practices for Deploying Microsoft Lync Series

2013 ZK Research: A Division of Kerravala Consulting

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For questions, comments or further information, email zeus@zkresearch.com.