Local Councils investing in Unified Communications

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Local Councils investing in Unified Communications

Councils report improved customer service and internal communications

Auckland, New Zealand, 10 February 2009 - Unified Communications (UC) technology appears to be paying off for New Zealand’s local government sector, according to a new survey by the Association of Local Government Information Management (ALGIM) and local Unified Communications provider Zeacom.  The study includes responses from 33 of New Zealand’s 85 local councils.

The local government sector has significant plans to continue investing in UC technologies, with 85% of councils surveyed planning to increase their spending by an average of $73,000 each over the next two years.  76% of councils surveyed have already implemented some form of unified communications ranging from Internet Protocol phones to Presence to enhanced contact centre tools.  These councils have spent an average of $125,000 on UC to date. 

Unified Communications aims to integrate and simplify all forms of communications, such as phone, mobiles, email, faxes, instant messaging, in an organisation using various software and network infrastructure tools.

59% of councils using UC reported measurable improvements in work efficiencies for end-users.  43% of councils with UC reported improvements in customer service levels, better communication between different divisions, faster internal communication and fewer delays.

More than two thirds of councils surveyed said they would evaluate the Return on Investment of UC projects by measuring customer satisfaction and productivity gains as the key metrics. 

UC has proven itself as a valuable tool for local council operations, according to Mike Manson, Chief Executive of ALGIM.  “Unified Communications is helping our members overcome business challenges associated with the responsibility for providing a wide range of specialist services to diverse stakeholders and with finite budgets. This study shows that councils large and small are reporting quantifiable results from their UC activities and plan to continue investing in additional features. 

“It is good to see that UC is being viewed as a strategic tool that improves the quality of service, boosts productivity and therefore reduces costs,” says Manson.

The majority of councils surveyed already used VOIP, IP PBX, Calendar integration with Presence and Contact Centre Voice Queuing technologies.

Simon Grieve, National Account Manager at Zeacom, says the availability of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technologies in recent years has laid the foundations for advanced UC features.  “Features like VOIP and IP PBX are reasonably mature technologies that provide the infrastructure for the value-added UC technology which councils are deriving strategic benefits from.  The next wave of features coming through are those that help users be more productive and improve their communications or service to ratepayers,” says Grieve.

The UC features that are being most rapidly adopted by councils are Presence, Unified Messaging, Calendar integration with Presence Profiles, and Microsoft Outlook integration with Voicemail.  Over 42% of councils surveyed have already implemented one, if not more, of these features and another quarter of the councils plans to adopt at least one.

Local government IT Managers felt  that gaining budget approval was the greatest issue when implementing a UC project (58%), followed by gaining buy-in from management (39%) and users (also 39%).  However, Presence, one of the cornerstone UC features most likely to be adopted by councils in future, has been well received by council staff to date.  48% of councils had already implemented Presence and practically all of those reported that updating Presence is now a regular (27%) or semi-regular (30%) habit for their end-users. 

The online survey of 33 IT Managers or CIOs from local authorities was jointly developed by Zeacom and ALGIM and conducted in November 2008. A full copy of the research report is available at www.zeacom.com/ucreport

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