Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is finally coming of age for the enterprise. Over the last decade equipment prices have declined, call quality has improved and service providers have gained valuable experience in deploying VoIP. All these factors have combined to transform this technology into a true corporate asset. According to this new research from Deloitte, it is forecast that more than two-thirds of the Fortune 2,000, will have deployed VoIP either partially or wholly by 2006. Access the full report in the PDF below or learn more from the press release.

Deploying VoIP is a major decision that effects an entire organization. In order to successfully weight up the costs, benefits, risks and opportunities associated with this technology a number of top executives need to be involved:

• CEO A successful deployment can improve the organization’s overall competitiveness,whilst a flawed deployment can paralyze the organization, bringing both voice and data communications to a grinding halt.
• CFO The CFO must ensure the VoIP business case is balanced to reflect the full costs and benefits.
• COO A well-deployed VoIP system can streamline processes in every department from sales to customer support. However, most organizations cannot afford to have their voice systems fail. The COO must guarantee continuity.
• CIO VoIP enables centralized deployment and management of voice services and data on a single network, dramatically improving control and efficiency, and allowing closer integration with business applications. Yet, it also increases an organization’s reliance on its data network — driving up usage and complexity, and creating more work for the IT department.

The primary research undertaken for this report includes a global study of current adoption of VoIP to the desktop among 131 businesses from the Global 2000. Desktop VoIP is the most complete form of VoIP, offering the greatest cost savings, flexibility, productivity, process improvements and overall disruption. The survey shows that cost reduction is the main driver for deploying VoIP but the availability of advanced capabilities that can improve productivity and promote collaboration will play an important role in the future.

79 percent of early VoIP adopters in the survey are either ‘mostly’ or highly ‘satisfied’ with the technology to date. However, whilst VoIP can offer significant cost reductions it does require a considerable up-front investment and can entail hidden costs that companies may not successfully anticipate. And if a deployment is not well planned companies can experience problems with voice quality and user experience, reliability, security and privacy.

The move from legacy systems to VoIP is a strategic decision that must be addressed at board level. The key to a successful implementation is to follow a high-level, strategic approach that considers all the potential benefits and pitfalls. For that reason the report recommends that every enterprise deploying VoIP prepares a rigorous business case and provides a guide to the elements it should include. The report also outlines a number of other recommendations companies should consider in order to mitigate the risks of switching to VoIP.

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