Corporate America is discovering VoIP’s promise. VoIP providers with the ability to cut corporate phone bills in half are finding a receptive audience among corporate financial officers. VoIP has become a vital business solution because it allows for voice and data convergence and cuts costs by reducing call charges, while also allowing for more integrated communication, collaboration, and enhanced communications management. • VoIP provides businesses with a greater choice of business communication applications for mobile workers regardless of their location, access technology or communication device, enabling them to collaborate and respond rapidly to customers and colleagues. • It means that all businesses - small, medium and large - are tapping into VoIP to help decrease costs, and increase performance. • It is precisely the kind of technology that can drive the next generation of workplace productivity improvements. Avaya estimates businesses can achieve an estimated 15% increase in personal productivity through smarter communication. • What’s more, nearly 75 percent of companies that embrace VoIP are extremely satisfied with it, according to Gartner analysts. • Two-thirds of the VoIP users in a Sage Research survey say IP telephony was giving their companies a competitive edge.

This convergence of voice and data now allows companies to distribute work in new ways and literally eliminate the walls that once limited organizations.

3 Breaking Down the Walls That Limit Organizations. As an example JetBlue, the low cost airline start-up, has set up a “virtual call center” where 700 reservation agents work from home and answer VoIP calls that integrate passenger data with a consumer voice call. It cuts commutes, eliminates the need for a costly physical space, and drives major productivity improvements. A workers commute is as quick as a mouse click for the reservation agents, who use special application software on a VoIP Softphone. The software connects them to the airline’s Internet telephony switch, which routes customer reservations calls to them. As a result, JetBlue’s call-center attrition rate is just 5%, vs. 30% industrywide. That’s helping JetBlue earn industry-leading profit margins of 19%. “They’re a happier, more motivated, more loyal workforce,” says CEO David G. Neeleman. 3 VoIP can allow more flexible work arrangements. Alpine Access, for instance, uses 7,500 home-based agents to handle calls for clients such as J.Crew, 1-800-Flowers, and Office Depot. Because quality and reliability are increasing with VoIP, Alpine Access is planning to use the technology to route calls to home agents in the near future. By using home-based agents, Alpine Access saves on the overhead costs of operating a physical call center. 3 Boosting Worker Productivity Through Integration. New York-based Lehman Brothers Inc. has 15,000 VoIP endpoints globally and has deployed several applications in an effort to improve worker productivity, said Philip Palevo, vice president of network services. One example is an application called QuickDial that’s used by Lehman Brothers’ equity research group to call customers and give them urgent information, he said. The firm’s analysts can talk directly to investors if they answer or leave short prerecorded messages if they don’t, Palevo said.

A Sage Research survey offers further evidence of the benefits of IP communications. Organizations that have deployed IP communications report the following: • Faster moves, adds, and changes—respondents report an average saving of 1.5 hours per move • Easier-to-use features on IP phones—average saving of 5.5 hours per week for each IT employee involved in phone support • Less “telephone tag” among employees—average saving of 3.9 hours per week (or 25 days a year) per employee • Improved remote worker productivity—average benefit of 4.3 hours per week (or 28 days a year) for each remote worker

VOIP MEANS BUSINESS -- TRANSFORMING BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Lowering costs, boosting productivity, increasing mobility, and enhancing competitiveness