Adapting to the new economy: How Asterisk contact centers fit the bill

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(No Transcript)
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Adapting to the new economy How Asterisk
contact centers fit the bill

• Matthew Nickasch
• IP Communications Consultant
• Industry Analyst

CONSIDERING CONVERGENCE
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Presentation Outcomes

• Identify and illustrate the modern contact center
• Discuss the major obstacles affecting enterprise
  and corporate telecommunications
• Economic Focus
• Cost / Feature Concerns
• Apply to Contact-Center Environments
• Advocate why Asterisk is a revolutionary driver
  and platform for contact center environments

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A Telephony Revolution

• Growth, peak, and decline of traditional PBX
  design implementations
• Convergence, UC, Cloud Telephony
• Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC)
• Intelligent Contact Centers
• Standards-Based Interoperability
• Overall Integration

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Contact Centers... Re-defined!

• Not a boxed solution always changing
• Many uses, implementations, strategies
• Integration, flow of
• information,
• and mobility!
• Tie to Business
• Processes Logic

INFLUENCE
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Contact Centers... Re-defined!

• Unconfined Global Resources
• Geographically distributed workforce and agents
• Maintaining Customer / End User Experience

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Contact Centers... Re-defined!

• Overall Focus?
• Advances in technology and effectiveness are
  demanded
• Obstacles are presented in traditional contact
  center implementations
• A balancing act!

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Modern Contact Ctr Obstacles

• Cost
• Per user / feature / trunk ratio
• Custom integration ERP, CRM, critical systems

Legacy?
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Modern Contact Ctr Obstacles

• Solution / provider lock-in
• Proprietary systems -gt core to client
• Standards-based interconnectivity
• Contact Centers no longer limited to geography
• Same solution at each site? (legacy hardware)
• Inter-system connections (licensing)
• Remote users / telework (licensing)

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Modern Contact Ctr Obstacles

• End user / customer experience
• Bad experience?
• Frustrated employees
• Frustrated customers
• Technology complements not supplements
• Important in contact center environments
• Invisibility

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IP Communications The Economy

• Limited capital budgeting
• Proprietary Hardware (core to client)
• Licensing (per site, seat, feature, port)
• Single-solution single-vendor centralization
  concerns
• Costly support contracts, training

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IP Communications The Economy (2)

• Staffing / Development
• System Management
• New, ongoing training (on traditional systems)
• Proprietary protocol support
• Closed-loop development

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IP Communications The Economy (3)

• Interoperability
• Core-level
• Multi-site interop
• External trunking and dialtone
• Client-level
• Cost per endpoint / user / feature
• Proprietary vs. Standards-based

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Welcome Asterisk!

• Endless Possibilities
• Open Development
• QA Frustrations with closed logic?
• Community-Powered
• 3rd Party Solutions Integration
• Blurring PBX vs. Contact Center lines
• One environment, many solutions

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Asterisk Circle of Strengths
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Interoperability

• Core / Carrier / ITSP
• Historically proprietary
• Asterisk
• Modular use of channels
• Talks to many networks and environments
• Ex. SS7
• Open development encourages diverse technology
• Adaptability and Future-Proof

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Interoperability

• Client
• Standards-based
• SIP, IAX
• Open development encouraged
• Even support for closed technologies!
• UNISTIM, SCCP drivers in development
• Presence
• Busy/free status, global presence across
  systems and geographic barriers

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Scalability

• Large to smallAsterisk does it all!
• Switchvox
• Leading integration and scalability
• (10 users to 100s)
• Contact center features built in!
• Similarity
• Very similar foundation, code, fundamentals from
  SMB to Large Enterprise
• Simple to deploy and maintain

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External Integration

• Lots of important enterprise applications
• ERP, CRM, Order Management, etc
• Business Intelligence
• Asterisk prevents data silos!
• Accomplishing Integration
• Availability of the Asterisk Community
• Ideas to Implementation
• Focus on Modularity

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Asterisk Community

• Wide-reaching support network
• Forums
• Digium Support
• Independent Consultants, Developers
• Community-driven development
• http//www.asterisk.org

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Asterisk TCO Comparison
Asterisk
Traditional
Legacy
Standards
Simplicity
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Revisit IP Communications The Economy

• Limited capital budgeting
• Proprietary Hardware (core to client)
• Licensing (per site, seat, feature, port)
• Single-solution single-vendor centralization
  concerns
• Costly support contracts, training

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IP Communications The Economy (2)

• Staffing / Development
• System Management
• New, ongoing training (on traditional systems)
• Proprietary protocol support
• Closed-loop development

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IP Communications The Economy (3)

• Interoperability
• Core-level
• Multi-site interop
• External trunking and dialtone
• Client-level
• Cost per endpoint / user / feature
• Proprietary vs. Standards-based

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Strategic Enterprise Alignment

• Legacy Systems Dictating Overall Communications
  Strategy
• Technology as a tool
• Asterisk Conforms / Revolutionizes
• Molds, shapes, enhances strategic plans
• Goal of revolutionizing traditional
  communications solutions

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Q/A