E-Business
Issue No. 21 - February/March 2005
Biz first - e second
eBusiness is all about using technology to make a business more effective
by David Twiss
Three stories about real businesses and their recent experiences with technology.
Stories that make the point that eBusiness is all about using technology to make a business more effective and efficient, and not just about deploying cool technology.
The first involves an organisation that just implemented a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) solution.
Much press in recent times has touted VOIP; it is essentially digital phones instead of analogue, with voice travelling over a company's data network and the internet, rather than the telephone network. Most VOIP offerings have more features than you can poke a stick at; many more features than most businesses are used to having available or making use of.
Not to suggest that these features are not useful to business; rather, that the unfamiliarity of most businesses with most of the huge feature set means they only use a small portion of the capability available; resisting the opportunity to innovate even though they may have a tool that has already been paid for, and just needs to be used.
Anyway, on with the story. The company in question selected a highly competent VOIP systems integrator, and received great service, but in the post deployment review they drew some seriously adverse comments from one of the company's managers, responsible for accepting bookings from customers. After some questioning it turned out the manager attended regular meetings, and since the introduction of the new phone system, the manager would often return from a meeting only to find more than 50 voice messages, mostly from customers wanting to make a booking, and requesting a call back.
The manager complained that it was impossible to return all these calls, and that the new phone system was going to ruin their business, through decreased customer satisfaction.
After further investigation, it turned out that with the previous phone system, when the manager was away at meetings, cust...
