How IBM positioned for business growth using

integrated business communications.

Page 11

Highlights

Using technology for real business benefits

As it moves toward full integrated business communications, IBM has achieved

benefits in several areas. Among them are the following advantages:

Enhancing employee productivity: Integrating communications channels

such as e-mail, IM and conferencing into a unified set of services and capabili-

ties means more communications options at users fingertips more of the time.

This can enhance productivity with functions that are as simple and quick to

use as an onscreen Connect me button that can automatically authenticate a

user and connect to a conference in seconds with a double click of the mouse.

Traditional processes and systems may be slowed by their need for manual

communication interactions. In contrast, integrating these functions can

drastically reduce manual functions. Presence awareness capabilities, for

example, allow a user to quickly determine whether another person is avail-

able to accept a telephone call and help initiate that call automatically.

The speed and ease of use possible in an integrated environment have led IBM to

project considerable efficiencies and gains in productivity for its users up to 4.5

million hours for the company annually as illustrated in the following table:

With tools for e-mail, instant

messaging and conferencing now

unified, IBM employees have more

communications options at their

fingertips more of the time.

Activity

Feature

Savings per user, per week

Messaging

Voicemail mailbox and

unified messaging

One hour (time spent accessing messages for

approximately 10 minutes per day of use)

Conferencing

IBM Rendezvous

Thirty minutes (time spent scheduling approximately

10 conference calls per week)

Mobility

E-mail, corporate directory

with IBM mobile phones

One hour (time spent accessing messages and

information)

Softphones

Click-to-call

Eight minutes (time spent dialing eight internal and

external calls per day)

Projected time savings for common business functions

IBM anticipates that the savings in time and a corresponding potential increase in productivity can

be significant with integrated business communications.