One of the hardest challenges IT faces when deploying new technology is determining its return on investment (ROI). After buying new equipment and software, and training employees, how soon will it start delivering savings? How soon will it improve productivity?

Answering these questions can be especially difficult when it involves a new technology, such as unified communications. Because unified communications requires looking at your network-and thus the way in which your employees communicate and collaborate-in a new way, it can bring up significant payback questions.

Complicating the ROI calculation is the fact that unified communications offers two kinds of benefits. For the IT department, because it uses a combined network for voice, video, and data, unified communications can significantly reduce costs relating to equipment, staffing, and telecom. These costs equate to easily determined savings.

For employees, because they spend less time leaving and retrieving messages, unified communications can boost productivity. These are sometimes characterized as "soft" savings, because they are harder to discern. However, both analysts and IT executives note that with precise, targeted auditing, you can calculate soft benefits.

To provide a good view of both kinds of benefits, first we will look at the potential savings. Then we will see how some forward-thinking companies have achieved them in real-world situations.

IT Benefits

What kind of ROI numbers can you expect from a unified communications deployment? Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president for Enterprise Research at research firm Yankee Group, says that companies have reported a savings of 20 percent on administrative staff when they have combined their voice and data networks. The ability to avoid long-distance charges by running voice calls over the IP network contributes to savings as well, he says. "It's not unreasonable to save 20 to 25 percent bypassing toll charges."

Kerravala adds that if you are currently relying on a third-party videoconferencing service, using Cisco TelePresence means you can cut the operational expense of your travel budget while seeing improvements in employee productivity. It is possible, he says, "to get your return on investment back in six months."

Depending on your situation, however, the savings can be significantly higher, according to Mark Krupinski, senior vice president of IT at WesBanco, a Wheeling, W.V.-based bank that operates 114 financial-services branches in the states of West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. WesBanco had grown significantly through acquisition (11 firms since 1996), which meant "we had a variety of PBXs and phone systems; whatever the acquired firm had in place," Krupinski says.

"By going to unified communications, we avoided the management of multiple hardware platforms and the unnecessary redundancy of features of functions," he says. The bank's financial results were striking:

* Local telecommunications cost were reduced by 63 percent.
* Long-distance costs were reduced by 69 percent.
* Equipment and maintenance costs were reduced by 45 percent.
* Leased-line expenses were reduced by 21 percent.
* Other communications-related expenses were reduced by 18 percent.

Florida Health Care Plans (FHCP), a health-maintenance organization with 1,000 employees serving east central Florida, faced a similar situation, according to Network Manager Jeremy Fielder. "Prior to implementing unified communications, we maintained a separate PBX at each of our 13 sites. That meant separate billing, dial plans, and user databases for each location." All told, three administrators used to spend at least 60 hours per week managing the networks. Now, that number is down to 10 hours, so those employees are able to take on other responsibilities.

FHCP saved on other administrative costs, too. Third parties monitored the previous PBX contracts. "If there was a problem, the system would call out to a third-party vendor, which would bill us for a visit," Fielder says. "Now the system sends out proactive alerts that allow us to make adjustments before a problem occurs." By cancelling that third-party vendor's contract, FHCP saved $60,000 per year.

Fielder reports other benefits, as well, particularly on FHCP's phone bill. The HMO had created an interactive voice-response (IVR) system that allowed members to access services such as prescription refills by calling a local phone number. Routing these calls across eastern Florida cost as much as $9,000 per month. Along with the elimination of other toll calls between locations, Fielder notes that the long-distance bill dropped almost by half.

Productivity Benefits

WesBanco's Krupinski says that he is already seeing measurable productivity boosts. "We were getting a lot of calls from customers asking how late the branches were open. The Cisco Unified Communications Manager software enabled us to deploy an automated attendant system, in which customers can press 1 to find out that information. Our reports show that we have thousands of customers who press 1, which means we no longer have to have a person at each branch answering those calls. That's like getting rid of the cost of a full-time customer-service agent."

FHCP has seen similar improvements, according to Fielder. "On the old PBXs, we were never able to have a consolidated ACD [automatic call distribution] system. Now we can give them menus for self-service, and we can route calls more automatically." As a result, he says, when staff at a particular office is overloaded, a centralized contact center in Daytona Beach takes the overflow. "When we deployed the system in July 2006, our average speed-to-answer was 60 seconds, and we had an average abandon rate of 6 percent. Now we've got those numbers down to 10 seconds and 1 percent."

Finally, both Fielder and Krupinski are seeing other, less tangible benefits. Krupinski knows that through videoconferencing, he is reducing the bank's carbon footprint. As for Fielder, he says, "I used to have to leave the building five times a week to do troubleshooting. Now I can do it remotely with ease. As a result, my stress level is lower."