As government agencies strive to simplify business processes and unify their multi-agency, multi-site operation, the concept of centrally managed, but geographically disperse, voice and data services is making more economic sense, but is still technically challenging.
There is a general acceptance that government agencies require the latest enterprise features, including UC&C; whilst operating with the economic and operational advantages of a centrally controlled infrastructure. The lure of inter-agency collaboration brings the prospect of improved operational efficiency whilst enhancing system performance to enrich the constituent experience.
To achieve this, agencies need to upgrade their existing telephony system to a standards-based platform that supports UC&C. Many governments are also considering centralizing the management of their IP-based communication solutions, and outsourcing to an internal service provider, or a third party.
The challenges that government agencies are facing, include:
- Consolidation of multi-generational platforms
- Diverse vendors, disparate legacy systems
- Making cost savings by sharing a centralized infrastructure, but maintaining autonomy for individual agency administrators
- Supporting both shared and dedicated infrastructures
- Effective management of disaster situations
- Ability to scale easily
- Providing a platform to efficiently deliver new UC&C applications
