VoIP implementation at Cincom Systems for global software development

VoIP Systems in Action: A Visit to Cincom Systems

Description of the Event

A visit was arranged to the regional office of an enterprise software company, Cincom Systems. This company operates in seventeen nations and has over 800 employees, and is considered by many to have one of the most comprehensive Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) configurations in the enterprise software market. Visiting their regional office and speaking with the it Director who has responsibility for this area of the country, the extent of VoIP customization completed by Cincom was explored in addition to the future of this technology area. The role of VoIP has progressed from cost control to performance improvements in call fidelity, security and mobility access (Cannon, 479, 480). The costing aspects set the foundation for a realistic Return on Investment (ROI) and also fuel more economical Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) which are in turning driving greater innovation throughout the industry (Juan, Pluckebaum, 70). The Regional it Director for Cincom said that these economic factors of VoIP will make it even more cost-affordable and drive greater multichannel support on a global scale. Skype, he said, was just the beginning and today there are entire Web Conferencing Systems running on VoIP for example (Heron, Warren, 158, 159).

What Was Learned

Just how central VoIP can be in the development of any corporate strategy was made very clear in the examples learned about at Cincom. VoIP is literally the backbone of the entire application development platform of Cincom today. at&T is so tightly intertwined with Cincom today that they define "trusted advisor' in their relationship with their customer. The schematic that shows how Cincom progressed from PSTN to VoIP is shown below. This is from the peer-reviewed study Evaluating VoIP Technology -- Technology Push/Market Pull (Heron, Warren, 159).

Source: (Heron, Warren, 159)

Cincom has created specific series of configurations that reflect the above graphic for migrating each of their national offices across nine different nations to accomplish what they already have in the U.S. This has proven to be problematic given the many costs and aspects of regulatory and compliance requirements in each country however (Heron, Warren, 163, 164). This experience has also shown how central VoIP is to global business strategies as well.