Convergence: The end of communications managers?

The winding path towards IT and network convergence took a new twist last month when the Communications Management Association agreed to become part of the British Computer Society.

At its annual general meeting on 11 July, 2007, a huge 87 percent of the Communications Management Association's (CMA) 1,200 mostly telecoms-focused members agreed that the organisation should henceforth operate as a subsidiary of the 60,000-strong IT-centric British Computer Society (BCS). However, the CMA will still keep its chartered status and existing charity number and continue to operate autonomously, albeit within the strictures of a BCS-set budget.

Glenn Powell, the CMA's chief executive, explains the rationale behind the move: "This signifies recognition of the way that the industry and technology is changing — in other words, the steady march of convergence. So both organisations recognise that the ICT professional requires detailed knowledge of both IT and communications in order to meet the challenges of the future."

The move means that the two bodies will be able to provide a "better-focused and better-resourced response to government and regulatory initiatives" and an enhanced service to each other's respective members. For example, BCS members will be able to join a communications forum if they so desire, which will automatically enrol them as affiliate members of the CMA, while existing CMA members will also become affiliate BCS members.

"We'll have a wider IT community that we can reach into and interface with and that's very important in an increasingly converged world. It's not there yet, but it's on its way and so we're getting ahead of all this," says Powell.

From the CMA's point of view, it needed to respond to the fact that the traditional role of its members "is changing dramatically and rapidly". The BCS, meanwhile, had to "respond more effectively to the impact of convergence on behalf of their traditional members".

And this is important, says Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at Quocirca, because: "Organisational shifts like this tend not to lead the way. Instead they tend to reflect undercurrents, which indicates that convergence is starting to become an increasing reality."

Three steps to convergence
So what is happening out there in the market and how far down the road to convergence is the average UK company in practice?

According to Simon Farr, head of marketing for convergence infrastructure and unified communications and collaboration at BT Global Services, there are three main phases involved in the convergence process.

The first is consolidation, which involves organisations reducing numbers of suppliers, streamlining purchasing procedures and defining a strategy to deal with their existing, often fragmented, network infrastructure.

The second stage relates to convergence and is about introducing a single IP voice and data network to replace multiple alternative offerings. Farr says that three-quarters of BT Global Services' customer base expect to be undertaking or to have completed this step by the end of 2008.

[The] quiet mobility revolution is not only leading the need for communications technologies, but also being driven by it

Glenn Powell, CMA

The third phase, however, is about exploiting this IP infrastructure further. While some customers are happy to simply use the network for data communications only, many choose to introduce IP voice trunking or IP telephony as a first application before looking at other options.

These options range from personal productivity applications, such as unified communications and collaboration, to videoconferencing, virtual call centres and hosted storage, but uptake of such technologies is limited and fragmented in most organisations to date.

Nonetheless, Jurgen Hekkink, solutions marketing manager for unified communications at network consultancy Affiniti, indicates that the entrance of Microsoft into the unified-communications space has hastened the move to converged networks over the last six months or so.

While in the past the main drivers behind adoption were factors such as office relocations, the creation of a greenfield site or the decision to move a traditional TDM PBX into maintenance, customers are now starting to see the benefits of unified-communications applications to facilitate remote and home working.

"Businesses are currently being driven by the increasing need to mobilise their workforce to enable them to undertake more flexible working and improve work-life balance," Powell explains. "Much of this is being driven by youth wanting to work in different ways and by more women entering the workforce, demanding different work patterns. This quiet mobility revolution is not only leading the need for communications technologies, but also being driven by it."

Other progressively important factors are the desire of organisations to cut the amount of expensive office space they require and to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing energy usage.

How convergence affects communication managers
As to how all of this affects communications managers' roles, Powell indicates that, while the telecoms function has increasingly been coming under the remit of the IT department since the 1980s, real organisational change has, to date, been limited.

The telecoms manager of 10 years ago who had sole responsibility for voice may now be virtually extinct as the role has merged with that of a data-network manager, resulting in such common job titles as "infrastructure manager" or "operations manager". But that does not mean to say that...