Recently a much famed journalist, Lucy Kellaway talked about ‘The Telephone and New Office Technology’ on Radio 4. During the programme, she suggested that we are witnessing a phenomenon called ‘the death of the office landline’. While she may have a point in suggesting that we are seeing a drop in call volumes to landlines, which was confirmed by Ofcom’s Communications Market Report this week, she can’t be more wrong about linking it to the death of the landline – especially in business.
The truth of the matter is that the landline is far from dead or even dying. In business it remains the chosen medium for dealing with complex issues, solving problems and communicating important news.
In fact, in a recent research, commissioned by Resilient Networks amongst 500 employees and 150 IT leaders, both employees and IT leaders revealed that they consider voice calls to be the most critical channel of communication within business. And while there may be certain industries where voice communication is not that important, in business it remains a valued and essential medium.
The research went on to reveal that nearly half (47%) of employees believe voice calls are best used for resolving complex business issues. In addition, 56% believe calls will always be important to their day-to-day roles, and given the vast choice of traditional and modern communication channels available in the work place, voice is the most commonly used form of communication for handling/resolving most scenarios at work.
Moreover, a loss or failure of the voice network is considered to be seriously disruptive to business, with just over a fifth (21%) of IT leaders going as far as to say that it would destroy their organisation. As such, the ‘death of the office landline’ is still clearly quite far off.
But what does the drop in call volumes represent then? While domestic call volumes might be dropping, the situation is again much different for businesses. Our survey findings revealed that 55% of employees suggested that the number of calls they have received have increased, while only 39% have seen an increase in email volumes. In addition, over the next three years 64% of employees believe that landline call volumes will only continue to increase.
Taking all of the findings from the research into account I think it’s safe to say that the office, and probably your home, landline will be around for many more years to come. Its use will be fundamental to solving complex business issues and for getting things done. The more important question we should ask ourselves is, if voice is as critical as it appears to be, how will we communicate effectively if the landline disappears? It’s something to keep in mind while we ponder the role voice will continue to play in our day to day lives.
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Fire Service Review - A scope for innovation
Fire services in England need to become more ‘effective and efficient’, the recently-published government report found. But before this can happen there must be a change of heart in the way fire services think about technology.
The report issued by Sir Ken Knight in May highlighted an important problem with English fire services. While the lives of citizens and public service servants are undergoing a profound change due to the increased influence of digital and social channels and the infestation of technology in general, fire services remain in the shadow, trapped under the rising costs of service provision and more budget cuts than ever before.
There is no doubt, as Sir Ken pointed out, that fire services need transforming. But how exactly would that transformation happen? What needs to change? Many experts in the field of frontline services, myself included, believe that one way of tackling this problem is creating efficiencies by sharing services.
Those aware of the history of shared services in the Fire services sector will probably frown at that suggestion. After all, the famed FireControl project, based on the concept of shared services, cost taxpayers approximately £500m at the time and was scrapped in the not so recent past to avoid generating even greater losses.
While it was indeed a large failure, the idea of shared services, which gave birth to the project, wasn’t flawed in itself. And there are in fact, fire services who are implementing shared services with successful results - already making savings. For example, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire have all successfully managed to combine their control rooms through the use of technology, in particular - intelligent voice communications technology, in a shared service programme first of its kind in the UK. In doing so, Cambridgeshire has saved approximately £500,000 and continue making savings now.
So why do more fire services not embrace this type of sharing in the current economic climate? One challenge lies in the fact that front of mind for many fire services is citizen safety. As such, promoting successful shared service case studies, where a fully operational fire service with a merged 999 response centre helped achieve efficiently while maintaining front line services, could be a step towards encouraging more fire services to follow.
Fire services could be saving millions by sharing infrastructure with their neighbours but before that happens there must be change of vision in service provisioning. Fire services will have to become open to the idea of sharing their services – taking note of those who have already made significant savings by doing so in the past and emulating their success.
The report issued by Sir Ken Knight in May highlighted an important problem with English fire services. While the lives of citizens and public service servants are undergoing a profound change due to the increased influence of digital and social channels and the infestation of technology in general, fire services remain in the shadow, trapped under the rising costs of service provision and more budget cuts than ever before.
There is no doubt, as Sir Ken pointed out, that fire services need transforming. But how exactly would that transformation happen? What needs to change? Many experts in the field of frontline services, myself included, believe that one way of tackling this problem is creating efficiencies by sharing services.
Those aware of the history of shared services in the Fire services sector will probably frown at that suggestion. After all, the famed FireControl project, based on the concept of shared services, cost taxpayers approximately £500m at the time and was scrapped in the not so recent past to avoid generating even greater losses.
While it was indeed a large failure, the idea of shared services, which gave birth to the project, wasn’t flawed in itself. And there are in fact, fire services who are implementing shared services with successful results - already making savings. For example, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire have all successfully managed to combine their control rooms through the use of technology, in particular - intelligent voice communications technology, in a shared service programme first of its kind in the UK. In doing so, Cambridgeshire has saved approximately £500,000 and continue making savings now.
So why do more fire services not embrace this type of sharing in the current economic climate? One challenge lies in the fact that front of mind for many fire services is citizen safety. As such, promoting successful shared service case studies, where a fully operational fire service with a merged 999 response centre helped achieve efficiently while maintaining front line services, could be a step towards encouraging more fire services to follow.
Fire services could be saving millions by sharing infrastructure with their neighbours but before that happens there must be change of vision in service provisioning. Fire services will have to become open to the idea of sharing their services – taking note of those who have already made significant savings by doing so in the past and emulating their success.
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