With most businesses now relying heavily on Internet Protocol, IP-driven applications like VoIP have become an everyday part of business life. But could you be doing more with your high-speed connection? Could it be time to take a more strategic approach?

You've got your broadband. You've got your high-speed Internet connection. Perhaps you subscribe to a Voice over IP (VoIP) service and you've got a few Skype users too. You may even have deployed a fully IP-capable converged switch to act as a hub for all your data and voice communications. In other words you probably feel as though you're getting pretty decent use and value out of your investment in IP technology already.

However, just as the shark that stops swimming will drown, the business that stops looking and rests on its technological laurels can quickly find itself in trouble and out of its depth. So what should be next on your IP agenda?

The first and perhaps most obvious consideration is voice. More and more organisations now transport large portions of their voice traffic over IP and, with voice now being carried across web links as well, the quality, performance, and reliability of your IP connections are more important than ever. Then again, you probably knew that already.

The question is, what else should you be thinking about? Are there other areas that will help drive returns on your IP investments?

Absolutely, and plenty of firms are already embracing some of these ideas, says Marcus Gallo, Business Development Manager for Cisco Europe. "IP technology has been growing beyond the original promises of VoIP and there are now a number of technologies that SMBs can employ to get the most out of their investments", he says. "We are seeing many businesses deploying a range of new technologies with real and immediate business impact. These include solutions for mobility, collaboration, IP contact centres, and video telephony."

IP is also being utilised in areas such as managing customer records, running back-ups, streamlining supply chains, and issuing invoices and other correspondence. Also, by using IP connectivity to make it easier for staff to work at home or on customer sites, it can even help in the introduction of more flexible, greener working practices.

Looking further ahead, IP should help drive collaborative working; making it possible for remotely located individuals to 'meet'; to see, hear, and collaborate with one another online as they work on documents interactively.

Elsewhere it will become possible to run all your software applications across your IP connection and store all your data remotely - and securely. And if no-one has yet tried to sell you on the concept of 'Software as a Service' or SaaS, they soon will. Such applications and managed services will drive and provide significant opportunity, says John Carter, MD of DMSL, a provider of broadband and related services for SMBs.

"Managed services are the future... It won't happen overnight - like most new technologies, it will be adopted over a long period of time - but one day all SMBs will use hosted services for all their IT needs."

If you don't feel ready to adopt all of these ideas at once don't worry, says Carter, few businesses will switch over to managed applications and services wholesale and will instead "dip their toes in the water by using credit checking or banking online. When you've gained sufficient confidence you can move on into VoIP, CRM, online accounting and so on."



Setting priorities via a systematic approach is advisable. Think first of all about what is most important to your business and which options will therefore benefit you most and deliver the best return on investment. In other words, it's probably time you fleshed out an IP strategy for your business.

It needn't be anything very complicated or in-depth, but it should set out priorities and objectives both in terms of time-scale for adoption and the results you want to achieve.

The alternative is to adopt ad-hoc as the need arises or as particular solutions become conveniently available. The trouble with this approach - as in all areas of IT - being that you can end up with systems that don't integrate and don't make the best use of resources. Either way, it makes sense to plan ahead.

IP is becoming so pervasive and important that you really can't afford not to take a strategic approach if you want to get all you can out of it.

So where and how specifically can you evolve your use of IP?

Quality, performance and availability
While 8Mbps ADSL connectivity remains the standard, UK trials of higher bandwidth broadband services are underway, so download speeds of up to 24Mbps should be widely available within the next 12 months. While going faster won't necessarily mean you'll get any more out of the Internet than you do today, it will give you more options.

Whether you'll get these sort of speeds will depend on your location however - towns and cities should get somewhere near 24Mbps, but in rural areas service is likely to be slower.

Nor will the higher speeds guarantee bandwidth. You'll be sharing the lines; so if everyone starts using voice and downloading or uploading big files and videos, performance could well degrade to some extent. If you want guaranteed or dedicated bandwidth, you'll need to subscribe to an SDSL or leased line service.

With SDSL - synchronous as opposed to asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) - you get the same speed upstream as downstream. This should be good enough for occasional remote communications (homeworking for example) and branch office updates, but if you want to get really serious, you might need to go for leased line.

Home and remote working
Through technologies such as VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) staff can now work remotely as securely and effectively as if they were in the office. Many network routers now come with VPN functions that support a decent number of connections, while VoIP will keep your remote voice costs down.

Collaboration solutions like Microsoft's SharePoint - which bring geographically disparate workers together in 'virtual teams' - are also gaining market traction, making it easier and more cost-effective to pull individuals with specific skills together on different projects.

Taking voice to the next level
You may well be using VoIP already, but chances are you could be doing more with it. There are several solutions that can help pull your voice and data systems into a unified communications structure, for instance. This will enable greater efficiency - through the ability to manage everything in one place - and will also give you the facility to pull out some useful management information. As Gallo notes: "VoIP is no longer just about cost savings, but understanding how people interact and apply technology to enhance the way they work, communicate and collaborate."

Other options include Integrated Voice Recognition (IVR), which is useful in improving and easing customer contact, and flexible call routing, which can, for example, enable home workers to take calls through the main switchboard number. In this way you can even set
up 'virtual' contact centres.

Back-ups and business contingency planning


Managed security and network management
Many businesses still lack the expertise and resources to sufficiently monitor their security infrastructures and ensure their networks are running as well as they could be, and this too can be managed easily across an IP connection.

Customer Relationship Management
CRM is one of the applications that lends itself best to remote working, so IP can help here too. Fieldworkers access and change CRM databases as often as office-based staff, so holding the data in a central location is a good idea, and there are a number of hosted CRM applications available from major vendors including Microsoft and Sage.

Hosted applications
As discussed in the last iQ, Software as a Service (where applications are run remotely and paid for either on a subscription or a pay-as-you-go basis) is going to get bigger and bigger - especially as popular mainstream products such as Microsoft Office become available under such auspices.

Streamlining the supply chain
With online ordering becoming the norm in many industries (around 70% of all orders are placed electronically in the IT business for example), IP can also be a powerful ally in helping take time and expense out of the supply chain in areas like payment approval and processing. Functions like credit, delivery tracking, and product returns can also be managed online via your IP connection.