Lynn Denoia and Tom Randall, Network World
As companies seek to justify IT projects in an era of cost-consciousness, infrastructure initiatives often get short shrift because it’s difficult to show value. Companies group budgets into opportunity categories of regulatory initiatives, operational enhancements, revenue generation and infrastructure, generally prioritizing in that order.
Convergence is a strategy that many organizations want to pursue today. VoIP rollouts can generate savings and help streamline processes, organizations and management tools. These are all good things, yet they lack the glamour of an operational improvement or revenue-generating initiative. For a VoIP initiative to compete with these other projects for resources and funding, you must create a strong business case, ROI and budget.
Making a budget and budget case for an IT project requires a five-step process of opportunity analysis, infrastructure analysis, process/organization analysis, tool analysis and project analysis. While each step merits attention, let’s drill down into opportunity analysis. Determining the cost, savings and resulting ROI for the VoIP initiative provides the data you need to sell the project. What follows is a guideline of cost elements to consider.
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By Ellen Simon, Associated Press
NEW YORK — AT&T bused 3,000 employees to Washington, D.C., in July 1995 to beg lawmakers to kill new telecom legislation designed to make their industry more competitive. Before they trooped into Congressional offices, CEO Robert Allen addressed them by video and declared: «Like it or not, our future is at stake inside that building.» The theme song from Rocky blared.
At the time, it was hard to think of the fat telecommunications giant as having anything in common with the underdog movie boxer. Sure, its 1984 breakup meant it was no longer Ma Bell, the nation’s primary phone company. But it had dominated its industry for the better part of a century and its stock was still in nearly every investor’s portfolio.
Today, the thought of AT&T as underdog is no stretch at all.
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MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Latin America’s richest man, Carlos Slim, owns so many companies that Mexico often seems like «Slim World» — and the magnate’s influence is so pervasive that it will probably endure, even as he gives up board positions and hands control of his companies to his sons.
Diners at one of Slim’s hundreds of chain restaurants can use a Slim wireless service to connect to Slim’s Internet provider to do online banking at Slim’s bank, or pay off credit cards for Slim’s department stores.
Outside in the street, vendors in jump suits bearing the name of Slim’s cell phone company — Mexico’s largest — sell prepaid phone cards to passers-by. Slim’s Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, also controls about 95 percent of fixed phone lines. Other street vendors sell Slim cigarette brands.
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NEW YORK — AT&T Corp. bused 3,000 employees to Washington, D.C., in July 1995 to beg lawmakers to kill new telecom legislation designed to make their industry more competitive. Before they trooped into Congressional offices, CEO Robert Allen addressed them by video and declared: «Like it or not, our future is at stake inside that building.» The theme song from «Rocky» blared.
At the time, it was hard to think of the fat telecommunications giant as having anything in common with the underdog movie boxer. Sure, its 1984 breakup meant it was no longer Ma Bell, the nation’s primary phone company. But it had dominated its industry for the better part of a century and its stock was still in nearly every investor’s portfolio.
Today, the thought of AT&T as underdog is no stretch at all.
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DAVID TWIDDY
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sprint Corp. on Monday announced its second Internet phone service partner, this time trying to establish a niche with small- and medium-sized cable companies.
USA Companies, a Kearney, Neb., cable provider with 63,000 customers in Nebraska, California and Montana, said it hopes to have the service in subscribers’ homes by early next year.
Terms of the five-year deal were not disclosed.
In December, Time Warner Cable, with 11 million customers, announced that it would use both Sprint and MCI Inc. to provide phone service across the country through technology the industry calls voice-over-Internet protocol.
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