Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Verizon Business Promotes "Everything over IP"

Verizon Business published a list of recommendations for enterprises pursuing an "Everything over IP" strategy. The advice includes:

Make Telework Seamless -- Establishing secure connections between an IP network, a VPN (virtual private network) and a public IP network can be a great strategy to extend the reach of an organization's private IP network to employees on the move.


Create a Culture of Collaboration -- Make every IP endpoint matter by providing workers with advanced collaboration tools, including Web conferencing and high-definition video conferencing, to enhance productivity, trim travel budgets and reduce a company's carbon footprint.


Become an E-Tailer, Even if You're Not a Traditional Retailer -- In today's global economy, businesses can open an electronic storefront as an additional sales channels that is always open for their customers. Internet e-tailing can help companies be more responsive to their customers - both for when and how they want to conduct business.


Consider Home-Based Customer Service -- Businesses are increasingly seeing clear benefits from allowing customer contact agents to work beyond the four walls of a designated contact center. To effectively implement this new model, organizations are making the most of their VoIP infrastructure to create virtual contact center communications platforms.


Turn Social Networking into Professional Networking 2.0. -- Social networking, blogging, video file sharing, webinars and wikis are trends that have seen explosive growth in recent years. By using an open Intranet, organizations can use these media internally to improve collaboration and generate innovative ideas.


Don't Let Distance Be a Barrier to Training - Capitalize on a growing trend among universities to extend their halls of learning to students beyond the campus, by using distance learning to train employees on new corporate initiatives.


Secure Your Data -- In today's EoIP, or Everything over IP world, security is key for every business. Consider using a managed security service provider, such as Verizon Business.


Back It Up To Stay Two Steps Ahead -- In the event of a natural disaster, fire or other unforeseen business disruption, the Internet can serve as a critical business continuity solution. Private IP and public IP network services, bridged by secure gateway services, deliver critical resiliency and diverse infrastructure and routing, along with services that provide data replication and mirroring.http://www.verizon.com