LiveVox (www.livevox.com) has announced the availability of its multi-site contact center management offering. Featuring built-in agent presence and role-based security, the LiveVox Voice Portal 2.0 now provides executive management with direct access to agent, campaign, and call-activity details across an unlimited number of contact centers. Role-based security ensures that only approved management is able to update and change specific information including campaign parameters and execution across multiple sites. With LiveVox?s multi-site management capability, remote managers have access to a wealth of call detail and can build, modify, execute, and delete campaigns, regardless of physical location.

Both vendors selling systems and enterprise staff seeking project funding need to be able to clearly distinguish between the features, the advantages, and the benefits of unified communications (UC) solutions. In many presentations and discussions I’ve seen, these distinctions are frequently blurred. The result is that the potential impact of UC is misunderstood and often undervalued.

Features describe and are often listed on the product data sheet. “This car model has 4-wheel drive.” Advantages differentiate; they point out how this product is better than an alternative model or brand. “A car with 4-wheel drive means I can always get where I am going, even in deep snow.” Benefits are about impact; they translate the features and the advantages into tangible (and measurable) improved or optimized results. “By showing up for work, even when it’s snowing hard, I can earn $350 and get all the new leads that day.”

This month begins a new column, replacing the one I?ve written on contact centers. There are several reasons for this shift. There are strong connections between what happens in contact centers and the promise of unified communications (UC). There is intense industry focus on UC and its impact on enterprise communications functionality. IP enables the full promise of UC. And finally, there will be strategy, design, and implementation challenges to successfully bring UC?s promise to businesses.

Halfway through 2007, the shape of contact center industry developments is becoming clearer. Many groundbreaking announcements in the last half of 2006 are starting to produce real product capabilities. What are the key trends?

Consolidation and Partnerships. There have been a flurry of mergers and acquisitions: Nuance into Intervoice, Telephony@ Work into Oracle, WebEx into Cisco, and TellMe into Microsoft, to name just a few. I anticipate this trend will continue to accelerate with some perhaps startling companies in play the rest of this year. It is also the year of partnerships. While everyone seems to be partnering with everyone, some partnerships are more equal than others, such as Microsoft and Nortel’s Innovative Communications Alliance.

Linking Technology and Business Processes. Business processes became a key focal point for vendors and enterprises this year. IP consolidation is an enabler, vendors’ desire for professional service revenues is a motivator, and companies’ needs to get more value from their technology investments is a driver of this trend. A number of vendors are announcing professional services capabilities in this area. “Communications Enabled Business Processes” is now one of Avaya’s areas of business focus. Genesys’ “Business Process Routing” offers a family of solutions designed to improve contact center workflows. Cisco, Siemens, and others are also developing formal programs to tie technology and processes more closely together.