Leverage Hyperconnectivity

                                                                                  Deploying UC is First Step; Complete List of Tips and White Paper Available on Nortel's Website Nortel Networks Corporation today unveiled tips that organizations can take to prepare for the emerging era of Hyperconnectivity. These tips are designed to help companies and CIOs develop a business-driven vision and strategy that balances the needs of the hyperconnected worker with those of the enterprise.

A recent global IDC study(1) on Hyperconnectivity, sponsored by Nortel, confirmed that we are in the early stages of an exploding culture of connectivity. It found that 16 percent of the global information work force is already hyperconnected and another 36 percent are poised to join them soon. The study found that the hyperconnected workforce will increase to 40 percent within five years, and a year or two after that 50 percent.

Hyperconnectivity will have a profound impact on enterprises and CIOs, creating challenges in managing employee connectivity while providing information securely and reliably, and ensuring that the enterprise maintains productivity.

Tips to help CIOs prepare for Hyperconnectivity

1. Deploy unified communications - the initial step to improving business processes, collaboration and workflow capability because they break down the barriers between voice, email, video and IM. For example, a customer-facing organization like a financial institution or retailer can deploy unified communications in its customer contact centers to let customer service representatives quickly access customer history/information, account/order status and to connect with subject matter experts anywhere in the enterprise and via any device.

2. Leverage SOA and web services to communications-enable critical business applications or processes like inventory control systems, customer relationship management and help desk support. Communications-enabled business applications give workers immediate and up-to-date information about the business - using any device, application or network connection. For instance, healthcare workers can know the exact location of medical equipment, the latest patient vital signs and physician availability and location - from anywhere, using any device. This can help improve patient care and operational efficiencies.

3. Show senior leaders the ROI gained from unified communications and other technology investments like machine-to-machine applications that monitor and control a broad range of things inside the enterprise such as security cameras , vehicular fleet, and critical equipment. The IDC study found that roughly 47 percent of the respondents surveyed already leverage networked building control systems inside their corporation. These technology deployments can improve energy efficiencies and the bottom line significantly.

To access the complete list of tips and the white paper, "The Hyperconnected Enterprise - A CIO's Survival Guide," visit: http://www.nortel.com/solutions/unified_communications/collateral/nn123907.pdf.

Unified Communications delivers significant ROI to businesses:

- By deploying unified communications , organizations can realize up to 18% productivity gains

- Unified communications delivers up to 29% higher customer satisfaction and 27% higher employee satisfaction

- Unified communications project payback can be as short as six months

For Nortel, the business case for unified communications delivered in spades:

- Integrating communications with its supply chain process has helped Nortel reduce order-delivery cycle time by 27 percent, improving customer responsiveness.

- By leveraging unified communications, Nortel has obtained more than $12 million annual savings with a 10-month return on investment for our 30,000 globally distributed employees. The real estate and operational savings for teleworkers - workers at home - can be as much as $12,000 per user per year. Additionally, if the teleworker only works from home one day a week, they can also prevent 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over the course of a year.

Tools and additional resources:

- Watch a video by Nortel expert, Tony Rybczynski, about these tips and more at www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjvx-FVGddA(ii)

- Use Nortel's UC ROI calculator tool that lets you use your own data to see how your organization can benefit with UC and provides you with downloadable data and charts http://hyperconnectivity.typepad.com/en/uc/roi-calculator.html

- View Tony's five-part video UC podcast series about the best practices for deploying unified communications http://www.nortel.com/promotions/uc_podcast/

- Read Joel Hackney, Nortel Enterprise President's paper, "CXOs and Unified Communications, Why Now?" at http://www.nortel.com/corporate/news/insights/articles/2008-06-02_cxo_uc.html

- Read Tony's Hyperconnected Enterprise blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/the-hyperconnected-enterprise/ - Watch Nortel's video, "Making UC a Reality" at www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXj0u-uVsTc(ii) or www31.nortel.com/webcast.cgi?id=6502

- Tune in to an upcoming Nortel UC webinar on Sept. 18 at 3 p.m. EST. See www2.nortel.com/go/events_detail.jsp?cat_id=-8005&oid=100245450&block=8&locale=en-US

Quotes:

Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel

"The opportunity for enterprises to increase their productivity by 18% or more through unified communications can yield significant differentiation in the market. By adopting unified communications solutions, companies can increase the speed of their operations, lower capital and operational expenses and drive customer satisfaction. We are increasingly seeing the trend of companies migrating to unified communications solutions, which is really the right way to harness the potential of Hyperconnectivity."

John Roese, chief technology officer, Nortel

"The boundaries between networks and domains are blurring and the enterprise is no longer bounded by walls. It's important to recognize that a company's applications must be accessible anywhere, at anytime, from any device, so the IT strategy must take into account carrier networks , wireless networks , and home networks, to name a few."

Tony Rybczynski, director, strategic enterprise technologies, Nortel

"In today's era of Hyperconnectivity, CIOs and IT departments must create distinctive solutions and apply technology in new and innovative ways or risk having their businesses being left behind by their competition. With ROI's as high as 178%, unified communications can pay for itself."

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks

and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.