According to new research conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Martin Dawes Systems, awareness of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) and its benefits is high amongst UK businesses (54%) with 10% already using the technology and another 7% planning to implement FMC in the next two years.
The research surveyed telecommunication service buyers of 100 businesses with in excess of 500 UK employees.
The business respondents were asked if they were aware of FMC offerings in the market place with 54% responding positively. This finding suggests that offerings like BT Fusion, which was launched to business customers in February 2006 with the support of Martin Dawes Systems, appear to be capturing the imagination of the marketplace.
According to the survey cost savings (75%) are regarded as the most significant expected benefit followed by improvements in employee productivity (63%). Other benefits identified by the survey include better cost control, enhanced mobile working and more transparent billing.
When asked about the biggest challenges in deciding on future telecommunications services, the upfront cost to implement a new business telecom system (64%) and the need to justify return on investment (48%) were considered to be the most significant. Concern about whether the latest technology was sufficiently future-proofed was cited by 40% of respondents as an issue that would affect their consideration of new solutions like FMC.
Tom Hodgson, sales and marketing director, Martin Dawes Systems, commented, “2006 was the year FMC became a real contender in the industry with the first commercial products and services brought to market. Whilst it is still early days for this concept, our survey suggests FMC is very much on the business agenda and developments like the latest WiFi version of BT Fusion will further stimulate the market.”