New Study Reveals Enterprise Knowledge Workers Can Gain An Hour of Productivity Per Day Through More Efficient Business Communications

SIP-based Unified Communications Infrastructures Can Improve Productivity by Up To 23%, Delivering Large Companies Millions of Dollars in Economic Benefit

WESTFORD, Mass. – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Key Takeaways:

Knowledge workers at large enterprises spend half their day on routine communications including filtering incoming information and correspondence.
A SIP-based Unified Communications infrastructure can improve productivity lost on inefficient communications by 23%, or 1.21 hours per employee per day.
The average savings is roughly $13,000 per year per knowledge worker employee, resulting in a productivity gain of seven weeks per employee per year.

Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS), a global leader in SIP communications, today released the results of a global study which quantifies the opportunity for productivity gains and cost savings at large companies which lack the tools to simplify routine tasks associated with setting up meaningful communications with colleagues, customers and others. Commissioned by Sonus and conducted by Webtorials Editorial and Analyst Division, the '2012 Economic Impact of SIP in the Enterprise' State of the Market report found that a typical enterprise can recover millions of dollars per year by implementing an open-standard, SIP-based Unified Communications infrastructure.

"Reducing the cost of IT" Ranked the "Most Important" and "Most Challenging" Priority

The study of technology-decision makers at 267 large enterprise organizations revealed that "Reducing the cost of IT" ranked as both the "most important" and "most challenging" technology priority. This priority was closely linked to "implementing business process improvement" as a major factor both in importance and difficulty. The average time knowledge workers spent on routine communications was as follows:

Trying to contact customers, partners or colleagues: 1.41 hours per day
Trying to find key business information: 1.44 hours per day
Dealing with unwanted communications (spam, unwanted calls or email, etc.): 0.58 hours per day
Duplicating communications with multiple channels (email, phone, etc.): 0.81 hours per day
Attempting to schedule meetings etc. with people: 0.85 hours per day

The survey-base responded that a fully functional SIP-based Unified Communications infrastructure could improve productivity of the aforementioned tasks by 23%. By recovering 1.21 hours per employee per day, the average savings is roughly $13,000 per year per knowledge worker employee. The median number of employees in the company respondent base was 8,700. Download a copy of the full report as well as the associated savings calculator here.

Quotes:

"With dozens of e-mails, multiple phone calls, and even more texts or IMs each day our traditional business communications processes have become overwhelming at times and it does not have to be that way," said Steve Taylor, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher for Webtorials. "The '2012 Economic Impact of SIP in the Enterprise' State of the Market report quantifies that today's enterprises can gain several hours of productivity per employee per week by having interoperable tools for communications."
"Too often we send an email to follow-up on a voice-mail, or spend time sending a text to see if someone is immediately available. Our communication modes have been discrete for too long and the opportunity to bring them together to drive personal productivity is immense," said Wes Durow, Vice President of Global Marketing at Sonus. "Many companies first deployed SIP trunking for network simplification and cost reduction purposes but this study from Sonus and Webtorials makes it clear that even greater economic benefits can accrue by deploying a cross-company SIP-based platform for Unified Communications."

Other Facts:

Enterprises can reduce their traditional telecom bills by up to 75% through SIP trunking, trunking centralization and the deployment of VoIP.
Latest research from Infonetics Research shows Sonus as the fastest-growing SBC vendor ("Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers," 4Q11 report).
A similar 2011 Webtorials 'State of the Market' report focused on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment and sponsored by Fonality found that SMB knowledge workers spent 50% of their time on routine communications or trying to find information.

Additional Resources:

Tags/Keywords

Sonus, SONS, Webtorials, IT priorities, IT cost savings, session border controller, SIP trunking services, ipsec, media transcoding, ipv6 interworking, Unified Communications, Cloud VoIP communications, Session Management, employee productivity, enterprise communications.

About Sonus Networks

Sonus Networks, Inc. is a leader in IP networking with proven expertise in delivering secure, reliable and scalable next-generation infrastructure and subscriber solutions. With customers in over 50 countries across the globe and over a decade of experience in transforming networks to IP, Sonus has enabled service providers and enterprises to capture and retain users and generate significant ROI. Sonus products include session border controllers, policy/routing servers, subscriber feature servers and media and signaling gateways. Sonus products are supported by a global services team with experience in design, deployment and maintenance of some of the world's largest and most complex IP networks. For more information, visit www.sonus.net.

Important Information Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future events that involve risks and uncertainties.

Although the Company believes that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Sonus' actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements may relate to, among others, expected growth rates, future business prospects and market conditions. Such forward-looking statements do not constitute guarantees of future performance and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These include, but are not limited to: the timing of the Company's recognition of revenues; the ability to recruit and retain key personnel; difficulties supporting our new strategic focus on channel sales; difficulties expanding the Company's customer base; difficulties leveraging market opportunities; difficulties providing solutions that meet the needs of customers; market acceptance of the Company's products and services; rapid technological and market change; the ability to protect intellectual property rights; the ability to maintain partner, reseller, distribution and vendor support and supply relationships; higher risks in international operations and markets; the ability to hire and retain employees; the impact of increased competition; currency fluctuations; litigation; changes in the market prices of the Company's common stock; actions taken by significant stockholders; failure or circumvention of the Company's controls and procedures and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission by the Company, including in Part I, Item 1A "Risk Factors", and Part II, Item 7 and Item 7A "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations", and "Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosure about Market Risk" in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in Part I, Items 2 and 3 "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and "Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk", and Part II, Item 1A, "Risk Factors", in the company's quarterly reports filed thereafter.

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For Sonus Networks:

Kerry Brackett, 978-614-8784
kbrackett@sonusnet.com
or
Lois Paul & Partners
Anastasia Efstratios, 617-986-5873
anastasia_efstratios@lpp.com