The company’s expertise group employing Offshore Application Development Techniques has developed this optimized voicemail software.

Introduction

Today’s enterprises and organizations are faced with an expanding remote and mobile workforce that relies on wireless devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless laptops, and of course, the ubiquitous mobile phone. Add to this new ways of communicating such as Instant Messaging (IM) and Short Message Service (SMS), new multimode devices, as well as converged communication systems and services such as IP-PBXs, and the picture become even more complex. More and more, workers and customers are demanding solutions that will simplify their communications, while making them more productive. Our communication and messaging choices have gotten out of control, and a simple solution that integrates voice messaging, fax, email, as well as wireless and wire line capabilities is no longer an option, but a business necessity.

The global enterprises’ dispersed workforce need to interact and collaborate — regardless of time zone differences. Sandesh, a Unified Messaging Solution is helping to solve enterprises’ challenges by enhancing the way in which people can communicate. By enabling users to respond and reply to messages in the their choice of media, Sandesh greatly enhance productivity while saving both time and money. By integrating voice, email, fax, and SMS internationally users can access any of these messages anywhere, anytime, and from any device or terminal – be it a telephone, PC, mobile phone, wireless PDA, and so on. For example, users can access voice mail from their email inboxes (generally as attached .wav files), or listen to an email message over the phone (via text-to-speech technology). Personal faxes remain personal, as they are sent to the recipient’s private mailbox and are not left out at a company’s fax machine. The result? Fewer lost communications, increased customer satisfaction, faster decision-making, increased productivity, and potentially greater revenue generation.

Sandesh have been evolving from the basic integration of voice mail, fax, and email, to Unified Communications (UC) systems, which include the real-time element of communications and messaging. Features such as real-time call control, collaboration, media handling, voice-enabled scheduling/calendar, as well as real-time call connection and completion, are bringing basic UM capabilities to a new level – Unified Communications. SMS has risen as a key communication mode, allowing people to send short text messages to each other, and is an important part of a total UM system.

By integrating a variety of interfaces and devices, plus real-time and non-real time communications, Sandesh enable users to better manage their personal and business communications and information. Sandesh allows users to be more accessible to callers, regardless of location, and to send information to associates, business partners, customers, and suppliers when necessary. UM/UC provides various productivity savings, and can increase responsiveness to customers, while shortening the sales cycle, and building goodwill toward customers.

Benefits of Sandesh

Sandesh makes possible PC-based voicemail and fax retrieval, telephone access to email and fax messages, and instant notification of incoming messages through SMS alerts. It uses a common graphical user interface to greatly enhance and simplify the ability to retrieve, organize, and review messages. And as the number and type of communication devices increases, it ensures continued anywhere, anytime, any-device access to all messages. It cuts administration costs by eliminating infrastructure redundancy. It also provides advanced productivity features such as:

• Text-to-speech conversion for cross-interface message retrieval and delivery
• Fax integration
• Speech-to-text conversion for flexible message creation. (Future)
• Speech recognition
• “Live Reply” features to automatically re-dial the person who left the voice message

Sandesh users report a wider mobility range, improved ability to receive and respond to incoming messages, and more efficient message management. These undeniable productivity gains make its universal acceptance inevitable. UM technology has already been deployed on many small- and medium-sized networks.

Following are the immediate benefits in brief: -

Increase Response

Mass communication with Sandesh can be in the form of SMS, Faxes, Emails, or Voice messages. Whereas mail often gets put aside, these mediums demand attention. Additionally, the choice of mediums allows users to reach a wider group of recipients.

They can choose the appropriate medium for both the message and audience. SMS and Voice messages provide mobility and can convey additional meaning through inflection and pauses while; email and fax messages can be appropriate for more detailed information. A particular audience might have less access to technology, so an audio broadcast to a list of telephone numbers might be the best choice. Likewise, another group, such as computer engineers, might prefer to receive communication via email. Sandesh offers users flexibility in designing a solution to meet their unique needs.

Anytime and Anywhere

Sandesh provides manifold benefits to your company by connecting to your stakeholders everywhere, anytime and anywhere.

Competitive Advantage

Sandesh SMS facility provides a strategic and competitive advantage to your company, since you clearly differentiate from your competitors through a new and personalized medium to communicate with your stakeholders.

Reduce Costs

Sandesh offers savings in multiple areas. SMS, Fax, email, and audio are less expensive mediums when compared to direct mail. They are also more immediate, allowing you to reduce response time to invoices, purchases, etc. Savings are achieved through increased productivity. Users can manage large projects with fewer staff, in less time.

The solution can reduce labor costs by up to 75%. Also, users experience savings in that they no longer need multiple fax machines or associated costs including paper, toner and maintenance. To further help its customers, Sandesh offers financing packages.

Improve Efficiency

Sandesh users can expect to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to send messages. A project that once took several days or weeks can now take just hours or minutes to complete. Furthermore, by sending messages more quickly, users can also expect faster response times. This can decrease sales cycle and other business cycles.

Interaction

Through the mobile phone you have direct access to your customer. Your customer can react immediately to your message – mobile phones are a perfect response channel. You can even send customers interactive coupons and discounts, all contained within one mobile message. And, because of its flexibility, Sandesh is also the perfect solution to support currently running, and constantly changing events, as messages can be scripted and delivered with hardly any turn around time required.

Proximity

No other media is closer to your customer than the mobile phone. This constant companion of your target audience is on throughout nearly all their waking hours. Your customers are ready to receive your promotional or informative message at any reasonable time, wherever they are. Your messages can achieve an even more favourable response as they can be personally addressed and tailored to the recipient.

Decrease Risk

We all have received faxes that were illegible and mail that was damaged in transit. Insure that your message arrives in the form you intended with Sandesh. Direct file to fax conversion means graphics remain legible. Email and audio messages are easily controlled and tested. Intelligent retries insure only valid numbers are retried, saving you this expense and hassle. Most importantly, users can insure all critical messages are received by utilizing system reports.

Working of Sandesh

Unified messaging uses a UM server connected to both the IP network and the telephony network, typically through a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). An email server stores and distributes email, voicemail, and fax messages. Messages are stored and accessed using single virtual inbox. This consolidation means that messaging is managed through a single PC interface (for example, a PC-based email and calendaring application), or remotely using a cell phone or PDA.

Return on Investment

It is not hard to identify the type of information necessary to gauge UM’s return on investment (ROI), but
actually getting that information is a challenge. Look for these types of improvements from an organization-wide UM solution:
• Eliminate redundant messaging overhead.
• Consolidate message administration and support.
• Reduce long distance message access costs (voice messages received via email).
• Reduce long distance message delivery costs (voice messages sent via email).
• Increase employee mobility and location independence.
• Speed up message response.
• Simplify message retrieval with a single mailbox that does not require a telephone.
• Enhance message organization and manageability.
• Enhance communication.
• Decrease reliance on proprietary voice messaging components.
Even by conservative estimates, the time savings of Sandesh quickly show a positive ROI. Industry studies reveal UM time savings of at least one and half hours a week per employee; the Intel study showed employee time savings ranging from 30 minutes to over two hours per week. Unified messaging productivity benefits grow as the solution is fully deployed throughout the enterprise. The more complete the UM deployment, the greater the benefit.

Conclusion

Enhanced mobility, increased responsiveness, significant timesavings and reduced administration costs are among the many compelling factors that ensure the inevitable acceptance of unified messaging. To reap the benefits of UM tomorrow, smart companies and organizations have already gotten the message by preparing today. The first steps to implementing a successful unified messaging solution are establishing a goal, formulating a plan, and choosing the right architecture to ensure a UM solution that grows and evolves.