Hong Kong SMBs Want Better Communications, SMBWorld-Nortel Survey Reveals

Unified Communications Capabilities Highly Desired To Boost Efficiency, Cut Costs

HONG KONG - A majority of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) believe their communications systems leave a lot of room for improvement and half want systems that are easier to use, according to the results of a new survey of Hong Kong IT decision makers sponsored by Nortel* [TSX: NT, OTC: NRTLQ].

The survey, conducted by SMBWorld and Nortel, polled more than 150 IT decision makers across the territory, more than half of whom work in companies with 100 or fewer employees. The respondents include professionals in IT and communications, banking and finance, manufacturing, retailing, import and export. All were asked about their perceptions of their existing communications systems, major areas of expenditures, and interests and needs for future communication systems. Unified communications - enables voice, video, email, presence, instant messaging (IM) and other forms of communication - ranked high on the list of desired capabilities.

Among the survey findings:
* More than 80 percent of the respondents believe current internal and external communication systems leave room for improvement. Nearly 50 percent wanted a more seamless experience for their increasingly mobile workers, who want to reach and be reached effortlessly, whether they are in or out of the office.
* Nearly 75 percent want solutions integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and other core systems to improve customer service capabilities by giving staff quick access to both the data they need, and the people to whom it relates. Some companies would like more flexible communications that are tailor made to suit the unique needs of their particular industry - such as the VoIP-based call handling system that has improved productivity for traders.
* Almost half of respondents said employees need mobile office capabilities. UC ensures employees never miss a call by seamlessly routing calls and messages to desktop, notebook, or mobiles as appropriate.
* UC is gaining traction among local businesses. Twelve percent are already using corporate IM solutions and 16 percent of respondents already have full UC systems - with another 30 percent planning to adopt UC in the near future. UC is seen as improving employee efficiency and reducing international calling costs, as well as providing new capabilities to enhance core business and customer systems.

“The results of this survey confirm that Hong Kong’s small and medium businesses are rapidly realizing the benefits of unified communications,” said Roy Wakim, leader, Enterprise Voice, Nortel Asia. “Their communications needs are no longer being met by conventional PBX systems, and they see UC as a key way of improving efficiency and helping them to do more with less. Nortel’s SMB solutions, including the Business Communications Manager (BCM) 450 and Software Communication System (SCS), meet this need by providing feature-rich, cost-effective UC solutions that can deliver big savings for even the smallest company.”

Nortel’s fastest-selling IP telephony solution ever, BCM 450 , provides UC capabilities such as message forwarding, teleconferencing for up to 120 participants, CTI, intelligent contact center capabilities, and energy savings up to 40 percent over competing solutions - while allowing companies with Norstar systems to preserve up to 70 percent of their original communications investment. The SCS solution is a highly scalable, software-based UC product built on open standards and available on leading hardware server platforms from IBM, Dell and HP. It’s aimed at boosting productivity, efficiency, flexibility, and mobility while offering cost savings for companies with 30 to 1000 employees.

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 .

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*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.