PRNewswire-FirstCall
BOCA RATON, Fla.
(NYSE:SI)
Oct 15, 2007

BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The largest-ever survey of enterprise and contact center employees and their workflows reveals the silent but staggering true costs of fragmented communications: Enterprises of 1,000 persons could lose nearly $13 million a year in lost productivity and avoidable expenses. That's just one of many startling results from a recent, landmark in-depth poll of 517 communications end-users across North America and Europe conducted by independent Insignia Research of Toronto, Canada and commissioned by Siemens Communications, Inc.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070904/SIEMENSLOGO )

The survey report entitled "Measuring the Pain: What Is Fragmented Communication Costing Your Enterprise?" is the first to fully quantify the costs of the status quo -- including workflow disruptions, added costs and associated frustrations to enterprises lacking unified communications. It explores pain points at the individual, team and enterprise levels in terms of time and impact on serving customers as well as the frustration and anxiety to users and their teams. A solid majority of the respondents (62%) identified themselves as being in customer service and sales roles. The survey asked very specific questions about experiences with existing communication systems while involved in customer-facing and time-critical processes.

  Highlights of the survey include:
  -- Ninety-four percent of respondents reported waiting an average of 5.3
     hours per week for information from others to complete tasks. In
     1,000-employee enterprises, this can translate to more than $9 million
     yearly in lost productivity based on a $37 weighted hourly wage. Taking
     a process view of this nearly universal pain point, the negative impact
     of 5.3-hour delays in customer-facing activities has larger
     implications on customer sales, service and revenue realization.
  -- Respondents reported an average productivity loss of 7.8 hours a month
     at offsite locations because they lack the communication tools they
     have in their main office. Nearly a full day each month is lost because
     they are not properly equipped with effective, remotely-accessible,
     collaborative communications systems. As workers continue to become
     increasingly mobile, the net effect of this may become more dramatic.
     Fully weighted, in a 1,000-person enterprise, these costs can exceed $3
     million a year.
  -- Enterprises are wasting at least $3,400 per person each year in
     unnecessary business travel expenses because of ineffective or
     non-existent collaboration with existing communications systems.
     Managers are forced to synchronize teams through expensive internal
     meetings requiring travel. In a 1,000-person enterprise, these costs
     can top $3.4 million a year.

"Never before has a study so clearly captured the extent of the frustration felt by individuals, managers and teams, and so completely quantified the extraneous costs leaking out of the enterprise as a result," said Jim Burton, principal of UC Strategies, a leading market research firm specializing in unified communications across the enterprise. "Aside from the hard costs uncovered in the survey, there are soft but very real costs in terms of customer responsiveness and satisfaction."

The solution, Burton said, is an enterprise-wide, unified communications platform like that reflected in the highly scalable Siemens Open Communications architecture. It is designed to unify enterprise communications, providing a rich user experience and fixed-mobile convenience anytime, anywhere.

According to Eve Aretakis, CEO, Siemens Communications, Inc., Siemens commissioned the independent survey to help its enterprise customers and the market realize the enormous costs of continuing the communications status quo in their businesses:

"To get the most conservative view, we asked the researchers to discount their soft-cost findings by 75 percent," she said. "Even then the soft costs work out to more than $8,400 per employee each year. Factoring in the hard dollars of travel and communication expenses, the data shows an annual impact approaching $13,000 per employee no matter what size the enterprise. With these findings, the potential return on an investment in unified communications becomes most compelling."

  For the white paper on the research findings, please go to:
  US: http://www.siemens.com/us/open/ucsurvey

  About Siemens

Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $96 billion in fiscal 2005. Founded nearly 160 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas Medical, Power, Automation and Control, Transportation, Information and Communications, Lighting, Building Technologies, Water Technologies and Services and Home Appliances. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in New York City, Siemens in the USA has sales of $18.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Eleven of Siemens' worldwide businesses are based in the United States. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens AG and its subsidiaries employ 460,000 people in 190 countries. For more information on Siemens in the United States: http://www.usa.siemens.com/

About Siemens Communications, Inc.

Siemens Communications, Inc. is an affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG, one of the world's leading vendors of Open Communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes, enabling business processes to be more productive, faster and more secure -- with any device, network or information technology infrastructure. Siemens Communications, Inc. and Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG are wholly owned subsidiaries of Siemens AG, with about 15,000 employees collectively throughout the world, including the U.S. headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. For more information about Siemens Communications, Inc., visit http://enterprise.usa.siemens.com/home.html

Note: Siemens, HiPath and OpenScape are registered trademarks of Siemens AG or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All other company, brand, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of Siemens management. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "forecast," "expect," "intend," "plan," "should," and "project" are used to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the actual results to be materially different, including, among others, changes in general economic and business conditions, changes in currency exchange rates and interest rates, introduction of competing products, lack of acceptance of new products or services and changes in business strategy. Actual results may vary materially from those projected here. Siemens does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE: Siemens

CONTACT: Jacob Rice of Siemens Communications, Inc., +1-561-923-8347,
jacob.rice@siemens.com

Web site: http://www.usa.siemens.com/
http://www.communications.usa.siemens.com/
http://www.siemens.com/us/open/ucsurvey