Presenting his paper on `Welcome to the Brave New World of Computer Telephony', Shinsato said that companies fail to leverage on computer telephone interface (CTI) because they don't make adequate investments of time and money, adding that they tend to overlook the interface between humans and technology, resulting in non-performance of CTI.

CTI, he said, is not a computer marrying a telephone, but something similar to it. It is actually a computer enabling a telephone to function smoothly and efficiently, reducing human intervention. This, in turn, reduces the manpower required for faultless functioning of an organisation, resulting in saving both time and money.

Quoting success stories of companies like American Home Direct (US), Royal & Alliance (Australia) and Donghu Fire & Marine Insurance (Korea), Shinsato said that the state-of-the-art technology installed, coupled with the right human intervention, was the true reason for the triumph of these firms. All of them are leading insurance companies in their respective countries.

Elaborating on the example of American Home Direct, he said that the US-based company has call centres installed, which direct the user's enquiry to a human customer service personnel, who answers all queries. This, he added, provides a direct interface with the client, which is the company's secret of success. "All the leading insurance companies worldwide are scrapping their insurance providers, and is leveraging on CTI to provide first quality service," he added.

The success stories of these companies depend on the appropriate use of CTI, apart from the proper use of human intervention. These companies, at present, use telephones, e-mails, fax mails, apart from humans attending telephone calls.

The three-point success secret of any enterprise is asking, how, when and where, do customers need the firm's service. Providing these services, with an all-in-one communication platform, with software-based EPABX, ACD, IVR, voice, fax and video mails would propel the growth of a company. Unified messaging system, he said, would emerge as a high-production tool, which can be leveraged by any company employing CTI. Apart from this, internet commerce would come to the forefront, and the next millennium would witness a large number of organisations' jumping on to the bandwagon, he added.

Computer and telephony will drive today's business, and would help a company to have a competitive edge over its rival, by enabling strategies on cash down, revenue up and customer services.

Voice over internet protocol (VoIP), wireless telephony and customising over IP using analog are the emerging technologies in this field, he said. Wonderful synchronisation of voice and screen pop-ups, would help minimise the wait time for both the customer and the service agent.