Reduce IP Telephony Costs with Hosted Services

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Reduce IP Telephony Costs with Hosted Services [Copy link]

　The managed services model enables enterprises to get the most out of their investment.

　　The smaller the company, the more it needs to leverage multiple technologies to get the most out of its investment. The problem is that the more technologies you use, the more investment you need, so small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are eager to maximize their technology investment returns.

　　A recent study conducted by IDC shows that enterprises are increasingly interested in IP telephony. The survey (63% of the surveyed companies have fewer than 2,500 employees and 66% of the surveyed companies have annual revenues of less than $1 million) shows that these companies plan to invest more in phone systems than basic network equipment, with net phone system investments increasing by 5.6% in the next year.

　　Many companies may think that implementation costs will be high. However, these companies may have forgotten that they have already purchased private branch exchange (PBX) - telephone switching equipment, or Centrex systems hosted by local telephone companies, which are still "sitting" in the office. Enterprises can set up the same system on their own networks and entrust a managed telecommunications operator to manage the IP phone system on their behalf, rather than choosing to manage it themselves.

　　Improve productivity

　　In today's increasingly competitive market, small and medium-sized enterprises need to improve employee productivity as much as possible, and unified messaging features can help companies achieve this goal.

　　Tim Gaines, vice president of VoIP sales at Covad Communications, said: "From a communication perspective, employees in various companies are already overwhelmed." He pointed out that many employees need to get information from multiple voice mailboxes such as company, home or mobile phones. Usually, these calls need to be replied, but this cannot be achieved through external systems. Similarly, if the other party needs a document, the employee must send an email or fax, that is, they must use a computer.

　　Gaines made the following statistics:

　　Time required to record a message: 90 seconds

　　Time saved by unified messaging every day: 15 minutes (based on a 20% improvement in 10 calls)

　　The benefits of 20 employees' annual productivity improvement: $5,000

　　How can the above productivity improvement goals be achieved?

　　The "Find-me/Follow-me" feature allows users to forward calls to any number of their choice, eliminating the need for callers to guess which phone number to use;

　　when getting information from an IP phone or Web interface, users can see all the information in order, so they can prioritize emergency calls without listening to all the messages;

　　if the caller needs a document, the user can attach the document to the voice message.

　　Who is responsible for management?

　　The question remains whether to manage it yourself or by the telecom operator. In some cases, companies can consider managing the system themselves, but experts believe that self-management should only be chosen in special circumstances.

　　The reasons why most small and medium-sized enterprises are best to choose a hosted service model are as follows:

　　the task of providing system redundancy for fault recovery is the responsibility of the operator;

　　it enables small and medium-sized enterprises to enjoy the continuous improvement of technology at any time.

　　Bob Rosenberg, president of telecom research company Insight Research, said: "In the foreseeable future, the competition in the telecom environment will definitely be very fierce, so it is impossible for companies to manage everything themselves. The price of hosted solutions is more reasonable."

　　No matter which way is adopted, enterprises can benefit. "The nature of these applications will change dramatically over the next few years," predicts Insight's Rosenberg. "For the first time since the public voice communications market was formed in the 1930s, the user's desktop will be completely transformed."