In my daily discussions with small business and mid-sized business customers about phone systems I’m discovering a common theme. In fact most conversations come down to just two main points:
- Saving money on their phone bill, and
- How Unified Communications can help their small to mid-sized business
The push-back I commonly hear is that the switch to IP communications is expensive and therefore takes too long to realize a return on investment (ROI). It can be compared to buying an electric car to save money on gas. How long does it take to recover the added cost of the new technology by using less gas? Too long.
That’s why a hosted Unified Communications (UC) solution makes sense. Businesses are finding it very cost effective to “rent” rather than buy their phone system. This goes beyond the leasing of the equipment. In a hosted Unified Communications environment there is nothing to maintain, upgrade or call the IT guy for. It is completely handled “in the cloud” out of a central server located in a secure hosted facility. (SimpleSignal has a national operations center (NOC) securely located in Denver, CO) CIO’s and IT managers are hearing the message of mitigating risk with managed Unified Communications deployments. The cost of the system is predictable because of a fixed per-user, per-month, unlimited usage plan. Most customers pay less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day per user!
In the past year I’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of firms that are evaluating hosted IP communications and SIP trunking solutions. One researcher notes that they’ve documented an increase from 36% to 57% of the businesses they interviewed are using some form of IP communications. Why the shift? Growing businesses see Unified Communications phone systems as a key technology to support their collaboration. We hear about this everyday. According to our sales reps, more than half of the calls they receive are from people wanting to improve their collaboration with their co-workers through UC.
However, perception is different from reality. Creating real savings to persuade the CFO to sign off on a new phone system requires linking to business processes and applications and getting buy-in from business unit leaders. While savings from increased productivity and more effective collaboration are easy to see, they are often hard to count. Sometimes the value proposition can be strengthened by citing monthly cost savings, simplified management and a greater feature set.
In any case, the next few years will see a plethora of firms installing Unified Communications. We’ve only just begun to develop a whole new world of communications.
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Go with a hosted voice solution over a PBX and save a couple hundred thousand right off the bat. No storing of the equipment, no maintenance and no technician’s fees.
Add in cool features like voice to text, having your voicemails emailed to you and harnessing the power of remote office features and it’s a no-brainer.