Your colleagues or employees have most likely never given any thought to the phone system and services that help to run your business communications. They most likely do not approach their phone on a daily basis with a sense of wonder, regarding its possibilities and functioning. The average business phone user sees the phone on the desk as a formulaic tool, they pick it up, dial a number, and leave a voice mail. For them, the new phone system is a not going to be an essential change to their quality and efficiency of work, nor will saving money or removing the company from the proprietary system and ownership paradigm cross their minds. For them, the expected phone system is one in which they pick up the phone, dial, and leave a voice mail. For new business phone system decision makers, the system can hold much more potential and meaning.
From the advances of 2011, 2012 is promising to provide a lot more in potential system capabilities paired with savings. The features driving phone systems and services right now are based off of Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP. The available features for communications include desktop assistants with internal IM Chat, click-to-dial integration, and video communications. Systems now also allow companies to connect with clients at lower costs, SIP trunks providers, skype integration, and CRM integration.
With a large number of new options being placed on the table for discussion, two over-arching opportunities to drive decisions are System as a Service, removing the proprietary hassle of traditional business systems, and Open Platform systems, which avoid the nickle and dime license structure for features. Business phone systems are now changing at the same rates as computers and infrastructures.
System as a Service allows companies the flexibility to upgrade without the issues of major reinvestment or recycling:
- systems engineer training
- talent acquisition for system management
- new hardware (phones & infrastructure)
- new software
Open Platforms, based upon open standards, promise much of the same advantages for flexibility and a few more for growth:
- reduced user training
- add and drop any brand of hardware
- reduced licensing requirements
- remote extensions promote work-life balance
The reduced training comes from users being able to keep their phone across upgrades and open platforms. There is no need to buy new hardware but organizations also have the ability to add any brand of hardware, so the CEO in HQ can have video with the CFO at his summer home. Not to forget the cost savings from reducing cell minutes in that scenario. Open Platforms have less complicated licensing issues, many offering robust out of the box capabilities for a set number of concurrent users.
