Business Benefits of Hosted Telephony

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1 Business Benefits of Hosted Telephony

2 Cloud Communications: Business Benefits of Modern Hosted Telephony Hosting your telephony in the cloud the modern work-smart way for a cost conscious growth business A hosted telephony platform, or cloud communications platform are one and the same. These two terms are often confused. They are both platforms hosted by a service provider, accessed over the internet, or by a direct connection to the service provider. Highlights Explore the telephony essentials that will improve your agility and help you save on cost while your business grows Find out why renting is better than buying to start with and at which point you should make the jump Understand how you can avoid maintenance contracts and increase the control over your spend Discover how hosted telephony can help strengthen your communications and be flexible enough to adapt, as your business adapts to changes Learn basic strategies that will help you plot your needs based on the number of users and scale Running a small business effectively means being agile and flexible in the way you work and the way you communicate. Traditionally the options for a small business to benefit from their telephony infrastructure were limited to onsite customer premise deployments. The features and benefits the organisation derived from their systems was directly proportional to the budget they had to spend on the system. A small business ironically often has far greater feature requirements from their telephone system as they want to appear larger then they really are large organisations have dedicated receptionists for example, whereas small businesses can rely on IVR menu systems to direct the call traffic so selecting a feature rich system was essential. As we know small businesses don t have large budgets for the staples of their communications infrastructure and traditional customer premise systems are expensive, as they require an investment in the equipment and installation and maintenance services to ensure it keeps running. Small businesses making investment decisions often need to accommodate for future growth to ensure the systems they select have plenty of headroom for growth to protect the investment, however this of course leads to inflated upfront costs. 1

3 Then there s the selection of the line provider and technology. Traditionally ISDN or analogue circuits are used however these come with their own set of challenges. When selecting the correct line type the business needs to consider the number of concurrent calls they expect and order the right technology to allow for growth. As lead times on circuits can be long, customers often overbuy circuit capacity to allow headroom for growth. Traditional circuits also reveal the businesses location by enforcing geographical numbers for example a business in rural Surrey can t easily appear as an 0207 number (London). What the cloud computing revolution enables a new choice with Hosted Telephony The cloud computing revolution has taken a grip on the delivery of modern computing infrastructure services. This has been facilitated by the availability of affordable access circuits e.g. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), EFM (Ethernet First Mile), FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) allowing us to connect at high speed to the internet. Cloud computing vendors offer their software as a service, removing the problems of traditional infrastructures. Companies can move forward managing their business without needing the specialist technical skills. The same is true for telephony. Hosted telephony removes a lot of the logistics associated with building a telephony infrastructure. First, there is ease of installation; extensions and fully featured systems can be deployed in the matter of minutes dramatically reducing the lead times and detailed planning requirements. Hosted deployments are far less likely to suffer implementation issues as the system is already built and integrated. Feature richness is provided as standard; a good hosted system will offer all the features of as on premise system and access to these features will be at a far lower cost than on premise systems. Understand how you can avoid maintenance contracts and increase the control over your spend Maintenance services are not required with hosted telephony. Typically providers of hosted platforms charge on a per extension basis which makes costs predictable and manageable, and means businesses only pay for what they use. There is no longer any need for engineer site visits to make changes to the service as everything is centralised therefore removing the delay to activate changes. Hosted systems inherently scale on demand. Businesses no longer need to build in capacity overhead for growth or try to predict what their business needs will be in the future to protect their investment. 2

4 Businesses can chose their presented geographic location, for example a business in rural Surrey can very easily appear as a 0207 number to boost their qudos. Working from home becomes transparent, as the extensions are hosted on the internet employees at remote locations, on the move, or working from home are all seamlessly connected to the same system. Considerations for hosting a PBX in the cloud Making the move to hosted telephony is very simple; you can even keep your current numbers. Hosted telephony shouldn t dictate a one size fits all telephony model and when deciding on the right provider you should consider: Feature richness. Does the provider offer the functionality you require? Can I build complex IVR menus if I need to, can I manage ACD call queues? Do I have a way to manage follow-me features so I can direct a call to my mobile? Affordability is also high on the priority list. Will I have a simple billing structure or will all of these additional features cost additional money, making the choice of on premise vs hosted more complex? How flexible is the solution? Key to the decision of hosted provider is the ability to integrate at an individual customer level. A hosted provider should be able to interact with existing customers systems and configure their system with your business in mind. How will I connect to the provider? Can I utilise my existing data line and share voice and data services, does the provider have any specialist equipment to allow me to do this to realise the cost savings of doing so? Cloud communications essentials will improve your agility and help you save on cost while your business grows. Businesses shouldn t view hosted telephony as a solution fit for a specific size or type of organisation. The decision over whether to use hosted or customer premise solutions should be driven by the financial model, the degree of administration you require over your solution, and the level of technical expertise you have within your organisation and are willing to dedicate to an on premise solution. 3

5 Why would you choose a hosted/cloud telephony solution? There are many reasons to choose a hosted or cloud communications platform. There are business benefits and technical benefits. Business Benefits: No Capital expenditure This helps cash flow and helps you retain capital for growth. No maintenance charges, everything is included, and you don t need technical staff to manage this platform. Reduced Risk no one knows what the future is for your business, a hosted telephony solution scales as you scale your business. Professionalism small and medium sized businesses can have all of the telephony power and functionality that enterprise level companies have for a fraction of the cost. With the right choice of telephone system you need never miss a prospective sale or conversation with a customer. Having somebody to answer your calls professionally is equally important. Even as the smallest company a sole trader, you can still afford a system with an auto-attendant answering service, music on hold, call queuing, voic and the ability to forward to any other number, including your mobile, all for a small fee per month per user. Technical Benefits: Lines & Access Voice Data benefits. The planning issues associated with call concurrency and line provision are removed. With a hosted service, dial tone is provided as required. No management, no backups and no technical staff required Choice: Freedom of choice opt for a hard or softphone and connect with your phone system while on the move. Location independent working Reliability of multi tenanted environment For smaller businesses hosted telephony is the obvious choice but as the business grows the compelling reasons for moving to on premise may make sense. Making the jump from hosted to a customer premises is simple to achieve if the requirement is there to do so and with systems from Foehn the on premise solution is modelled on our hosted solution. 4

6 Hosted telephony can help strengthen your communications but be flexible enough to adapt, as your business adapts to changes. How the landscape is changing & what many businesses are realising Many business owners could argue that their telephony is good but not great value for money. The trouble is, a lot of business owners do not understand the alternatives and while some are ready to change, a lack of IT Support is often cited as the biggest hurdle to making a change that is cost effective. The traditional method is not the most cost effective Business owners are realising that traditional Legacy systems on premises, based on ISDN networks, are losing their cost effectiveness. As they are already using some cloud based services for their IT, they are also opting for hosted telephony in the cloud. Why hosted telephony is an advantage for Small to medium sized companies 01. Better Cash Flow No Capital Required 02. Better Impression for your business: fully featured Location independence 03. Reduced risk scales as your business scales 04. More responsive Speed of provisioning & Service deployment 05. Just as much control you can interact with your own management portal and set up your IVRs. Implementing Hosted Telephony Foehn Market Leading approach The experts in Modern Telephony & Business Communications HOW IT WORKS DSL, Direct Internet or Ethernet Our hosted service Public phone network Your premises with your equipment Access Our hosted service Public network 5

7 Foehn is an established provider of hosted telephony for businesses, with over 200 customers in the UK. The best value, business grade VoIP telephony with % platform availability, provides flexibility, scalability and reliability. Boston Borough Council Robert Barlow, Strategic Director of Resources The decision to move to Foehn s hosted telephony was simple. The council has dramatically reduced its costs and been able to provide all users with a modern, agile and scalable telephony solution to meet the challenges ahead. SRK Accounting Simon Kallu ACA, Managing Partner Our choice of Foehn has been the right one, not just because they have provided us with a feature rich system that is configurable and will grow and adapt to our needs but also because they have an experienced team which is highly responsive to our needs as a business. Accumulus Consulting Our new system works well and does everything we need it to do. Also, any member of the team working remotely can simply plug in their headset to their laptop and function as if they were working in the o The quality is good and Foehn customer support is very responsive. Theatre Sites Roger Coleman, Director Making the move to Foehn hosted telephony was exactly the right thing to do. Not only does it support our business in ways that any telephone system should, it also provides us with higher levels of flexibility and scalability. To learn more about Foehn please call or visit