Migrating to Hosted Telephony. Your ultimate guide to migrating from on premise to hosted telephony.

Transcription

1 Migrating to Hosted Telephony Your ultimate guide to migrating from on premise to hosted telephony

2 Intro What is covered in this guide? A professional and reliable business telephone system is a central part of your IT infrastructure. Ease of use, reliability, call quality and scalability are cri;cal in managing your opera;ons and your reputa;on. Of course, migra;ng to a hosted VoIP solu;on is an a@rac;ve op;on. It s cost- effec;veness, scalable and reliable, designing and implemen;ng the transi;on to a new system can be challenging and ;me consuming. In this guide, we outline: The difference between On Premise and Hosted Telephony; How Hosted Telephony works; The services available on a Hosted Telephony model; What s possible in a hybrid model; System requirements for a Hosted Telephony model; A checklist for the migra;on; and, Key points for your business case. This guide will cover everything you need to know to begin planning for an effec;ve move to a hosted VoIP solu;on. 1 of 9

3 1 Hosted vs. On Premise: what is the difference? Hosted communica;ons is a service that offers your business an integrated telephony and internet access solu;on in one, simple- to- use system. These services can be accessed by a company of any size with a low, pay- as- you- go tariff that adapts to the needs of each user. One of the big advantages of hosted communica;ons is that it is scalable, able to grow with a start- up firm, or adapt to the changing needs of a large corpora;on. Another major advantage is that these services can be accessed from a desk phone or via single sopware applica;on, on a browser, a tablet or a Smartphone. All of this means that companies no longer need to invest in a physical, onsite PBX for their telephony needs, taking away the associated cost of infrastructure and maintenance without compromising on the quality of their communica;on services. Put another way, this is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service wherein all business voice calls, teleconferencing and video data are transmi@ed over the Internet rather than through tradi;onal telephone lines. This is of course a cheaper and more effec;ve op;on for providing business telephony services because it means that companies no longer need to use their exis;ng telephone lines for voice calls and no longer have to purchase new lines to expand their telephone network. On premise, on the other hand, means businesses have control of all their business communica;ons, system and databases in- house as well as handling and storing corporate data internally. This means there is a need for dedicated IT staff for maintenance, and support and an up- front costly fee is involved. Managing and maintaining an on premise PBX (private branch exchange) telephone system can be expensive, inflexible, and complex to upgrade. Large capital expenditure and lengthy support contracts means that businesses are increasingly looking to more manageable and flexible alterna;ves such as a hosted VoIP solu;on.

4 2 How does Hosted Telephony work? The service works by using exis;ng Internet connec;ons, and if broadband capacity and speed is insufficient, extra bandwidth can be added. VoIP also reduces business communica;on costs by bundling call and data charges together. In addi;on, companies can easily create a hosted contact centre without requiring addi;onal staff and resources to maintain it. This can be par;cularly interes;ng for smaller businesses that require a scalable service as a bolt on to their regular telephone system. Its completely possible and feasible to add contact centre facili;es for just 5 users using a hosted system. This lowers the cost of na;onal and interna;onal calls, and provides free calls to users within the company network, regardless of where in the world they work. Voice services are simple to select and order, with a range of handsets and tariffs available. 3 of 9

5 3 What services are available on a Hosted Telephony solution? A wide range of services are available as part of hosted communica;ons and these can be layered one upon the other depending on the needs of the client. For example, at UC&C, we can provide the connec;vity and on top of this we can provide the hosted telephony solu;on, Unified Communica;ons services and a Contact Centre solu;on. The contact centre is supported by OpenScape Cloud Contact Centre technology, which offers clients full func;onality with their exis;ng telephone infrastructure and includes integrated Customer Rela;onship Management (CRM) sopware to create a service that can be expanded or contracted on a pay per use basis. This means that companies can work smarter, avoiding idle staff or infrastructure that consume resources without contribu;ng posi;vely to the company. Mobile telephone services are also included in the range of services available as part of hosted communica;ons. The service allows clients to manage their mobile communica;ons in a more streamlined way, bringing together the total data and minutes allowance and enabling companies to allocate these resources in a way that reduces expenditure across the organisa;on and allows greater control of communica;on costs. If companies opt for a Unified Communica;ons service, hosted telephony, a hosted contact centre and mobile services can be combined to form an integrated communica;ons system, where voice calls can be made and received using a number of devices, including desk handsets, Smartphones, tablets and sop phones on desktop and laptop computers. This aspect of mobile telephony services give companies and their staff a great deal of flexibility, allowing workers to work from home, in the office or on the move, as well as enabling team- working between colleagues in different loca;ons and ;me zones.

6 4 Is it possible to have a hybrid solution? What if I want to keep my current on premise infrastructure, but take advantage of the features hosted telephony brings too? Don t worry if you don t know which system is right for your business. There is no right or wrong answer, and when asking the ques;on, Should I choose hosted telephony over on premise? the answer could also be both. The key is to strike a balance between the two telephony models, and adapt accordingly to your needs. With a hybrid model, you have the following: 1. Flexibility to choose only the services your business requires, without having to commit to the full installa;on package. 2. Minimal hassle and cost when going between both models. 3. One supplier, mul;ple solu;ons for all your telephony and messaging. For example for some larger clients it is possible to add our Cloud Unified Communica;ons services to an exis;ng on premise telephony plagorm by connec;ng your equipment to our Data Centre. 5 of 9

7 5 What do you need to get started? Here are top three things you need to get started: 1 BANDWIDTH: Do you have sufficient bandwidth within your office to install hosted telephony? A typical DSL connec;on that hosted telephony requires is rated at 600 kbps for upload streams, and 5000 kbps for downloads, so a connec;on of this speed is desired to install hosted telephony effec;vely. You need to determine how many people in your office are likely to be using the phone system at the same ;me. 2 ROUTER Do you have a good- quality router in place? A bad router will slow down your call quality, which is a big mistake that will ul;mately cost you. The more phones you will be connec;ng to the system, the more reliable the router must be. Another considera;on is how you power the phones on your desks. More sophis;cated network equipment will provide Power Over Ethernet (POE) which removes the need for power connec;ons on every desk. 3 ANALYSE YOUR COMMUNICATIONS NEEDS What are your current Communica;ons requirements? Are many of your workforce out on the road or work from home? Could the business benefit from support desk or contact centre technology? Do you have mul;ple offices that could benefit from VOIP? Use the UC&C video guides to understand your requirements be@er and find out what is now on offer. 6 of 9

8 6 Your essential checklist Print this sheet off, and ;ck the boxes when managing your migra;on. IT support requirements calculated and reserved to complete the process? 1 Y N 2 Time blocked out to perform tests on your new system before it goes live? Y N 3 Audit of phone requirements has been completed: Have you ordered enough phones, are they placed around the office effec;vely enough for maximum produc;vity and privacy? Have you assessed all of the rou;ng requirements, hunt groups, pickup groups etc? Do you need any new Geographic numbers? What new services will the Hosted System provide? Y N 4 Site survey organised for your Hosted Telephony requirements. Is your broadband connec;on suitable?. Do you have the correct switches and routers in place, will the switches power your phones? Do you need power adapters for each handset? At UC&C we can complete this site survey, talk through your op;ons, and manage the upgrade for you. Y N 5 Training ;me booked? All users will need to be educated on the new Hosted Telephony system before the installa;on, so book in training days well in advance. At UC&C, we have created a host of free training videos to help you in the process, and we will come on site to ensure everyone knows how to maximise the system for full business benefit. Y N 6 Do you have any PDQ payment machines that use the exis;ng phone lines? Do you have any analogue fax lines? These can both be dealt with by your Hosted service provider as long as they know in advance. Y N 7 Old service turned off once all checks complete? Make sure you re not s;ll paying for your old service if you re not using it. This may include your current ISDN Lines. The termina;on period can be as narrow as a couple of days, and it can be easy to forget when you have a new, exci;ng Hosted Telephony system to use. 7 of 9

9 7 The business case It will save your business money There s no need for IT staff to fix hardware maintenance issues and sopware updates, as UC&C take care of it all for you. This reduces the demands on you IT support team. You can enjoy flexibility UC&C Hosted Telephony and Unified Communica;ons has a flexible per- user licensing structure that makes it easy and cost effec;ve to change users and features. You can simply add or remove func;onality whenever it makes sense for your organisa;ons, teams, or for a par;cular employee based on their role and responsibili;es. It keeps your business up to date with modern communicaoon technology It allows staff to work remotely Mobile telephone services and applica;ons are also included in the range of services available as part of hosted communica;ons. The service allows clients to manage their mobile communica;ons in a more streamlined way enabling companies to allocate these resources in a way that reduces expenditure across the organisa;on and allows greater control of your communica;on costs. We offer full support and training You can be rest assured your employees will be fully supported and trained. UC&C offer both on site and off site video training, a 24/7 core system, maintenance and support. Hosted communica;ons also allows a range of modern technology to be integrated into voice communica;ons, giving workers the ability to access voic , , instant messaging, texts and video calls from the same device and using the same sopware. 8 of 9

10 Call us to organise your on site survey today