“Organisations that do not have access to large capital investments are more likely to use an out-of-the-box solution that can be externally managed, and pass these cost savings to other areas of the business.
Today, larger organisations are looking seriously at the business benefits of hosted VoIP. This shift has several causes. The turbulent economic situation and the higher cost of borrowing has made cost-saving, efficiency boosting products like managed telephony look more and more appealing to larger companies. The acceptability of the technology has grown, as has the technology itself. Newer innovations like hosted call recording and fixed mobile convergence are understandably attractive to bigger firms.
The economic situation is also causing customers of all sizes to be wary of financial commitment over a long period. With hosted, not only is the initial investment much lower, but its scalability eliminates much of the risk associated with a premise-based solution of a certain size, as hosted offers the option to scale down as easily as scale up.
The global element is an important one, as larger companies are likely to have overseas sites with a wider range of communications needs and multiple PBX of different types. This can involve additional management costs and support contracts. The attraction to hosted for these organisations lies in both the flatrate international call tariffs and, for the reseller, the ease with which it makes it possible to expand into new geographic territories. Hosting offers resellers a simply way to expand outside of their normal geographic reach.
At Inclarity we’ve been serving the needs of the smaller offices as well as taking these larger seat orders. However we are seeing 100+ orders coming through more and more frequently. Our advice is that suppliers looking to ‘move up a gear’ should be wary of jumping into this market until they have the right infrastructure, the technological expertise and high-level customer service. All companies, no matter what their size, will still expect and deserve a world-class solution for the most mission critical area of their business. Hosting however makes it easier to compete than trying to upskill onto newer larger platforms.”