Reprinted with permission © 2009 TreeTop Technologies
Sure, there are still rotary-dial phones out there, and people are using them, but they are few and far between - and most of us probably look at them a little funny. According to Alan Medvinsky, Senior Technology Consultant at AdroTech Communications Inc., the same will be happening to digital PBX telephone systems soon as IP telephony continues to gain momentum. "Those old dinosaurs are dying off," he notes, "and they have been for some time, but that fact has really been visible for the past three or four years."
Wider adoption of the technology has also made it more affordable and accessible, so that small and mid-size companies can get pretty much the same wide range of functionality that large enterprises have been able to, from directing callers to a person no matter where he or she is, to voicemail-to-e-mail features, to fax integration and much more. Really, for those who embrace IP telephony, the holy grail of digital voice-data-video convergence is already here if they have the network infrastructure to handle it all.
But what makes it so worthwhile to switch to IP telephony - or to expand the utilization of IP telephony functions, for those who have only tentatively entered the arena - are the significant cost savings that can be achieved, Medvinsky says. A good IP telephony system offers a total cost of ownership (TCO) significantly less than traditional telephony, as it can allow a company to eliminate toll call charges, connect geographically distributed locations with a single system, get rid of the need for separate conference call vendors and connect telecommuters and "road warriors" with customers and clients seamlessly. And that's just for starters.
"You get your return on investment in an IP telephony system within 12 to 16 months, especially if you are a multi-site company, much of that from bypassing toll call fees," Medvinsky notes. "And if you are the kind of company that has geographically distributed tech support or web and audio collaboration to deal with, that 12 to 16 months for your ROI can suddenly become 10 months. The key is that all the functions that used to be decentralized and have to come from separate vendors are now centralized an in a 'single box' solution."
Research firm Computer Economics backs up the TCO and ROI advantages, with results of a 2008 survey showing that 53% of companies had a positive ROI and 28% were roughly even, while only 19% reported negative ROI. For TCO, 14% of companies came in under what they had budgeted, 54% pretty much met their budget goal, and 32% went over budget.
As to why the figures weren't even more positive, especially with TCO, Medvinsky points to the fact that companies don't always do their research, and don't always think things through completely enough before starting their deployment.
He notes that the first step of any company wishing for a truly successful IP telephony deployment is to do a network assessment and make sure they can handle the solution to begin with, followed by a site assessment that pinpoints what the company really needs in terms of equipment and functionality. Proper administrative and user training beforehand is also critical, so that people will know not only how to use the new system but to make the most of its advantages.
Companies also shouldn't be too quick to simply pick the biggest and most well-known IP telephony vendors. Neither should they rush to the "new kids on the block," but they should feel out mid-sized vendors who might actually be able to provide more "bang for the buck" and better customer service than a larger vendor.
Finally, Medvinsky says, companies should not let themselves be frightened by the specter of installation downtime. A competent IP telephony vendor, he points out, can install the new system during a normal work day while the old one is still running - without interfering with it - and be able to switch on the IP solution and switch off the old one at the end of the work day without a hitch.
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Footnotes: From "View from the TreeTop" Volume 3 Issue 1 January 2009