The VoIP PBX Solution - How Can It Benefit Your Company?

VoIP PBX solutions are more and more becoming the choice of communications hardware for companies with dispersed offices and staff, both nationally or internationally.

Choosing The Right Kit

Communications is one of those aspects of running a company that causes a great deal of challenge to many business owners. When not armed with a great deal of technical knowledge, it’s difficult to manage the challenges of controlling cost with reliability, security and performance of your communication system.

A lot of companies in today’s business environment have geographically dispersed offices and sites, either nationwide or global, and the challenge of linking these sites in terms of both your internal and external communications is a tricky one. Traditionally, a lot of (mostly medium and large-sized) companies used a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) which routed calls between different offices, as well as to the outside world, via the PSTN, with the result being a high level of cost in the business. The answer.....purchase a Voice-over-IP enabled PBX system and deploy it in a Virtual Office setup.

A typical VoIP PBX System

A new wave of VoIP PBX systems (or VoIP PBX solutions) are finding their way onto the market, offering a fairly easy integration with traditional equipment, and relatively low operating costs. Furthermore, as is the benefit with any IP-based communications, a VoIP PBX solution means there is no longer the need for separate voice and data networks, leading to lower costs.

To find out more about developments in PBX Phone Systems, click here for an interesting article.

The benefits of a VoIP PBX system :

1. Lower costs and greater flexibility in terms of a company's communications structure.

2. Free Calls - calls between offices are made by dialling a PBX extension, meaning the call remains ‘on-net’ and therefore incurs no charge. Obviously, to many companies this can constitute a significant saving.

3. Single number calling - the company’s external customers can also dial a single number to reach an employee, regardless of where that employee happens to be in the world. VoIP technology enables this call to reach its recipient as long as they are connected to the internet in some form.

4. Value-added features - there are many associated with VoIP that will become available to the organisation (see below)

5. Call centres become more ‘virtual’ in nature, as workers can be based anywhere in the world and be able to pick up the customer’s call. There are also options to route calls to a specific person or number based on call information, eg a special client may be routed to an individual they know well

A Hosted VoIP PBX System

Obviously, investment in a VoIP PBX solution can be expensive, especially for those companies who have a very limited communications budget. One alternative is to take up the service of a hosted VoIP PBX provider. There are many on the market, such a Packet8, who provide value-added services to their clients including conference bridges, business voicemail, auto attendants on a help-line, as well as many other features. The benefit of using such a service can be a significant reduction in communications operating costs, as well as considerably enhanced service, both internal and to external customers and suppliers.

Potential Risks of a VoIP PBX System

(a) New technology training – it’s true that VoIP is more straight-forward than traditional telephony systems, but there is inevitably a lethargy in many companies to make the change, and employees may not adapt to the new systems initially.

(b) The Quality of Service (QoS) of using VoIP is still a concern to a number of organisations. Whilst the quality of VoIP is constantly improving, and in many cases call quality is better than via traditional methods, there are a number of lower quality VoIP operators offering very cheap service, meaning customers may get frustrated if you don’t choose your VoIP provider wisely.

(c) Service support : there will still need to be a level of service support with a VoIP PBX solution, so companies need to be aware of the comparative costs of such support

(d) Interoperability may still be an issue between the standard kit and any proprietary or legacy kit within the organisation. A thorough audit will need to be carried out with the new VoIP PBX solution provider to ensure this is not an issue.

Summary

Traditional PBX systems are still a key component within many organisations globally as a means of creating an internal communications network. However, the new wave of VoIP PBX solutions on the market is offering a lower cost alternative with much enhanced features. More and more companies are seeing the benefits of such a solution, especially in terms of the vast cost reduction opportunities available, given that internal calls are now cost-free, and external calls may be routed a lot more competitively than before. Therefore, expect the VoIP PBX solution to be a major constituent of the future structure of internal communication systems in companies with dispersed offices.

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