Cloud unified communication is trending for small to medium size businesses as they upgrade their phone systems. “We can do that in the cloud” can be heard as the answer for everything from document storage to the purchasing of creative services. But what exactly does that mean for your telephony system? Here are 5 benefits you can expect when moving your phone system to the cloud:
1. Scalability. New users can be added with a few clicks. New applications are either automatically provided or can be simply integrated with cloud unified communications. For a small business experiencing rapid change, the ability to increase and decrease staff where and when it is needed is invaluable. Not having to dedicate precious resources to system administration and IT specialists can help free up not only working capital but the greatest resource of all… time. Relying on an outside technical team for host telephony can help further business goals without taxing your already over burdened IT staff.
2. Reliability. Cloud telephony services offer service level agreements with guaranteed up times and redundancy. Clear, reliable communication is imperative to keep a business running. No dropped calls or latency. When a phone system system goes down, updating can cause a temporary halt of all communications. In addition, yearly update and maintenance of a premise system can be cumbersome and time consuming. Unified communication in the cloud updates automatically, keeps your business up with latest tools and trends, and does not require any downtime to upgrade.
3. Usability. Synchronizing communication through all devices, ideally into one central location, leads to a greater level of collaboration and communication. Effectiveness is one of your top business priorities. Effortless and transparent communication tools for your team goes a long way to furthering that goal. A recipe for success includes IM, desk sharing, video calling and voice. Whether your staff works internally, remotely from home or even in another country, having data stored in the cloud assures that everyone has all the information they need at their fingertips to collaborate and grow your business.
4. Security. Secure and redundant storage for ALL communications (including call recordings, voicemail, IM chats, and more). Security concerns can keep a business owner up at night. Balancing the need for seamless communication with customer and company privacy needs is the stuff of nightmares. Unified cloud communications allows your business to architect a solution that incorporates redundancy at every level of the network, infrastructure and application layer. Cloud-based telephony leverages enterprise-class data integrity and physical safeguards for secure business communication.
5. Cost-effective. It all comes down to dollar and cents. A cloud-based telephony solution offers the flexibility of a pay as you go model. You no longer have to be Nostradamus, guesstimating the number of extensions, email addresses and users you will need down the road. IT departments no longer have to budget for phones and extensions for users that do not yet exist. Couple this with reining in your operations costs, casting aside installation worries, and technical staff overhead, can make a growing business produce results faster. Cloud unified communications offers monetary and time savings.
Do any of these benefits of cloud unified communication
make sense for your business?
Ultimately, the decision to move your telephony system to the cloud is based on where your business is going. We start with asking lots questions to identify your needs. Questions like: Are you experiencing growth? Do you have time in the short term to move your telephony system? What costs are involved? What are you spending now? Our friends at ShoreTel devised a 12-Question Worksheet to help you move towards the answering “Will moving to a cloud unified communication solution benefit your business?”
As CEO of Packet Fusion, Matt sets the tone and vision for our company and our customers. His 20+ years in telephony gives him a deep understanding of unified communications and collaboration technology. He is an engaging presenter and has a knack for breaking down the often over complicated VoIP technologies into plain and simple English. Outside of PFI, Matt’s happy place is on the golf course or on a bike ride with his daughters.