ONE Use Case Scenario Where VoIP Benefits your Business

As VoIP becomes more popular, businesses are waking up to its potential. Any organization will have questions about the technology. But an even more important question to answer is this one – what is the business case for VoIP?

Most organizations are reluctant to upgrade to newer technology without compelling reasons. Large projects cause disruption within the enterprise and are not always completed within the estimated time or budget. When you have a system that is functioning well and is not causing any problems, few business owners will see the need to change it. New technology also means introducing new risks to the enterprise environment. Is all the hassle worth it?

There are many use cases for businesses that are looking to justify the hassle of upgrading to VoIP. One of the most common reasons to switch is reducing costs. Another one is to stay competitive within the market or improve employee productivity. Quite a few organizations you to VoIP when existing systems run into problems or they aren’t reliable anymore.

VoIP Use Case – Reduce the Cost of Telecommunication

Putting a stop to rising telephony costs is the prime use case for VoIP. Most businesses will see savings when switching over but it’s not easy to quantify the exact amounts. VoIP technology brings both short-term and long-term benefits to a business. Some companies look to VoIP to reduce phone bills in particular. Others are working under a general mandate to reduce operational costs.

Short-Term Cost Savings

How much you can save by moving to VoIP depends on many factors including the size of the business. Larger organizations will require more time and equipment to set up before the switch. Getting started with a hosted service provided it is easy enough and doesn’t even require a credit card in some cases. Most reputable service providers offer free trials, so you can test out the system yourself before making a commitment.

Every business should see a reduction in phone bills at the outset. Part of the reason for this is that internal calls are practically free. An internal call is one that does not pass through the PSTN at any point and travels over the Internet from the source to the destination. Usually, calls between employees of the same company fall into this bracket. It doesn’t matter if you have multiple offices, all internal calls are free.

Another reason for the cost reduction is low prices for long-distance calls. Since VoIP calls travel mostly through data networks, you only have to pay for the portion of the call that uses the PSTN at any point. Naturally, how much you save depends on what percentage of your outbound calls are international.

However, you have to consider these savings against the costs of upgrading to VoIP. Businesses might have to upgrade their network infrastructure, pay for faster Internet speeds or extra bandwidth capacity to be ready for additional VoIP traffic. You also need SIP compatible phones or headsets for making calls. If your IT department doesn’t have any experience with VoIP technology, you may need to hire external consultants as well.

Long-Term Cost Savings

Quantifying the benefits of a VoIP system for the long-term is much more difficult. Nevertheless, organizations are likely to see significant economic benefits by shifting voice traffic away from a dedicated network. You don’t have to maintain separate contracts for data and voice or deal with multiple vendors for different services. IT departments no longer have to maintain separate networks along with the accompanying hardware. Businesses also need fewer people to maintain the phone systems and they spend less time troubleshooting or dealing with problems.

As organizations mature in their use of VoIP, they’re likely to explore more strategic uses for the technology. Many companies use the platform as a foundation for deploying unified communication suites. Such a move will dramatically boost productivity, cut down on downtime, and help the enterprise to compete effectively in the marketplace.

On the flipside, enterprises need new network management capabilities to deal with VoIP traffic. You might require hardware like session border controllers, media gateways, analog to digital adapters etc. Many businesses ignore security issues when deploying VoIP and scramble to catch up later. Adding security capabilities to an existing system is more expensive and time-consuming than setting a secure system from the ground up. All of this imposes additional costs on the enterprise.

Overall, switching to VoIP offers cost savings in the immediate future as well as over the long term. The exact savings will depend on the type of system you use, business requirements, the state of existing network equipment and so on. As long as you remember that VoIP comes with its own costs, it’s an extremely sound proposition from a financial perspective!