Is Hosted VoIP PBX Right For Your Business?

Posted on October 20, 2011 at 11:05 am by spiritel

When it comes to deploying a new hosted VoIP PBX phone system, cost savings may be the most important consideration but is hosted VoIP PBX right for your business? There are substantial cost savings for the right business but you have to dig deeper to find out if hosted VoIP PBX is a good fit for your company.

Simply by moving to a hosted VoIP PBX system you may substantially reduce expenses.

Eliminate metered calling and receive one flat rate bill – no more surprises
Consolidate multiple voice services for local and long distance, mobile, and conferencing
Eliminate maintenance and configuration fees for existing PBX phone equipment
Consolidate voice and Internet access for more efficient use of bandwidth
Reduce IT support costs associated with managing telephony service issues
Reduce office space by hiring telecommuters
Expand your candidate pool and reduce wages by hiring qualified talent from other areas

Because most companies are interested in saving money, they look to hosted VoIP PBX as a cost cutting solution but there are other more important benefits to consider. Without a doubt, the biggest benefit offered by a hosted VoIP PBX solution is increased functionality and integration with productivity software systems. Just think about the thousands of possible software applications for VoIP and mobile phones. As VoIP PBX systems mature and allow developers to interface with the core product, more niche applications are likely to develop. These new business solutions will dramatically boost productivity and enhance overall communication.

A hosted VoIP PBX solution brings extreme value to your company and tremendous business productivity enhancements which may set you apart from your competition.

Improve customer service by responding to issues quicker
Measure service performance so that you can improve your process
Provide a flexible communications infrastructure to accommodate fluctuations in staff
Offer mobile workers the means to work from any location
Penetrate new markets without having to build out new office space

In a recent Yankee Group survey, the results show that companies with hosted VoIP PBX systems are 25% to 35% more responsive to customers, and the productivity of their employees who spend a significant portion of the day on the phone increased by the same amount.

One major benefit of hosted VoIP PBX is the integration with traditional desktop tools like the latest Microsoft Office Suite. Your employees no longer have to dial a number when looking up a contact in Outlook because the phone call initiates when you click the number with your mouse. Also, instant communication is a snap because the presence manager tells you who is available so you can simply send an instant message or initiate a video conference call and pull in any additional team members from any location. It is easy to see how employee productivity improves by using a hosted VoIP PBX system and this ultimately improves the bottom line.

This is something that appeals to Joan Shipp, partner for Applefield Shipp Insurance Solutions. She said unified communications and collaboration would be a help to her employees and it would likely boost productivity especially for remote workers.

But for many, the potential for cost savings remains a key factor for any new technology purchase.

Leo Judge, MIS director at Indianapolis-based mortgage lender, The Money Station Inc., said that new applications and the possibility of unified communications was not a factor in his consideration of hosted VoIP PBX.

Judge said his company, which has four remote locations, could benefit from avoiding toll calls, having easier remote system management and enabling employees who switch desks to simply pick up and move their own phones without help from the IT staff.

However, he said budgets are tight right now and that visible return on investment is the biggest priority. “The bottom line is that the technology has to save us money,” Judge said.

Companies with that kind of bottom line mentality may want to save money by migrating to hosted VoIP PBX slowly, over time. If your private branch exchange (PBX) is working just fine, then you may want to consider installing SIP trunks to help lower the cost of your phone bill. Installing SIP trunks is a great way to move toward VoIP while avoiding the initial capital expense of purchasing all new VoIP handsets.

Most companies with a desire to save money on their phone services are able to take advantage of hosted VoIP PBX but you have to dig deeper to find out if the technology is a fit for your business. No one is buying technology for technology’s sake any more. It’s time for your company to start thinking about how VoIP technology transforms your business processes to enable greater employee productivity and collaboration.

Spiritel is here to help you evaluate the various hosted VoIP PBX offerings and find out what works best for your company. Spiritel Solutions is dedicated to helping our clients reduce telecom expenses. Our team of experts reduce annual telecom spend by an average of 30% or more for voice, data and Internet service. For a free consultation, please contact us here or give us a call at 866-770-0300.

Hosted VoIP PBX Benefits

Posted on October 17, 2011 at 1:04 pm by spiritel

I am sure you will love Hosted PBX for your small business because it brings the latest and greatest phone services to your company without spending a ton of money for a new phone system. The major benefits of Hosted PBX are enhanced unified communication features which improve employee productivity, centralized communications for remote locations and remote workers and the substantial cost savings over a traditional PBX phone system.

The cost to install a traditional PBX phone system may run anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 for a typical small business. Keep in mind, the initial cost does not include physical maintenance and regular monitoring, modifications and difficult upgrades. Compare that to a hosted PBX system which costs a few hundred dollars to implement, zero maintenance fees and all new upgrades are included in the price. Many small businesses just use their cell phone with a SIP application that interfaces with the Hosted PBX. Finally, adding and modifying new users, remote offices or telecommuters is as easy as managing your email account.

Hosted PBX is a low cost, hassle free and easy to maintain alternative to the expensive traditional PBX. It offers a full featured, technologically evolved and highly cost effective communication system with loads of attractive add-ons and advanced call handling features. Many business enterprises are rapidly taking the plunge and are switching to Hosted PBX solutions for their growing needs.

Hosted PBX is cost efficient and predictable in terms of budgeting. Most service providers offer unlimited local and long distance calling which will eliminate the metered pricing of traditional carrier services. In addition, some specialized carriers offer international free zones with their standard packages. This can be a huge cost savings for those companies who make a lot of international calls.

Because of the various Hosted PBX providers, it may be in your best interest to work with a knowledgeable telecom consultant like Spiritel to find the most qualified carrier services that fit your exact business requirements. Your telecom consultant will look at a large pool of Hosted PBX solutions, evaluate the benefits and help you select the ideal solution for your business.

Obviously, Hosted PBX is not for everyone. Hosted PBX works well for small businesses who may not have the technical expertise to manage their IT and telephony equipment. If you have more than one location or a decentralized workforce, then the Hosted PBX solution is a very attractive model because of the ability to seamlessly connect remote workers on a centralized phone system.

If you are moving to a new office, you may be able to save thousands of dollars by ditching an old PBX system in favor of the Hosted PBX. Tearing down a PBX system and setting it back up in your new location will most likely cost more than the initial fee for a Hosted PBX system. There is also the hassle factor for most companies because plugging an IP phone into a jack is a lot less complicated then programming the old PBX. So it makes sense for most companies to make the switch to a Hosted PBX system prior to moving locations.

So to review, the Hosted PBX solution may be your best option if your company is looking to do more with less money, has a staff that works outside the office, or simply wants to take advantage of a sophisticated cloud based PBX system. The upfront costs of a Hosted PBX are much lower because you eliminate the need to buy expensive phone system hardware. In addition, employee productivity increases because your staff can receive business calls from anywhere. If you are looking to drive down operating costs, then one of the biggest benefits of Hosted PBX may be the elimination of your “brick and mortar” office lease.

Spiritel Solutions is dedicated to helping our clients reduce telecom expenses. Our team of experts reduce annual telecom spend by an average of 30% or more for voice, data and Internet service. For a free consultation, please contact us here or give us a call at 866-770-0300.

Mobility Expense Management

Posted on October 7, 2011 at 11:19 pm by spiritel

Reduce Total Cost of Ownership of Mobile Assets by 30%!

As the wireless industry continues to expand and broaden service offerings, one thing remains the same: businesses are struggling to manage increasing wireless expense.

Cell phone and mobile device usage is exploding! With the ongoing development of mobile applications, faster mobile broadband, and real time access to information, mobile device usage is at an all time high. Companies are taking advantage of productivity gains offered by cell phones, data cards, and tablet PCs; however, the total cost of ownership is rising proportionately faster than other IT expenses.

Along with keeping track of all provisioning, talk time, equipment repairs and upgrades, companies also need to understand the myriad of plans available from wireless carriers. Constantly changing pricing and coverage plans makes it nearly impossible for companies to monitor.

Gaining control of wireless expense and optimizing wireless services is a daunting task. But with a wireless telecom expense management solution, you can quickly get a handle on all of your wireless assets. Spiritel partners with leading wireless expense management solutions that provide immediate savings, permanent in-house control and ongoing visibility of wireless assets.

Here are a few things that you can accomplish with a wireless telecom expense management solution.

•Maintain a complete and accurate inventory of every wireless device and service

•Validate the accuracy of your invoices

•Just in time provisioning

•Easily upgrade to newer technology while staying within policy guidelines

•Assess costs back to the appropriate department

•Dispute invoice charges with the carrier

•Build an accurate budget

•Understand the true operational costs for wireless services

•Negotiate better contracts with your providers

•Analyze your Call Detail Reporting (CDR) from your invoices

•Centralize all your wireless data into one single repository for data reporting, analysis, and business intelligence

By centralizing wireless expense management and deploying a proven service, you will drive down costs, improve inventory tracking and asset visibility, gain control of usage, enable policy approved provisioning and download meaningful reports for better decision making.

Companies that do not actively manage their mobile communications are missing significant opportunities to reduce their annual spend. By outsourcing to vendors like Spiritel with core competencies in mobile communication cost reduction, companies can realize savings of 30 percent or more within the first six months.

A Few Simple Ways To Reduce Telecom Expense

Posted on October 7, 2011 at 11:14 pm by spiritel

Keeping up with the sheer volume of telecommunications bills — not to mention trying to make sense of all the charges — can be an enormous task. Learn how to reduce telecom expense without losing sleep or your sanity.

For larger enterprises, one of the biggest impacts you can make to your operating budget is to get your telecommunications expenses under control. Telecommunications bills are some of the most confusing bills to read and interpret and even more difficult to get consistent and predictable. Here are strategies you can use to reduce the chaos.

Use VARs to help reduce billing errors. Value Added Resellers (VARs) and agents in the telecom space add a lot of value; one of the biggest benefits has to do with customized billing solutions and telecom expense management tools. Did you know that 7% -12% of all carrier invoices are in error but a majority of them go undetected because companies do not have the resources to review invoices for accuracy. Some of these telecom bills can be hundreds of pages long and taking the time to go through every line item sometimes requires several full-time resources. Even alerts set up for bill increases in your accounts payable system can miss these errors because they don’t trigger the threshold for investigation. Before you know it, you can be spending thousands of dollars on services that you did not ask for or want. Some VARs, such as Wholesale Carrier Services, offer telecom expense management solutions that are guaranteed to increase your bottom line.

Seek out a reputable telecom advisor. Consider telecommunications advisors, such as Spiritel Solutions, as a partner that operates much like a valued employee. These advisors have tremendous expertise in the telecom marketplace and add value by looking at everything you spend on telecommunications. They take this information and compare your spend to rates in the marketplace. Because agents deal with almost all of the carriers and VARs, they can be a bit more unbiased in their recommendation. They can also coordinate implementation tasks to take them off of your department’s plate, freeing up internal resources for more value-added tasks. In addition, all telecom advisors should have Web portal applications that give you a dashboard-like view into all of your telecom spend so you can easily do some “what if” simulations. It is always best to work with proven advisors with a track record for outstanding customer service and support.

Avoid program chasing. Sometimes a carrier will create a discount program to try to lure you back; these savings are only temporary and will come back to bite you later. Also, beware of agents or other telecom service providers suggesting that you move to new services and be sure you know what savings they are talking about.

Look for found money among vendors. Several companies work off of found money. Basically, the company will go through your telecommunications bills and find lines that are no longer used, unnecessary services, and services you were being overcharged for and suggest changes to make to save that money. If you implement the changes, the vendor takes a percentage of the saved money for up to 12 months. It should also tell you something that, if there are companies that perform these services, these overbilling practices happen very frequently.

Consolidate your bills. It can be very helpful and save you money to have all the bills go to headquarters instead of individual business units, stores, facilities, etc. One practice carriers employ in retail or with regional healthcare clinics is to send salespeople to these locations even though you may have enterprise agreements in place. The salesperson goes to the facility manager and says, “Your contract is about to expire; let’s look at what we can do for you.” Then they wow the facility manager with new services, and they end up signing a new contract without knowing that there is an enterprise agreement in place.

Telecom carriers can bury you in paperwork — so much so that it is easy to get lost in the sheer volume of bills you have to go through. By working with a solid telecom advisor like Spiritel, you will be assured of wholesale pricing, top rated expense management tools, and exceptional customer service. If you follow these steps, then your company will be saving a ton of money on telecom services going forward.

Metro Ethernet | Simple Scalable Way To Connect

Posted on October 7, 2011 at 11:04 pm by spiritel

As Internet Protocol (IP) applications become central to corporate data and voice strategies, more and more companies are turning to Metro Ethernet – an Ethernet technology network in a metropolitan area – to implement cutting-edge services quickly and cost-effectively.

Since Metro Ethernet uses standard Ethernet protocol, the basis of most companies’ internal local area networks, it allows companies to connect to a wide range of IP-based services in a simple and scalable manner. Its simplicity, flexibility and power make Metro Ethernet the logical choice to replace older network technologies such as frame relay, ATM services and SONET.

Access To Services

Why is demand for Metro Ethernet growing so rapidly? With its high-bandwidth capacity and a relatively low cost, it enables companies whose network traffic is growing strongly to move data and voice traffic affordably across a metropolitan area. In particular, Metro Ethernet can cost-effectively support:

High-bandwidth data services: The data traffic has increased exponentially over the past several years, as organizations become increasingly reliant on the Internet for internal, supplier and customer communication; to access hosted applications, and much more.

Existing leased lines or SONET solutions are not always able to handle this traffic, creating productivity-sapping bottlenecks. At speeds of up to 10 Gbps, Metro Ethernet provides companies the bandwidth they need.

Voice services: With its larger capacities, Metro Ethernet allows users to take advantage of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services to handle their voice traffic. VoIP can be more cost-effective than legacy phone network solutions, helping organizations reduce the cost of metro-area calls.

Video-on-demand: An increasing number of industries are tapping into multimedia services such as video-on-demand as part of their daily operations. Hospitals and medical providers, for example, now commonly send detailed medical images over their networks. Many large companies provide training via online seminars.

Triple-play services: The convergence of data, voice and video is creating demand for so-called “triple play” services that combine video with IP-based voice and high-speed Internet access. Converging these three over a single Metro Ethernet network can reduce costs and simplify deployment.

Metro Ethernet Benefits

When it comes to deploying these advanced applications, Metro Ethernet solutions provide a range of benefits over existing metro network technologies such as frame relay or ATM. These include:

Lower cost: At the heart of the provisioning of any network is the cost. Metro Ethernet services cost as much as 50% less than comparable TDM services. Metro Ethernet also provides a greater return on investment through lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and improved productivity.

Improved ease of use: Metro Ethernet is based on Ethernet, the same technology used in 98 percent of enterprise networks. What has made it attractive for local networks —robustness, cost-effectiveness and ease of use – also makes it advantageous for wide area communications. In addition, Ethernet’s convenience makes it easier to learn compared to complex solutions such as ATM.

Increased capacity: Legacy T-1 networks cannot provide the bandwidth that optical Metro Ethernet can provide. Its high speed and capacity – as much as 10 Gbps – is much better suited to in-demand, high-bandwidth applications.

Greater flexibility and scalability: An Ethernet-based backbone allows organizations to expand their LANs into WANs quickly and easily. Ethernet also allows on-demand provisioning of bandwidth, so companies can buy only what they need, then quickly “burst” their capacity should their needs suddenly change. With Metro Ethernet, this is accomplished via a quick software adjustment instead of a time-consuming and costly truck-roll.

Easier application access: The true value of any network is measured by the services and applications it provides. Metro Ethernet delivers a complete set of independent or converged services, such as Internet access, LAN extensions, and voice- and video-over IP.

Better business continuity: Metro Ethernet provides a solid backbone for an organization’s business continuity strategy, ensuring it can operate continuously through a disaster or other disruption. This is especially critical in certain industries where new regulations (such as Sarbanes-Oxley for financial services or HIPAA for hospitals and other healthcare providers) require documented business continuity plans.

Why Use TEM?

Posted on October 7, 2011 at 11:01 pm by spiritel

“7% – 12% of Telecom Expenses are in Error”

As you experience increased complexity in your telecom network infrastructure along with corporate demands to reduce expense and improve operational efficiency, the role of a telecommunications expense management (TEM) solution becomes an absolute business requirement.

Telecom costs are among the top four expenses for most companies yet 85% of telecom bills are paid in full without an audit, telecom analysts spend 20% of their time identifying errors and 80% resolving those errors, and 50% of large enterprises do not know what their telecom-related spend is. Gaining control of this unnecessary waste means direct improvement to the bottom line.

A telecom expense management solution provides immediate savings, permanent in-house control and ongoing visibility of telecom assets. For a free consultation, please contact us now to start controlling your telecom expenses!

Guaranteed ROI with Telecom Expense Management

Spiritel’s telecom expense management solution provides the software technology and management processes to effectively and accurately audit and process all of your telecom invoices, manage your inventory (wireline and wireless), support ordering and procurement of services while managing all of the changes and issues in your telecom environment.

Our unique and customizable web based telecom expense management software provides you with the tools and information to:

Maintain an accurate inventory of all your telecom services including data, voice and wireless
Resolve inaccurate billing of monthly charges
Proactively remove unwanted or unnecessary services
Eliminate late payment fees and reduce the quantity of invoices through account consolidation
Confirm contracted rates to actual billed rates
Provide business intelligence and analytical reporting for forecasting and network optimization

DID YOU KNOW!

“…up to 85% of a typical company’s telecom bills are not audited and simply paid in full.” In the telecom benchmark study by Aberdeen Research, “almost half of the respondents are actively managing less than 50% of their telecommunications expenditures.”

About Spiritel

Spiritel is an unbiased telecom consulting group that helps growing companies save money on carrier services. Spiritel analyzes your network for opportunities to reduce telecom expense. With our carrier partnerships, Spiritel can fulfill your network requirement with solid solutions at substantially reduced rates. For additional information on telecom expense management, please contact us here or give us a call at 866-770-0300.

Unbiased Telecom Advisor

Posted on October 7, 2011 at 10:53 pm by spiritel

Telecommunications is moving at the speed of light but are you able to keep pace with the industry? With so many choices available for your network, it is easy to get a little overwhelmed by the selection process. Instead of relying on carrier sales associates, it may be in your best interest to work with a knowledgeable telecommunications advisor. As your trusted telecom advisor, an experienced telecom consultant looks at the big picture to help you make the right decision. By leveraging our experience and vendor relations, we help you navigate through the sea of options to find the best telecom solution for your company. We help you make sense of the industry pea soup (VoIP, PRI, MPLS, T-1, Hosted VoIP PBX, DIA, TEM, Mobility Management, Cloud, SaaS, Colo) and work hand in hand with you to find the optimal solution for your business.

The relationship doesn’t end with the procurement of services because we are in it for the long haul. Spiritel prides itself on building lasting, long-term partnerships with all of our clients. We are concerned about helping you find the ideal solution for your network and we will always look after your company’s best interest. With a single point of contact, exceptional customer support and a proven management team, Spiritel offers a unique telecommunications consulting experience offering trust, commitment, honesty, professionalism, and integrity.