When choosing a business phone system, a key problem faced by small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) is cost. SMBs may stand to benefit very much from the advanced features that modern, IP-based telephony offers, but view solutions that deliver those features as out of their price range.
Now, though, peer-to-peer enabling technologies like SIP
are bringing advanced telephony within reach of SMBs.
A new study out this week from Frost & Sullivan examines the SMB market in Europe, and how peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies are making next generation communications capabilities traditionally only found in large systems available at small business prices.
In examining the situation, Frost & Sullivan found that European P2P telephony markets reached 0.3 percent penetration in 2006. That number is estimated to reach 3.6 percent in 2012.
In Europe, Frost & Sullivan noted, the smallest companies—those with 20 or fewer employees—make up the largest segment of the SMB market. This is also the segment that has fallen the furthest behind in terms of using the latest telephony technologies. For telecom companies, then, this SMB segment represents a significant, generally untapped, market.
“The availability of large system capabilities at the price of small systems is incentive enough to gain interest from small enterprise stakeholders,” Frost & Sullivan analyst Shomik Banerjee said in a statement. “What remain to be demonstrated are the fundamentals pertaining to ease-of-use and maintenance.”
One reason why telecoms in Europe have not until now targeted the SMB market is that, although the customer base is very large, it is also very dispersed. SMBs also tend to have divergent buying behavior, making it challenging to get a grasp on customer needs trends.
Frost & Sullivan suggests in the report that telecoms looking to tap into the SMB market should emphasize channel effectiveness to generate business.
”Far from large and small cities, a huge chunk of businesses are set up in areas that may not necessarily have electronics accessories stores,” Banerjee said. “Supporting such businesses is bound to lead to high costs.”
Frost & Sullivan added that delivering P2P-based solutions to SMBs can most efficiently be achieved by service providers, which provide the food pipe for communications, as it were. Telecoms, the research firm advised, would do well to partner with service providers as a way to address challenges inherent in serving the SMB/P2P telephony market.
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Interested in learning more about P2P solutions for SMBs? Be sure to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
Mae Kowalke previously wrote for Cleveland Magazine in Ohio and The Burlington Free Press in Vermont. To see more of her articles, please visit Mae Kowalke’s columnist page. Also check out her Wireless Mobility blog.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) | X |
| SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging.
SIP...more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X |
| IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
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