Cutting overhead costs to ride out an economic downturn is a predictable trend, and this is exactly what many small businesses are doing these days. A recent survey of small businesses by RingCentral confirmed the trend, indicating that when the going gets tough, companies will make cuts where needed to operate more efficiently.
RingCentral’s (News - Alert) survey was distributed to 250 U.S. small business owners and entrepreneurs during the period from October 17 to October 23, 2008. A majority of respondents, 75 percent, indicated that the economic downturn is having a negative impact on business. And, in response to the current realities, 72 percent of respondents said their companies are looking at overhead costs, like office space (mentioned by 23 percent of respondents) and non-vital business services (mentioned by 50 percent of respondents), as logical places to make cuts.
While the causes of the economic turmoil are complex, and the remedies equally so, companies are doing what they have to now to make it through a recession. RingCentral said that Main Street is reacting quickly to the issues that originated on Wall Street.
Flexibility is a keyword among small businesses today, RingCentral’s survey results indicated. This includes switching to communications services, like RingCentral’s hosted phone and fax service, that enable employees to work from home or other remote locations. The trend toward adopting flexible solutions is a positive development for those that provide such services. RingCentral, for one, has experienced a record rate of customer growth in the past month.
Joseph Turley, CEO of Evolution Managed Solutions, an IT services company in Salt Lake City, Utah, said RingCentral’s hosted phone system has helped his business respond appropriate to the economic downturn by reducing costs.
“With a Web site and a phone service like RingCentral, we have a virtual store front and are cutting costs by traveling less and working remotely — all while improving communications with our customers,” Turley said in a statement.
One of the trends RingCentral’s survey revealed is a move, among small businesses, away from centralized offices and toward distributed workforces. Only 16 percent of respondents said their companies operate out of a single, centralized office. Instead, 72 percent of small businesspeople work from home offices, 29 percent are part of companies with multiple U.S. locations, and 18 percent refer to themselves as “road warriors.”
Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, said that, given current economic pressures, it’s no wonder small businesses are looking for service providers that can help them cut costs while boosting flexibility and efficiency.
“RingCentral exemplifies the kind of solutions provider that can help these small business contain costs, grow, and even help them thrive in this tough economy,” Enderle said in a statement.
To learn more about how companies can cut costs in a smart way during touch economic times, please visit the Fax channel on TMCnet.com, brought to you by RingCentral.
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Mae Kowalke is senior editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Mae's articles, please visit her columnist page. She also blogs for TMCnet here.