TMCnews Featured Article

You know you need a way to manage communications – but have you given much thought to what you need in place other than the phone on your desk? For most executives, the answer would be no. For the IT manager that needs to keep everyone connected, the focus is on streamlining, low cost and integration. With a heavier bent toward hosted solutions, how do you know which way to go?

The PBX (News - Alert) is a given as you need a way to organize calls and then direct them to the right individual within your organization. If you’ve been in business for a while, you may already have an in-house PBX that has served you well for years. With the adoption of mobile solutions and information in the cloud, however, it’s likely you now need to think about the hosted softswitch.

Telephony has certainly seen its share of evolution over the last decade. Companies like yours are rapidly adopting VoIP, selecting between soft, hard and lightly hosted solutions. There are advantages to each and aligning the right solution to fit your needs depends greatly on the size of your company, your level of commitment to the technology and the employees you need to support.

One consideration is a solution that will support unified communications, keeping everything on one platform to streamline operations and reduce your costs. This approach is so popular that Infonetics (News - Alert) Research reported the hosted softswitch and unified communications market showed the most growth in 2013. At the same time, the demand for unified communications is increasing in all regions. Why? Businesses want an effective way to boost flexibility and productivity among the employee base.

When you opt for the hosted softswitch, you get to move all the equipment needed for your phone system to the hosted provider. You can decide if this is the right move for your organization as it shifts the control to a third party, which is both good and bad, depending upon your needs. There are no upfront investments, configuration is done from the desktop and scaling is an easy step.

If you have already made significant investments in your desktop hardware, however, you may want your hosted softswitch to simply feed the communication data through your current network. If you are accustomed to the control afforded with the PBX, you may want a virtual PBX option that still moves operation away from your equipment, but gives you more control over how it operates.

The point is to look at your current communication system, the needs of your users and select the strategy that makes the most sense for you. There is no one-size-fits-all solution as it needs to fit your standards and not your colleague’s or competitor’s. Define your needs, do your homework and investigate available vendors. Once you’re fully educated, you’ll be better positioned to make the right choice and start to enjoy the benefits.