From Toolbox for IT:
As per my earlier posts in this series, you might think that cost is the only indicator that it’s time to move to a VoIP phone system. For many businesses, this may be the sole factor that drives such decisions, but that can be misleading in more ways than one.
First, you have to know where to look for cost-related clues, and I addressed some of these earlier. If you’ve been using the same phone system for years, it becomes part of the wallpaper – you know it’s there but you don’t pay any attention to it. This is especially true if your phone system has been paid off and you think there are zero costs otherwise.
Clearly, there are ongoing costs, but just like you get accustomed to the monthly wireless bill or cable bill, it’s often too much bother to break the costs down and see if you’re overpaying for things. My main point here is that you need to be proactive and do your homework to assess if cost is enough of a reason to change phone systems, especially if what you’re using now is still working.
This brings me to a second consideration about cost. Upon closer inspection of all the costs related to your phone system, you may conclude that the status quo is fine. In other words, whatever you’re spending is a fair price to pay for keeping the phone system going. That’s a perfectly rational conclusion, but it’s shortsighted if cost is your only criterion for decisions around your phone system.
Cost is indeed a powerful criterion, especially for cash-strapped businesses, but telephony is more than a dollars-and-cents issue. There are other perfectly valid indications that it’s time for a change, and in this post I’m going to address one that is totally external to your business.
Read the full article here.
Notable quotes:
I often write about how change is a constant in the world of technology, and nowhere is this harder to accept than with telecom.
The main idea here is that legacy telephony is a hard-wired staple of modern life, and when things change, it has to be for a good reason.
You can certainly choose to stick with legacy, but before long, you’ll be on your own to ferret out alternative channels and scavenge ways to keep your phone system going a little longer.
