2009 TechNO Expo

John Morton, president of business solutions, Enventis, Plymouth

The cost of telecommunications does not start and end with circuits. Companies should consider all the costs of business communications including voice and data circuits, phone systems, data networking gear, video and Web conferencing, equipment maintenance, and support. Typically, the cost of circuits is much lower than the costs of internal staffing to maintain these services.

Business communications have changed dramatically in the last five years. Most businesses have not fully taken advantage of voice and data convergence, and they have unnecessary complexity and cost from layering services and vendors over the years. Taking a fresh look at your communications infrastructure will uncover significant opportunities to save money and enhance productivity. Many small and midsized organizations are moving to managed services, where there isn’t a large capital expense and operational expenses are lower and easier to manage.

Understanding your telecom inventory, expenses, usage—and ultimately your telecom strategy—is important. We offer a service that discovers, tracks, monitors, and reports on IT assets. We can then run analysis on that data to understand if your company is in compliance with a variety of standards and regulatory requirements. Tracking assets over time, instead of running a fire drill at audit time or when a problem comes up, saves money.

There are new and innovative ways to buy telecom services today. Businesses should invite a few service providers in every year to get an update on technologies and learn how they can apply these to their advantage. For example, managed services and flexible IP pipes that handle all types of traffic can save companies serious money while providing enhanced functionality.

The benefits of outsourcing telecom expense management assume a certain level of network complexity, typically found with companies that have many sites, regardless of number of employees or revenues. In some ways, the need to outsource the expense management actually points to the need to reduce the network complexity first, which leads to a reduction in the network expenses as well.

There are two significant ways to reduce the complexity of your telecom infrastructure. First, reduce the number of vendors by consolidating your voice, data, and Internet traffic onto a flexible IP-based network. Second, integrate your internal voice and data systems onto a unified communications architecture.