How Unified Comms delivers ROI

Even with the emergence of home working at scale and the Openreach ISDN switch off in 2025, there are still many companies across the UK with legacy, on-premises telephony.

So, why are there still plenty of companies out there that haven’t yet embraced hosted telephony and unified communications? For some, there’s the illusion of technical complexity, and for others, there’s an assumption that more features and capability equals more cost.

Let’s tackle that latter issue as we discuss why moving to a cloud-hosted, unified communications solution not only saves money but can actually deliver a return on investment back into the business.

What is UCaaS?

UCaaS – or ‘Unified Communications as a Service’ is a cloud-based telecoms and collaboration solution combining voice, video, instant messaging, call recording, online meetings, screen sharing, and more, through a single platform, accessible from mobile and desktop apps.

In this report, we outline commercial and operational improvements that can be obtained through using such a solution.

Telcom have partnered with Telco Switch to provide a marketing-leading UCaaS platform, delivering a powerful suite of cloud-hosted telephony features that enable employees to work from anywhere, on any device – from office and remote workers, through to contact centres and regulated environments.

With a host of ways to connect, through desktop clients, mobile apps, and traditional desk phones, the platform is designed for office, home, and hybrid working environments.

Ease of Communications

75% of UCaaS users experience improved productivity levels. A fully-featured UCaaS solution combines voice, video calling and conferencing, instant messaging, document sharing, presence settings, and more, accessible by mobile or desktop devices.

Being able to communicate and collaborate seamlessly via one system attracts a hugely positive ROI. Staff get work done quicker and easier and can achieve this from anywhere, which is more important now than ever before.

It means people can work more effectively, make quicker decisions, and as a result, they’ll feel more productive and happier.

“73% of employees spend an average of one hour per day switching apps”        

Reduced Costs

Moving to a hosted model enables you to implement a communications suite without attracting unwanted CapEx in the form of on-premises equipment that would need to be purchased or leased.

When you host your PBX in the cloud the only hardware you need to consider is desk phones for users that want them, and headsets for those who would rather use a soft client on their laptop. One of the onerous costs of on-premises telephony is maintenance. With your phone system being central to interacting with customers and suppliers, you can’t do without it.

On-premises telephony usually requires a maintenance contract which are often both costly, contractually lengthy, and a hidden cost which should be considered on top of your tariff.

Think about the impact of having a resilient phone system, versus not. If your phone system isn’t resilient and you suffer an outage...

How will that impact your ability to do business with customers, and what could the cost be? It’s often unseen costs that are the most expensive.

 
According to a recent Frost & Sullivan study:

“80% view increased uptime as a major benefit of the cloud. 80% also saw freeing up IT as a significant advantage”        

Compliance

For companies operating in financially regulated industries that need to adhere to compliance practices such as PCI and MiFID II, the cost of achieving compliance can be high.

Firstly the cost to deploy and maintain on-premises recording technology is exceptionally high, especially when accounting for storage costs.

Secondly, on-premises solutions are not as flexible and technically powerful as their hosted counterparts in terms of the speed and accuracy with which information can be retrieved, analysed, and reported on.

The quicker you can get the information you need, the cheaper it is to do so, both in terms of staff time (your compliance officer) and potential regulatory fines by not reporting breaches in a timely fashion.

So which should you choose?

Soon, it will no longer be a competition as PSTN and ISDN are being switched off in 2025. That means if you’re still using traditional phone lines, you’ll need to start preparing your VoIP transition now.

However, businesses should migrate to VoIP services not only because of the switch-off but because of the advantages they’ll be able to enjoy.

VoIP provides businesses with more flexibility than they’ve ever had before, ticking all the boxes by allowing users to be added through an online portal, connecting mobile phones to business lines, and encouraging seamless team collaboration.

Most of all, VoIP reduces the upfront and monthly costs businesses once had to shell out to have traditional phone lines.

Switching to VoIP gives you the opportunity to implement a unified communications strategy, with leading UCaaS (Unified Communication as a Service) platforms combining all your communications tools and platforms into a single interface for easy use.

If you’re looking to upgrade your business communications, we can help this smooth transition as we’re already helping lots of UK businesses transition from their legacy ISDN systems to our cloud-hosted phone system. Visit telcom.uk/unified-communications to discover how Telcom can help your business.