Today’s mobile tech environment means that, for many people, traditional phone lines are an afterthought, a relic of a time when all a phone could do was offer a voice connection. Yet many businesses continue to rely on traditional phone branch exchanges, preferring the simplicity of sticking with the status quo to the potential cost and complexity of implementing a new solution. With the flexibility of today’s unified communication and collaboration solutions, the expectations of employees and the ease of implementation when working with a managed services provider, however, most objections are no longer relevant. Three basic reasons why it’s time to move away from traditional phone systems include:

1. Employees expect more: Phone connectivity is no longer a business tool so much as a business baseline for modern end users, Forrester analyst Dan Bieler noted in a blog post. Instead, applications and additional features are the focal point for employees, who want to be able to access the same rich functionality on their work phone as they can on the one in their pocket. A hosted UCC solution enables integration with a wide range of business applications through APIs, meaning that employees can customize workflows and make their phones do more than just place calls. A full UCC suite also includes a large number of different native messaging options, from video conferencing to voicemail transcription and SMS.

2. UCC is more cost-effective than traditional phones: Although it may seem like an unnecessary financial burden to do away with a phone system that works just fine and install a new hosted solution, the cost of installing UCC is relatively low. This is particularly true with a managed services provider like FlexITy, which can determine a custom or hybrid plan to ensure smooth integration with existing infrastructure. Equipment is plug-and-play, and a fixed per-user cost makes it easy to add new lines as needed. Over the long term, UCC can stabilize costs while enabling faster feature deployments and increased scalability.

“By embracing UC, companies are realizing a number of capabilities that deliver rapid ROI and that lay the foundation for … productivity benefits,” wrote CRN contributor and UC expert Steve Francis, noting that savings can easily reach 50 percent. “The net-net? Deploying a UC system will rapidly recover the upfront investment, and effectively eliminates any costs associated with monthly lease payments.”

3. Installing UCC is easy: Although the prospect of a communications system that is fully integrated with other computing applications and network infrastructure may sound complex, solutions architects at managed IT services providers like FlexITy make the installation incredibly simple. By bringing in a skilled team with experience in a wide variety of implementations, businesses can receive a tailored solution designed for their specific communication needs and workflows. Additionally, they have the benefit of dedicated support and training from their UCC vendor, eliminating the risk that they will end up with a solution they have no idea how to manage.

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