Legacy phone systems are holding businesses back

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All about communication: Streamlining systems makes for better communication across businesses (iStock)

CallTower is a Business Reporter client.

Many businesses run multiple internet telephony systems, each of which suit the needs of individual departments. Yet this is creating problems. A retail company might use Cisco on the shop floor, and yet its marketing team wants to use Zoom. Two systems operating on two different networks don’t exactly make for easy communication between colleagues.

This isn’t the only problem. Not only does the existence of two or more different systems make seamless company-wide communication difficult, it also means that there is no central location where all communications are recorded.

As far as traditional setups go, colleagues in different departments often need to log in and out of each system to contact one another. Time is wasted and important data risks getting lost.

Additionally, a lot of internet telephony systems are integrated into existing on-premises infrastructure. This brings another set of problems, not least the fact that when a line goes down, the system is quickly incapacitated.

Unless technicians are present to instantly restore it (often at great cost to the business), the entire business operation risks being undermined.

Communicating in the cloud

Running an on-premises phone system is costlier than cloud-based phones, because of extensive hardware, maintenance and upgrade expenses. According to a Forbes report, on-premises systems incur between 25 and 40 per cent higher operational costs.

But by moving telephony systems into the cloud, businesses can avoid the risks that come with on-premises infrastructure. The cost savings resulting from the switch are clear, with IDC research highlighting a 20 to 40 per cent reduction in total cost of ownership once cloud-based solutions are introduced.

Moreover, the cloud enables better consolidation of telephony systems.

One company has designed and developed a provisioning portal that allows many of the leading internet communication platforms – Cisco, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and more – to be hybridised.

This means that businesses can enjoy both a more secure and a more streamlined communications infrastructure.

“It enables businesses to expand their options and reduce risk,” says William Rubio, CRO at CallTower, which has been equipping businesses with telephony solutions since 2002.

“A company may opt for a hybrid solution, such as combining Microsoft Teams Calling with Webex Calling, to leverage the strengths of both platforms. This approach offers flexibility, interoperability and redundancy, allowing seamless communication across diverse ecosystems while mitigating the risk of service disruptions or vendor lock-in.”

CallTower provides enterprise-grade cloud-based SIP trunking (the method for making digital phone calls) in more than 70 countries.

After the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, the vital role played by internet telephony in the day-to-day functioning of a business became all too apparent – and CallTower’s solution became the go-to for companies across the world.

Not only does this solution consolidate all phone systems into one portal, it also allows a range of smaller integrations, such as credit card billing, into that same system.

Dispelling fears about ROI

Yet although it sounds like a win-win move, many of CallTower’s clients are initially uneasy with the prospect of investing in a move to the cloud. They fear they won’t see rapid enough ROI on the time and capital needed for such a transition.

Additionally, they don’t want to take on the burden of managing a new system, and all that comes with it.

One major global beverage conglomerate had this exact conundrum. It wanted cloud-based services to enable 9,000 users in 300 corporate and manufacturing offices across four continents.

But with such a wide geographical spread – and with a call centre and multiple phone systems to throw into the mix – the task felt daunting, so much so that the conglomerate had persisted with its legacy system for longer than was beneficial.

So the conglomerate consulted with CallTower and another solutions provider. CallTower demonstrated how it could design, globally manage and future-proof this solution for an extended period.

To avoid the inherent technical and logistical issues of making a transition to cloud-based communication overnight, CallTower presented the “crawl-walk-run” strategy.

Given the size of the customer, the idea would be to roll out smaller transitions to Cisco Webex Calling over time, to mitigate the risks and provide a smoother transition. With a single company to implement and manage global telephony and infrastructure, the beverage conglomerate has discovered significant cost savings due to large-scale consolidations.

It is also working hard to get its system moved to the Webex Calling cloud at its own pace and avoiding any technical, billing or adoption issues a rushed transition may have caused.

The conglomerate’s users can collaborate with each other and interact with customers in an improved and intuitive system. Best of all, the conglomerate’s communications has been future-proofed.

“All ported numbers have the flexibility to move to another solution such as Microsoft Teams down the road without any heavy lifting or additional porting,” says Rubio.

CallTower’s growing international reach

Since it started out as one of the few Microsoft operators more than two decades ago, CallTower has gone on to develop a suite of systems, now in use across the world, to facilitate effective communication.

This includes Operator Connect, a flagship product that delivers PSTN access to Microsoft Teams users. It is currently being rolled out internationally.

CallTower places a strong emphasis on efficiency and ease of use. This feeds into its core mission: to enable teams to work faster, smarter and cheaper.

“CallTower enables teams to work faster, smarter, and more cost-effectively by providing integrated communication solutions that streamline collaboration, enhance productivity and reduce operational expenses,” says Rubio.

“This unified platform offers advanced features, seamless integration with business tools, and cost-efficient communication services, empowering teams to achieve more with less.”

For more information, visit calltower.com.