TeleDynamics Think Tank

By Colleen Schmidt, Director of Partner Success, CoreDial

Risk is something that we fear because it requires us to put ourselves out there to achieve something greater. There is always a chance you could lose something important to you, especially if you take a risk on a venture or idea you know little about or have not adequately prepared for. The same is true when it comes to taking risks for your business. As much as we would like to mitigate business risks, the fact is they are an integral part of the growth process for any business. Just ask these business risk takers: Ben Silbermann, the creator of Pinterest, risked everything by leaving a job at Google to create the virtual pinboard site. Ben would survive early disappointments and now presides over a company worth $1 billion. Or Drew Houston of DropBox, who held to his guns when Apple Founder Steve Jobs told him to join Apple or be taken over in the market and now enjoys running a $1 billion company.

For VARs, MSPs and other resellers, your risks may not be the same as the ones mentioned above, but embracing the trends in the industry is the key to long-term success. For the unified communications (UC) industry, taking a risk on hosted and cloud-based services, as well as having a technology partner you can trust, will ensure your business stays economically solvent over time and is ready to meet the changing needs of your customers. Ignoring the shifting tides in the industry will lessen the options you can bring to the table for your customers, which will eventually impact your bottom line.

When most people hear about VoIP, they think of telephony over the internet. Online services that offer extremely-low-cost phone calls or even free calls may come to mind. Although such services do utilize VoIP (voice over internet protocol), IP telephony in a broader sense is technology and architecture that uses VoIP to allow you to create an internal telephone network within your organization that leverages the existing data network infrastructure.

IP telephony operates on converged network, which supports both voice and data. The advantages of this to a business are numerous and are well worth the investment. If you are considering a migration to IP telephony, here we present some information that can help get you on track.

As one of the biggest expenses of any business, telecommunications solutions should be both reliable and cost-effective. One telephony network design aspect that can provide both is the direct connection of the IP phone system to a mobile network.

Here we explore two ways to do this, either of which not only achieves cost savings for the company but also enhances reliability by providing an additional redundant and overflow route.

Grandstream and Ubiquiti add excitement to desk phones by leveraging the power of Android OS and a modern interface. By integrating the Android Operating System into the phone, thousands of business productivity applications like Skype, GoToMeeting, Gmail and more can be downloaded onto these phones from the Google Play store.

Advanced apps ranging from Pomodoro Technique Timer to more obvious solutions provided by Google Calendar will make workers in any industry more productive as they perform phone call campaigns and meetings with one device instead of two. The versatility that the Android platform provides is a huge differentiator that separates these phones from a typical IP phone.

Here we look at five SIP endpoints from Grandstream and Ubiquiti that use Android OS.

By Nathan Miloszewski, on behalf of Yeastar

When it comes to VoIP PBX systems, channel partners need to determine whether an on-premise solution or a cloud-based service is best suited for their customer.

Each solution has its strengths. For the instances in which you determine that an onsite IP PBX is the best option for your customer, we’ve put together these guidelines to help you sell against the hosted solutions offered by your competitors. Here at Yeastar, we work with thousands of channel partners who find themselves in competition with cloud-based VoIP service providers and have identified the most compelling arguments for an on-premise solution. Think of each one as an additional arrow in your sales quiver.

About 90% of businesses in the United States have fewer than 20 employees, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. In the past, companies of this size often couldn’t benefit from PBX functionality like IVR (interactive voice response), hunt groups, hold music, and so forth, because of the high cost of installing and maintaining a PBX.

But today, things are different. Thanks to hosted VoIP service, micro-enterprises can have a phone system with even more functionality than a legacy PBX, even if they only have one user! All they need is a broadband Internet connection. With VoIP, micro-businesses can be more efficient and enjoy the same functionality that big corporations have relied on for decades.

Here we look at how a micro-enterprise can get started with VoIP and some of the benefits it can reap as a result.

Replacing a legacy PBX that a company has used for years with an IP PBX can be intimidating, and understandably so. That’s why we recommend a transition method that allows the new technology to be gradually introduced over time. This not only ensures business continuity but also gives the associates plenty of time to adjust to the new equipment.

As the world moves inexorably towards all-IP, there are still businesses today that use a TDM (time division multiplexing) PBX-based phone system. Eventually, they will end up switching to an IP PBX when their old equipment becomes unserviceable or irreplaceable, but for whatever reason they have chosen not to migrate yet. Even so, there are ways to help these companies reap some advantages from VoIP technology while hanging onto their legacy system.

Fashion models aren’t the only ones who accessorize. Your customers need accessories, too! If they have an IP phone system, peripherals are an easy way to instantly boost productivity. When putting together your next enterprise telephone system proposal, consider including some from this list, or browse our website for more ideas.

Businesses are constantly trying to boost productivity so they can do more – and grow more – with less. SIP telephony is a great example of this. Compared with legacy PBX-based phone systems, IP phone systems allow companies to do much more, with less hardware and fewer resources.