Understanding the Real Cost of Your Business Phone System

Understanding the Real Your Business Cost of Phone System Total Cost of Ownership: There’s More than Meets the Eye.

Understanding the Real Cost of Your Business Phone System 2 Breaking Down the Top Five Hidden Costs Many companies are surprised to 昀椀nd that the obvious components of a business phone system are not the largest contributors to the overall cost. A careful cost roll-up analysis typically uncovers the following: Legacy phone systems require upgrades, maintenance, and trained resources. Expenses from network upgrades, license fees, installation, and separate building wiring can quickly add up to a surprisingly large number. In addition, as legacy systems continue to add functionality, they increasingly require 1 highly trained support personnel to maintain the hardware and software, roll out system upgrades, and manage system use. As well as the cost implications, hardware maintenance is time consuming and can waste days of valuable business time. Telecom costs can be large enough to strain the IT budget. You will need PRIs, bonded T1s, or other trunk lines to connect the When assessing the future of your business communications, making the decision phones in your building to the local telco. Line items for local, to stick with an on premises phone system versus moving your communications to 2 long-distance, and 800 calling are also required. the cloud can be a complex process. Of course, the overall bene昀椀ts of switching to a cloud phone system, let alone one simple integrated and uni昀椀ed communications solution, clearly outweigh the bene昀椀ts of managing a legacy phone service along Stand-alone services accumulate signi昀椀cant charges. Legacy with all the individual vendors required to meet your communications demands. on premises phone systems stop well short of o昀昀ering a uni昀椀ed But, when it comes down it, a huge part of this decision revolves around cost. cloud communications solution that encompasses video calling, web meetings, team messaging, and more. Costs for For an on premises phone system, the most obvious outlays are the ones you can these additional services need to come through third-party see and touch—the hardware and the phones that connect to it. At thousands of vendors and can add up to substantial line items. You may also 3 dollars, the phone system easily stands out as the big-ticket item. However, once 昀椀nd expenses for services such as online fax that individual you begin to probe beneath the surface, you may be surprised to 昀椀nd that the business units, managers, or employees have signed up for hidden costs of an on premises phone system are nontrivial, making your total over time. And these charges are often applied on a per-minute cost of ownership (TCO) greater than you originally expected. In fact, the costs basis, which can make budgeting for these bills unpredictable. may total more than the large initial capital expense of the basic hardware. © 2020 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Understanding the Real Cost of Your Business Phone System 3 Connecting locations adds cost and complexity. Even if you don’t have multiple locations, you may have a dispersed workforce that you need to serve. The demands of bandwidth- intensive communications between two buildings, or among multiple sites, causes IT headaches and budget issues. And the presence of a disparate patchwork of hardware, such as New Phones phone systems from di昀昀erent vendors across satellite locations, can become a management nightmare. For example, if you 4 Software Licenses have multiple locations, you may need additional IT resources to manage not only the connectivity but also the additional Hardware phone system hardware. Simply enabling a remote workforce by integrating mobile applications and productivity tools is not Licensing & Maintenance Contracts, Software / Firmware / Hardware Upgrades possible with an on premises phone system the way it is with a cloud communications solution. Stand-alone Business Services: Fax, Audio Conferencing, etc. Telecom Charges: Predictability of costs and feature availability is poor at best, now Local / Long Distance, Toll Free and in the future. With a premises-based solution, each feature, Telco Connectivity: service, and maintenance agreement can become an added cost Voice PRI, Data T1s to be negotiated. This lack of system future-proo昀椀ng and limited innovation potential is a looming TCO issue for any company Multi-location Connectivity: MPLS, PSTN considering a premises-based approach. An all-inclusive cloud solution like Avaya Cloud O昀케ce™ not only includes the basic and Replacement & Upgrade Parts 5 advanced aspects of a modern business communications network at one cost, but also continues to deliver the latest innovations and features. These advances are immediately available to all of your employees. Furthermore, the deployment of these features and services all happens in the cloud, handled transparently by data center telephony and IT experts. © 2020 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Understanding the Real Cost of Your Business Phone System 4 Summary How Do Cloud Phone Systems Compare? The cost-saving bene昀椀ts, along with the simplicity, 昀氀exibility, and manageability A cloud communications and collaboration solution like Avaya Cloud O昀케ce not of uni昀椀ed cloud communications explains the rapid adoption of these solutions only gives you everything you need to simplify and empower your business, it also by businesses of all sizes. Cloud solutions allow you to move all of your business completely alters the cost structure of both hard and soft costs. Let’s look at some communications to the cloud and bene昀椀t from the same cost and operational of the hard cost savings. expense reductions you can experience when you move other critical business • One all-inclusive cloud communications and collaboration solution: applications. Avaya Cloud O昀케ce provides an all-inclusive cloud communications All you need in a phone system, plus text, audio and video conferencing, and collaboration solution that can be customized to suit your business needs meetings, and team messaging and collaboration. This eliminates the need and budget. Not only can you rest assured that your overhead will be reduced for additional services from third-party vendors, immediately removing a considerably, you’ll have the peace of mind that your employees have everything layer of surplus expense and complexity. they need to do business e昀昀ectively, today and long into the future. • Lower multi-site management costs: Anyone can add phones and numbers, make changes, and handle moves from an intuitive web interface. • Reduced IT maintenance and infrastructure: All handled in the cloud by the service provider, eliminating operational expenses and IT distraction. • Elimination of many telephony costs: This includes removal of several line items such as switches, as all voice, video, and chat tra昀케c travels over the internet. • Lower IT service provider costs for ongoing updates: Avaya Cloud O昀케ce handles updates and provides continuous improvements and innovations. • Increased worker productivity: New capabilities, such as direct-extension dialing and the ability to forward calls and faxes to mobile phones make workers more e昀昀ective. Avaya also handles integrations with leading CRM systems like Salesforce and Microsoft productivity tools or suites. • Reduced up-front cost: One 昀氀at, predictable monthly fee, no required contracts, and zero setup costs, makes your business communication easy and a昀昀ordable. • Decreased cost of supporting a mobile workforce: The unique Avaya Cloud O昀케ce app enables you to turn a smartphone into an o昀케ce phone, saves carrier costs, especially for conference calling, video meetings, and those associated with international travel. © 2020 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved. Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks identi昀椀ed by , TM, or SM are registered marks, trademarks, ® and service marks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. 07/20 • UC15476EN