I recently helped a client who was looking to completely overhaul their phone system by replacing it with a more modern SaaS voice solution.
I wanted to share this experience because the factors that spurred this client to make a change and to choose this particular approach are equally pressing for many other organizations out there today. Some may not be aware of the relief new voice solution options can bring in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.
The client is a global aerospace company, based in Manitoba, who needed a solution to update their legacy phone system to better serve the entire international organization. The existing infrastructure was well past its best-before date and had become both expensive and inefficient to run. They were already using Microsoft Teams for their internal communications and were exploring the possibility of implementing a voice solution that would allow them to make regular telephone calls utilizing the same platform. This decision was not a mere want for the newest technology, however. They also wanted to solve the current infrastructure limitations and leverage the opportunities afforded through a modern voice platform.
In terms of specific business outcomes, the organization had four goals that the new solution would need to provide:
- Reduced overall telephony costs from initial acquisition to ongoing management
- Reduction or elimination of management requirements inherent in on-premises IT infrastructure, including the provision of user support and training, applying patches and updates, and maintaining uptime
- Simple method to scale for planned and unplanned growth including location expansion
- Ability for staff to stay connected via voice from anywhere without additional technology requirements
Why SaaS was the easy choice for voice
After reviewing the company’s objectives, the best solution for them quickly became evident – a SaaS solution that was part of a broader collaboration platform. In this case, Microsoft Teams. As a business with locations across Canada and branches in the US, the ability to call any phone number worldwide is of paramount importance in order to provide their teams with a high standard of collaboration across international borders. The beauty of using Teams for voice is its ability to dial any number regardless of location or connection type (landline or cell). Additionally, taking telcos and their high connections fees out of the equation is a welcome cost-saving benefit. The client halved their telephony costs by switching to a SaaS solution.
Going with a managed SaaS voice solution like Teams Phone also translated to less work and lower costs for the client in terms of technology management. Since the platform resides in the cloud, the company no longer needs a dedicated team (whether staff or contracted) just to maintain the infrastructure – a typical scenario in an environment that depends on legacy phone system for voice communication. Less maintenance means lower costs to keep the service running, and our client significantly reduced their overhead by migrating to a managed SaaS model.
Scalability is a critical cloud feature, and it works the same way with SaaS voice products. The client saw a high likelihood for business growth on the horizon, both in staff numbers as well as footprint of its offices and branches, and so we decided a Teams-run voice solution was the best fit. This choice also equips them with bandwidth for unplanned, on-the-fly expansions – bringing in 50 people to fill new roles one day and having all their lines ready to go the next. Legacy voice technology does not offer this kind of agility to move as fast as the business grows.
A new solution for a new business landscape
Arguably, the most important outcome of this project came in delivering on their fourth requirement – the ability for their workforce to stay productive anywhere. Previously, people had to be at their desks to receive phone calls unless they went through the manual process of setting up call forwarding. The recent work-from-home phenomenon of the past 18 months highlighted the importance of giving staff the capability to make and receive calls from anywhere on any device. And with hybrid work taking the place of the old in-office arrangement, there’s an even greater requirement for a reliable platform that bridges people working at the office, from home and anywhere in between.
If in reading this client case, you felt like these exact same factors apply to your organization, you’re not alone. There are a great number of organizations out there that are in the same boat as you – dealing with legacy voice systems and looking for a more capable solution that costs less to run and provides more reliability, functionality, and flexibility.
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