Choosing a telephone system for your business requires careful consideration. You want it to serve your company well, today and into the future. Telephony has evolved to encompass Unified Communications requiring a communication platform to add advanced features like call handling, conference calling, voicemail and more. Your phone system must be able to scale with your business’ expansion, without breaking the bank in the procedure.
On Premise IP-PBX systems require hardware to be located and maintained on site. A cloud based system is managed remotely, with a provider’s internet data center. Examining the advantages and disadvantages of each choice will allow you to figure out which is ideal for your business telephone system needs.
In the myriad of posts on this subject, empower ICT Partners offers an exceptional perspective. Clients of the fully-featured Unified Communications (UC) options, like 3CX, can make the most of the same applications regardless of installation technique. This allows us to deliver the exact same strong consumer experience, whether cloud hosted or deployed on-premise.
Before we get started, let us consider what hosted and on-premise methods are, in Addition to how they differ:
On-Premise Phone System
On-premise phone systems are deployed at your workplace (s) or data center. This deployment method has been the traditional phone system option for decades.
Typically, you purchase and get all equipment, such as appliances, servers, interface cards, and more. Your company will also equip the system via PRI or SIP
Hosted PABX/PBX
Hosted or cloud-based phone systems are set up with a hosted provider within an off-site data center. Your organization pays a monthly fee to use the machine, which can be linked to your office via private or public Internet connection.
The only gear you generally have to buy are desk phones, though some suppliers do provide the option to lease them.
How Would You Prefer to Pay?
On-premise Phone systems are nearly always fully paid for up front, ensuring full ownership of the equipment and permits. This method is great for companies that prefer to get the gear they use. When looking strictly at equipment costs, on-premise Phone systems normally have a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Hosted Phone systems make it possible for companies to maintain telephone service as a monthly expense. This is often the preferred method because it offers tax advantages and frees up money for revenue-generating spending chances.
Key Takeaway:
- Pick an on-premise Phone system if you have the funds to buy the system outright.
- Choose hosted Phone system to benefit from the tax advantages of your phone system as an operating cost.
Do you have in-house Expertise?
It’s important that you know how many group members are offered to handle a phone system. If your IT team already has the willingness and knowledge to undertake this endeavor, then a on-premise option gives them complete control of the machine. If not, a hosted offering eliminates the requirement for this responsibility and frees up time for the team to concentrate on other projects.
Key Takeaway:
- Pick an on-premise Phone system when you have the resources and desire to keep your own phone system.
- Choose hosted Phone System if your IT team is under-resourced or just want IT to concentrate on revenue-generating projects.
Would You Require Full Control?
On-premise deployments deliver complete control of the machine, such as moves, adds, changes, fine-tuning network settings, innovative IVR creation, and more.
Hosted Phone System providers open up enough of this machine for a user to perform what they want, but manage everything else. Allowing a service provider to do the majority of managing a telephone system is also attractive to small companies with limited or no in-house IT support.
Key Takeaway:
- Choose an on-premise deployment if you need, or want, full charge of your telephone system.
- Choose hosted if you would rather the provider to handle the heavy lifting of phone system maintenance.
Can You Have Multiple Offices or Remote Users?
On-premise Phone systems are capable of handling remote users and multiple offices, but it’s more complicated and expensive. Oftentimes, additional equipment is required to join the users or offices together which is just not necessary with a hosted environment.
With a hosted solution, remote users may enjoy the flexibility of a contemporary, fully-featured phone system that scales easily. And, in case you have several offices, a cloud-based PBX lets you access one phone system, rather than peering together multiple locations.
Key Takeaway:
If you’ve got remote users and numerous offices, consider hosted Phone System to save money and avoid installation headaches.
How Adaptive Do You Want to Be?
Should you call significant growth or contraction in your business, a hosted Phone system could be your best choice. With cloud solutions, you pay for what you use, thus, should you need to add or remove users, you start or stop paying them on a monthly basis.
Key Takeaway:
If you foresee significant changes in staffing levels, think about hosted Phone System.
Whether or not you opt for a hosted or on-premise installation depends greatly on growth, bandwidth, budget, and other aspects.
Streamlining your business communications
empower ICT Partner is committed to providing our customers with the customized solution that meets their business objective in any situation. Call us on 1300 empower ICT (850 210) if you would like to find out how we can help you with deciding on –
- Whether to invest in On-Prem or Hosted
- Which UC features most impact productivity and how much
- The cost savings associated with greater efficiency
- How UC can help businesses stay connected remotely.