Although colleges and schools may be interested in new small business telephone systems, cost may sometimes be a factor that causes concern up-front.
Education – the background economic reality
Few sectors are under such economic pressures as that of education.
This leads to an understandable focus on cost and sometimes the tendency to put off making a decision on a new business telephone system, as long as is possible.
This occasionally masks some unpleasant cost-related realities about the ongoing use of obsolete systems:
- their cost of ownership (running costs) may be soaring away – particularly in situations where you are frequently needing to call out engineers;
- the risk of a fundamental and perhaps irreversible total systems failure, may increase on a day by day basis and that may lead to a corresponding decline in the robustness of your own establishment’s disaster recovery or continuity plans;
- your professional reputation may be suffering, both with third parties (parents, investors, education boards etc) and your own colleagues and possibly pupils.
The longer you put off the decision, the worse these effects may prove to be.
Small business telephone systems – cost and balance
Contrary to some expectations, a new small business telephony system does not have to be an expensive, flagship-type project. Theoretically, it might comprise as little as two connected handsets!
What is typically important with any new office telephones system is not, in itself, the sophistication of the technology that it offers but rather its suitability for your individual requirements
In the case of some schools and colleges, those requirements may be relatively complicated. They may, for example, include things such as providing what is called a backbone network, one that may carry various forms of data traffic, including telephony, around the establishment.
In other situations, the requirements may be far more basic, involving only effectively being able to make internal calls from extension to extension and providing the capability to make external calls also.
Of course, whatever your requirements are today, they may change tomorrow and it is imperative that any solution has the capability of being easily and cost-effectively expanded should the need arise.
A range of options
We would welcome the opportunity to work alongside you, so as to help you understand what the new generation of office telephones system may be able to do for you and even more importantly, what you need from technology in order to support the way you manage your own day-to-day operations.
The outcome of this requirement analysis may not be a single proposition but in fact a spectrum containing a number of options that may vary in several respects both in terms of the facilities they will provide and of course, cost.
In terms of small business telephone systems, cost is something that is critically important but so is the ongoing management and development of your own operations. It may pay to think of the two things together at all times.
