Keep your business alive this winter

The Christmas season is well and truly upon us all – the dark nights have tiptoed their way in, there’s a rush of Christmas jumper purchases and everyone is panic-buying irrelevant presents – not to mention the ten million different retails sales that will ensue.

For businesses, our concerns through the winter are a little different. Rather than thinking ‘will Grandma like a bottle of whisky for Christmas this year?’, there is a real need for contingency plans when considering the impacts of uncontrollable variables on a business’s day-to-day workings through this particular season.

In a real life scenario which we all know too well, the weather can play some nasty tricks, disrupting peoples’ commute to work; sometimes even making it impossible to get to work at all – for example, torrential snow. In this situation, far too many businesses would be losing service staff for the day, all because their business is still on fixed lines rather than hosted telephony – but what exactly is ‘hosted telephony’?

Hosted telephony means your telephony system is held in the cloud, accessible from anywhere, at any time, which offers maximum flexibility and mobile working opportunities. It also creates a safeguard for any unanticipated situations, and presents the prospect of expanding a workforce that doesn’t rely on on-site telephony products. You may see various terms used for this system, such as VoIP (Voice over IP), which means voice calls are transmitted via an internet connection. This new system will replace the need for a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) within a business – overall, this will ensure Santa’s elves can access their work station telephony tools from home, causing zero disturbances. Now, isn’t that a happy Christmas!

Hosted Telephony providers such as Gamma offer the option of working mobile, so workers are able to use a web portal system via a laptop or desktop to divert calls that would normally be received at their work station.

BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson has announced that 2025 will be the year the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) networks will be switched off. As a result, all BT customers will be migrated to the IP network by 2025.

BT’s keenness to phase out its legacy networks and move customers to the single core IP networks indicates the shift in attitudes towards outdated networks and the move towards hosted telephony. This move will also pave the way for SIP and VoIP providers to challenge BT for the business. Hosted telecoms is becoming more and more popular due to its low costs and high call quality.

With the gradual switch off of ISDN and PSTN, cloud-based telephony systems will be the future of business communications. With a low cost adoption, Gamma Horizon offers a greater scope for productivity when deployed into a business as it will be cheaper for all involved in making external calls within a business, as well as minimal or no Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).

Telephony is a key foundation of a business’s services department, internal and external infrastructures and any other means of communication from a business. It’s perhaps something that is taken for granted in such a busy environment. But, given the wintery season and the forecasted technological advances, how prepared is your business for any unforeseen circumstances?