Few people give much consideration to their communications system until something goes wrong. Then it’s a top priority. That’s because it’s something that should just work — without too much additional input.
But the communications system you choose will determine whether it will work well or cause additional issues over its lifespan. That’s why it’s crucial to determine which system is right for you.
What Solution Do You Choose?
There are thousands of potential solutions on the market, and many sound very similar. That’s not a coincidence — most are variations of similar technologies, and a huge proportion are just rebranded versions of a major supplier (white labeling). So let’s categorize them into a few groups.
Free Solutions
A free PBX is offered free of charge to you, usually because it’s an open-source system that’s been around for a couple of decades. While the initial cost is low (not necessarily zero), it will require a lot of tweaking before it’s ready for use in your business. Part of the reason it’s not zero is because you’ll need to pay for the infrastructure around it (hosting, servers, lines and so on).
These PBXs are great for experimenting with, but most people will find they take too much effort to mold into a workable system with the security, integrations and other aspects that make unified communications a great investment. If you have a dedicated IT support team that has plenty of experience with VoIP, you might choose this option (although enterprises with these teams generally avoid them due to their issues).
Budget Solutions
A budget PBX typically focuses on the cost of providing the service. You can generally install them yourself, although many of the caveats from above apply — if you want to take advantage of unified communications, you’ll generally find that they are too limited for this purpose. That’s because they lack the funds to spend on high-quality development, and they often lack key security features. If you’re looking at a budget solution, look into how secure it is — if there’s been a major hack in the past four years, there are likely to be further issues down the line.
As you know from running a business, price isn’t everything. If a product doesn’t allow you to improve your business in some meaningful way, it may actively hurt you.
Legacy Solutions
These are older companies that have been heavily involved in the physical hardware market for many years — and one of them may have made your existing system. Legacy solutions have been leaving the market, including NEC, Toshiba, Panasonic and Samsung, or they may have been bought, such as Shoretel, Broadsoft and Nortel.
Then there are those who are still clinging on, such as Avaya, Mitel and Alcatel Lucent.
These solutions are broadly considered obsolete or unfit for purpose (according to major analysts) because they are still fixated on the on-prem model. This means they have complex licensing, unwieldy platforms and awkward interfaces. While they often offer some form of unified communications, it’s not usually an effective form — and it’s usually another company’s solution.
Ultimately, they’re lagging behind the market, and they’re often a more expensive offering. They may be worth it if you need an ultra-reliable system where it’s a matter of life and death, but even now, with the advent of modern unified communications, these systems are no longer outperforming well-established unified communications.
Modern Cloud Communications
At the time of writing, there were 11 key players in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for unified communications as a service. Placement in the Magic Quadrant doesn’t determine how fit a solution is for any particular business — Teams was top, but that’s simply because of Microsoft’s dominant position in the industry and not because its solution is markedly better than anyone else’s.
All these may provide a decent solution for your needs (apart from Teams). But when you’re comparing them, look at:
- How easily they integrate with the software you use.
- How reliable they are in terms of uptime (should be asking for 99.999%, also known as five 9s).
- What support they offer (ring up their support to see how long it takes!)
- Their total cost of ownership.
- Whether their security is an add-on or integrated throughout.
Most of these solutions can be bought through partners or purchased directly. However, given that vendors aren’t usually local, they can’t take the time to understand their customers’ businesses. This means that they’ll often sell a solution that doesn’t quite meet customer needs.
So what’s the alternative?
A Trusted MSP Can Help
An MSP can help you make a decision. A good MSP will look at exactly what your business does and what you need to succeed. They’ll consider the options on the market and create a proposal that matches those needs.
And Wildix (we’re also in the Gartner Magic Quadrant) works exclusively with MSPs — customers cannot buy our solutions directly. That’s because we believe that an MSP is in a much better position to understand exactly how to address customer concerns than any vendor can.
Even better, first-level tech support is always through our MSPs, helping them build relationships with you. This ensures our solutions are associated with a quality installation and great maintenance. If there’s an issue that your MSP can’t solve, they can escalate with us 24/7, and we’ll do what it takes to help.
An MSP can also handle all other aspects of your communications, data and IT. While Wildix includes a system to directly connect you to the phone lines (a SIP trunk), other solutions may need to layer an additional system over this. You may also need hardware such as phones, and an MSP can arrange this, too.
Whether you end up choosing a Wildix solution or not, using an MSP can heavily streamline the process, ensure you get what you need and deliver a powerful solution that delivers the return on investment you deserve from your phone system.
If you’d like to contact a trusted MSP for more information, fill out the form here, and we’ll be happy to connect you to one!
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