Complete Office Solutions – Helpful or Harmful?
June 16, 2014
Category: Business Phone Service, Hosted PBX, Internet Service, Local Networks, Phone Systems
The idea of a complete office solution is a particularly tempting one. Imagine being able to have one company completely manage your office needs, reducing the amount of time that you spend negotiating problems and errors and ensuring that the various technologies and digital platforms are able to peacefully coexist with each other. Of course, it might not be the right situation for your business, as there are disadvantages to a complete office solution as to any other change in office technology and phone services. To really understand if it is the right fit for you, it is important to understand exactly what can go wrong, or right, with a complete office solution for your business internet needs.
Interoperability: The greatest advantage of a complete office solution for your business is going to be their ability to work together. These programs were designed specifically to integrate and work with each other, which means that they are not going to have hitches, lost data, or glitches when trying to interact with each other. When dealing with a situation where you have an internet connection, a business phone line running off of that connection, and your fax and scanning machines working off of that system, it is absolutely vital that the programs work flawlessly together. This is one of the greatest advantages of a complete office solution.
Overlap: Most service providers, whether VoIP, hosted PBX, or full business internet service offer a variety of features in addition to their basic service. Of course, that could land you with a half dozen “machineless fax” programs, or duplicated voicemail systems. Often these doubled services aren’t harmful, though they can certainly hog up a fair amount of space on your computer databases. However, every now and then these doubled programs can hinder productivity or communication as messages and information will get lost in the secondary, less utilized option. With a complete office solution there is none of that trouble, as each program and feature is offered the best possible single option and only that one.
Limitations: Of course, despite a surprising array of variation and options by most hosted PBX companies, not all are going to be able to offer the same services as the others. When considering your business internet service needs, make sure to consider what options a complete office solutions provider is able to provide. Otherwise, you may find yourself desperately needing an emergency recovery system or employee contacting device that your current carrier does not carry. Naturally this is simplified without a complete office solution, as you would be able to pick and choose various companies based solely on the services that you need that they provide.
Reliability: Before you choose a company to host all of your business phone, internet and communication systems, it is absolutely imperative to double check that they are going to be absolutely reliable. The greatest disadvantage to choosing a complete office solution is that you are going to be entirely dependent on that one company to continue to provide the resources that you need to keep your company running smoothly. Especially when dealing with such important issues as your business internet service, make sure that the company that you choose is going to be one that you trust, whether that is through references by others, or simply their outstanding reviews.
As with many things in the business world, choosing between a complete office solution provider or a variety of hosted SBX, VoIP and business internet providers can be a complicated issue. Make sure to weigh the various factors before choosing, so that you will be able to find the solution that really does meet your businesses needs.
