Genzee Ltd

One of the most talked about benefits of VoIP is the fact that it can offer significant cost savings to businesses. However it is not always clear where the savings are especially if you look at the cost of VoIP handsets which can be very similar in price to traditional handsets. So here is a breakdown of where you can save your business money by opting for VoIP.

Installation Savings

There are many areas where money can be saved on a VoIP installation. Here are the Big 3:

• Less is more
  Many items usually required for a traditional installation are simply not required for a VoIP installation. An 8 channel ISDN30 line would cost around £1,000 to install and give you 8 concurrent calls. The VoIP alternative could consist from something as simple as one analogue line with an ADSL2+ broadband connection, which would support about 10 concurrent calls with an installation cost of about £150. Of course, there are various technical constraints that will determine the actual number of concurrent calls. Money saved: £850.

• Software vs. Hardware
  A Big part of the costs involved in larger installations is in the number of Handsets required.  With a traditional system, if you wanted to have 20 staff members to each have access to their own phone, you needed to purchase 20 handsets - which could easily equate to over £1,600. With VoIP, you could use software phones (or softphones as they are known) which can range from free to about £30 and upwards depending on the functionality required. A potential saving of £1,600.

• Open vs. Closed
  One other great cost benefit is the fact that you can get a VoIP Server (or IP PBX) for absolutely free. Asterisk IP PBX is an open source project which means you can download and use the software without having to pay any licensing fees. If you have an unused server or decent quality workstation that is lying around somewhere, you could use that as your IP PBX and simply download and install Asterisk or one of the many other Asterisk based open source IP PBX software. The other alternative is to buy a new server or hardware designed specifically to run Asterisk which can cost from about £350 upwards. Compared to a traditional PBX which will cost £1,500 upwards - that's not including any licensing that proprietary Vendors charge - it’s a potential saving of at least £1,150.

Ongoing Savings

The other type of cost savings offered by a VoIP installation covers ongoing / maintenance costs. The two biggest areas are:

Call Charges

A large part of most businesses' monthly phone bill consists of call charges. VoIP reduces this in several areas:

• Call Rates
  Call rates are generally much cheaper using VoIP than traditional phone lines. This is especially true for International Calls because calls can be routed over the Internet instead of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) which is billed per minute.

• Inter-office Calls
  If both offices are using VoIP, then calls between the offices can be routed over the Internet and therefore won't be billed. This alone can offer significant savings for many companies.

• Remote users
  Traditionally, if a company has staff working from home, calls between the home worker and the office would be chargeable. Using VoIP however, the remote worker's phone can be connected to the office IP PBX and can make and receive calls as-if in the office. Therefore calls between the remote work and the office will not be billed which can result in significant savings.

Using our example above, an 8 Channel ISDN30 line would cost approximately £100 / month in line rental. An ADSL2+ connection offering similar capacity would be around £30.

Indirect Savings

A well planned and executed telephony solution can offer savings in a wide range of different areas. Most of it depends on the way the business operate and various other factors. Some examples include:

• Office Space
  By making it easier for staff to work from home, business owners can save on their office space costs. In some cases, business owners have moved completely from Office based workers to Homeshoring with all their staff working from home - saving thousands of pounds each year.

• Productivity
  Productivity can be increased by using a VoIP system. By being able to reach the right person quicker hours of wasted time can be saved and better used to generate more money for your business

• Stress
  Stress is estimated to cost the economy around £4 billion each year. So what better way to reduce your staff's stress by allowing them to extend their flexible working to their holiday destination? This way your staff has a few extra days in the warm sun escaping the winter blues, whilst being able to do some work. Using SoftPhones your staff can work from anywhere and still be connected to the office's telephone system to make and receive calls as usual.

Conclusion

So there is a potential saving of £3,600 on installation charges for a 20 person office. Whilst monthly savings are very difficult to generalise, a 70% saving on line rentals is achievable and you can expect a reduction of 10-60% on call charges, although this  is heavily dependent on calling habits and which suppliers you compare.

Whilst it is entirely possible to build a VoIP platform with barely spending a penny on the installation, the savings would be better invested by catering for redundancy to ensure high availability, or adding unified communications solutions that could help improve productivity which could result in a saving of over £30,000 a year.

For more information on how VoIP can help you save money, call us on 0800 047 0390 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it