Hosted services are delivered by VoIP Providers and is called various names in the telephone industry including Hosted PBX, Hosted VoIP, IP Centrex and Virtual PBX. The customer may only purchase telephone instruments, if any equipment at all, with Hosted VoIP services. Instead the VoIP provider maintains the central equipment at their Point-of-Presence (POP) saving the customer from large capital outlays.

Infonetics claims that the sweet spot for Hosted VoIP is small businesses under 100 employees. They also believe that the number of extensions on Hosted VoIP will nearly double between 2010 and 2012.

Does Your Business Need VoIP?

You should only purchase a VoIP enabled telephone system or select a Hosted PBX provider if you have business needs for VoIP technology and your network is ready to support VoIP. Obviously, if you have the needs but not the network, the network can be improved.

Here are some of the needs that VoIP will solve. In some instances, Hosted PBX or Hosted VoIP providers are specifically required to solve the issue as opposed to purchasing a VoIP enabled telephone system.

*The company has multiple offices with daily communication between them or the need to consolidate departments spread out among the offices. VoIP telephone systems provide the ability for phones spread out among a diverse geography to seamlessly communicate using data networks as if they were all in one building including dialing extensions and transferring calls.

*Remote or Work-at-Home employees that need to be a part of the company’s telephone system.

*The company’s budget does not support cabling for both the data network and telephones. VoIP telephones can share the same cabling to each desk with the computer.

*Telephones are regularly moved from office to office. Unlike digital phones that require a service technician to move them, VoIP telephones can be moved by the user within the office. Some IP telephone systems and most Hosted VoIP services will allow the user to plug the telephone into any place where it can access the Internet.

*The company needs to expand or contract in markets outside of their local calling area. Hosted PBX services allow customers to publish local telephone numbers in most United States and some foreign markets.

*The company has a limited budget for capital expenditure. Most Hosted VoIP services save capital expense by only requiring purchase of VoIP telephones and not the central equipment.

*The company has high long distance bills. VoIP telephone systems and Hosted VoIP services can eliminate long distance between remote offices and workers in remote areas. Some Virtual PBX services package domestic long distance with their calling packages.

*The company has seasonal business causing their phone needs to expand and contract. Hosted services will accommodate these rapidly changing needs.

*Individuals or departments need their own telephone number yet the expense of a PRI circuit from the telephone company is not affordable.

*One or more offices are located in disaster prone areas of power outages, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. Hosted PBX services can keep processing calls when the office may no longer be standing.

If your company has one or more of these needs, then it is time to determine whether your network is ready for VoIP.

Is Your Network Ready for VoIP?

*Data cabling is required at all locations where VoIP telephones will be placed.

*For Hosted VoIP service and to bring outside telephones onto the VoIP telephone system, the Internet connection must be healthy. It should have enough bandwidth to support the desired number of concurrent calls and the data traffic and it must not periodically lose service.

*The internal network must contain 100MB Ethernet switches at a minimum. Absolutely no hubs should be in the network. Chaining Ethernet switches should be avoided as much as possible.

This is a cursory view of determining whether your business and network is ready for the tremendous advantages of VoIP communication. Your VoIP provider should do further analysis on both needs and network readiness.

Some supervisors have to see you in order to believe that you are working. These supervisors will probably never be willing to let you start working at home. Fortunately, most can make the transition one step at a time. Here is a step-by-step process to get your boss to gradually say ‘yes’ to your request to work from home:

Step 1: Establish Trust. Be seen as a self-motivated, self-starter with superior work ethic. This is crucial. If you have not already established trust with your boss with your work in the office, he will not be ready to believe that you will be a more dedicated employee out of his sight.

Step 2: Find an excuse to work from home for a day. Tell your boss that you need to meet with a plumber, cable repairman or take a delivery. Do not use watching your child. When you approach your boss for your home work day request, tell them which day you need to work from home, exactly what you will get done and how you can be reached.

Step 3: On your day at home, be organized with a list of what you will get done, be focused and work hard. This is your opportunity to give your boss a taste of what you can accomplish at home. Make sure it tastes good. Catch your boss later in the week and discuss how productive you were that day.

Step 4: Now that you have had a highly productive day at home, ask your boss for one work day a week at home to repeat that same productivity. Start off small with one day a week. Know the answer to common questions: How do you intend to maintain contact with coworkers? How to you plan to work around lack of face-to-face interactions? How often do you plan to come into the office?

Step 5: Prove one day a week to be successful. As in step 3, be organized with what you plan to get accomplished before the day begins. Stay focused and work hard. Here are 10 telecommuting tips for being responsible, efficient and productive. On top of these, make sure that you have set proper office hours for yourself and no slacking.

Step 6: Gradually expand your time at home. Have some acuity about when to ask for additional time working at home. Your valuable work from your house should always be your most compelling argument.

Telecommuting can be the optimal job for many of us and be best for our companies, too. According to Professor E Jeffrey Hill, telecommuters can work an extra 19 hours a week. Besides getting an extra 19 hours of productive work, here are an additional 29 reasons to telecommute. Now it is up to you to turn a good idea into reality.

When a business is struck by one or more of these disasters, the effects can be wide ranging.  If the business can not respond to their needs, customers seek out other solutions including competitors.  Employee productivity is reduced when they cannot get to work.  Revenues suffer with lost customers and reduced employee productivity.  Further, the business may be physically displaced and key business resources such as the telecommunications systems, data networks and vendors may be unavailable.

Although proper disaster planning involves many aspects of the business, one primary component is the communications system.  Staying in contact with employees, customers and the general public can help mitigate the damage caused by the disaster.  A key strategy for a robust, disaster resistant communications system is the use of a Hosted PBX system.  Hosted PBX services (also commonly referred as Hosted VoIP services and Virtual PBXs) house the equivalent of the telephone system central equipment and call processing at the VoIP Provider’s Point of Presence (POP).

Hosted PBX services are a superior disaster resistant strategy for the communication system for several reasons.  The POP is located in a hardened facility that is resistant to disasters.  Call processing happens in the POP and away from the main business.  This means that calls are handled regardless of what is transpiring at the main building.  Since most Hosted PBX services use the Internet for voice delivery, phones can be rapidly deployed wherever broadband Internet access exists.  In addition, some services accommodate redundant Internet connections for automatic failover.

Because they contain core call processing in a hardened facility and they use the flexibility of the Internet to deliver their service, Hosted PBX services present a wide range of options in a disaster.  These options include:

1.  Automatically re-routing calls to homes, mobile phones and other offices

2.  Forwarding inbound calls to any 10 digit telephone number

3.  Turning employees into telecommuters

4.  Assembling a temporary office anywhere the telephones can be plugged into a broadband connection

5.  Recording special announcements and instructions for callers

6.  And finally, doing nothing and allowing the normal automated attendants and voicemail systems to process the calls

With many of these available options to help the business stay in touch with the public, outside callers may have no idea that disaster has struck.

How a business responds to a disaster is dependant on how well they have planned to keep their core functions operational in a catastrophic event.  Companies that are prepared to remain operational in a disaster become a resource during the disaster rather than a victim.  Processing and handling calls is a vital function to the performance of most businesses.  Hosted PBX services are a robust, disaster resistant communications system that can handle calls and help a business survive a disaster.

In business, making or receiving calls that are concentrated in areas outside of the local dialing area are normal events.  The usual solution for making these kinds of calls is to use long distance or subscribe to a toll-free number.  If the call is in-state verses across the country, the costs can be through the roof.   And the more time you spend talking, the more it costs.

This can become a barrier to sales growth and good customer service.  The small business is often the one that feels the pain the most.  A simple business goal of expanding into a new market or service area can be hurt or derailed with the increase in the telephone call expenses.

Using virtual telephone numbers, this barrier can be broke at a reasonable cost to make the benefits for a small business enormous.  Today most Hosted PBX Providers offer virtual telephone numbers for almost any US exchange area.  Getting the numbers you want can be easy and very affordable.

If your need is to only provide a local number for callers to contact your business (inbound only), then the destination you direct the virtual number can be just about anywhere.  Many Hosted PBX subscribers find this flexibility of number destination a very cost effective means for disaster recovery or to assign remote workers call coverage tasks.

I hope this article has been helpful to you.  Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.