Phone Systems for Small Business - 8 Criteria in Choosing a IP Phone System

In a recent keynote address at IT Expo West, John Combs, Shoretel's CEO provided very relevant instruction to IT managers and business owners upgrading to a voice over IP (VOIP) phone system. He used the MAC iPhone as an reference, to explain how quickly new technology can dominate an industry. In the case of a VOIP business phone system, IP technology will soon dominate correspondingly over today's predominant analog (TDM) systems. VOIP telephone systems can greatly increase user adaption rates, leading to improved productivity in an organization.

An IP phone system enables the flexibility and business leverage of unified messaging technology. The VOIP telephone system generally includes features such as teleconferencing, unified messaging (voicemail to email), web collaboration, presence (locating employees' whereabouts), mobile (cell phone) integration, instant messaging, video conferencing and business process integration (sales, accounting, CRM, etc.).

What sets apart one vendor's small business phone systems from the next? In his speech, Mr. Combs outlined a structured evaluation process when choosing office telephone systems with VOIP for business. He proposed 8 evaluation criteria to be used by the evaluation team making the choice of a new VOIP business phone system:

Usability. A live demonstration is mandatory including the exact hardware to be deployed. Mr Combs highly recommends having two or more vendors demonstrate side-by-side, or alternatively to deploy different prototypes at two different company offices and then exchange systems and locations to find out which one was best.

Reliability. What is the expected failure rate, based on actual fielded systems using Bellcore/Telecordia standards? Mr Combs pointed out that academic failure rates are not sufficient for confidence in deploying a new system. You don't want to the the "guinea pig" for a vendor's prototype or Beta testing.

Availability. Make certain understand the effect of downtime on the business based on the planned configuration. Count the points of failure exist in the vendor's solution?

Scalability. What are the costs should you need to double the planned configuration?

Architecture. What design philosophy was used in the system? Was it built ground-up vs. piecemeal from a number of merged business entities?

Total Cost of Ownership. Most of the time initial costs (hardware, network and implementation) come to only 20% of the complete system expense in the long term. Operating costs (training, move/add/change, system management, network and utilities) can amount to 80% over the system lifetime. What estimates are available from vendors being considered?

Vendor Financial Status. Evaluate the vendor's balance sheet to get comfortable with the fact that they'll continue to be able to support your office telephone system.

Vendor References. Your team should contact their industry associates for information relevant to the vendors being considered Would they repurchase? Do they know of other references? How do actual costs compare to vendor estimates? Is the system a support nightmare? What about any "raving fans?"

When selecting to upgrade small business phone systems, most users prefer a VOIP business phone system. A careful evaluation of each vendor's offerings and especially the presence of "raving fans" for any VOIP business phone system are crucial in getting all the benefits of VOIP for business.