In spite of the current economic downturn, the majority of UK businesses - 83% in fact - are still focused on growth as one of their main business objectives.

Research from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) reveals that the credit crunch has had a negative effect on 65% of organisations, with 72% saying it has made it harder to plan and 64% and 53% experiencing increases in short and long-term borrowing costs respectively.

Although businesses know that the climate isn't going to improve in the short term, they remain focused on growth and profitability.

With this in mind, a feature-rich and cost-effective telecoms solution is important for their continued success and future growth. Unity IP Voice from InTechnology is a network-hosted service which means that it is no longer necessary to purchase an onsite PBX, thereby reducing capital expenditure significantly.

Unity IP Voice offers a simple, clear expansion path with a "pay as you grow" cost model so companies don't have to pay up front for capacity which they may need in the future.

Homeworker solutions provide non-office-based staff with a voice service incorporating the full feature set of Unity IP Voice. This enables an organisation to grow, without the cost of expanding their premises and without compromising on features.

Migrate to IP at your own pace
Rather than only providing a "rip and replace" changeover to IP, InTechnology can connect existing PBX systems to its IP voice network. This enables a business to take a more prudent approach to migrating to IP, making the transition to a hosted solution as and when they are ready. It also enables them to get the most out of their existing investments in telephony, while enjoying the benefits of a fully IP voice infrastructure.

For small businesses, there are many benefits, including:

Reduced capital expenditure

• A PBX is a physical device that must be purchased and installed at each of the customer sites
• Unity IP Voice is a hosted service so there is no PBX to pay for at each site, significantly reducing capital expenditure

More efficient use of money

• With a traditional site-based PBX, a business will have to buy its phone system with spare capacity for the future. This means paying up front for capacity they might not use for a year, two years or longer
• With Unity IP Voice, all of the ‘spare capacity' is hosted in the network, which means that the business can simply pay for what they need, when they need it and enjoy a "pay as you grow" charging model

Transparent, predictable pricing model

• With a traditional PBX the increase in cost when expanding is not always proportional to the increase in number of users. Upgrades to the PBX are commonly required to enable the addition of new handsets or telephone lines meaning costs when expanding are not predictable
• Businesses simply buy an additional handset and user license for each new user they require

Increased flexibility and productivity

• Homeworkers: fully managed network connection and voice service enables expansion of the business, without expansion of the premises

• Remote office: enables any telephone worldwide that is capable of receiving calls to become the user's desk phone

• Hosted call centre: a feature rich inbound call handling solution with all the benefits of Unity IP Voice, including the ability to deploy home based call handling agents and supervisors

• Desktop integration: the Unity PC Assistant toolbar enables quick and simple control over the main features of the service at the click of a mouse button

Case study: Kelly Services
With a fast-moving and successful recruitment business to run, managers in Kelly Services rely on excellent voice communications internally and externally to support their responsive approach to clients.

By switching to InTechnology's voice services, the company has enjoyed significantly reduced telephony costs, better performance and top-quality service levels.

InTechnology provide a fully managed service to Kelly Services (UK) and a mixed product set across the entire Kelly Services UK telecoms estate. Now Kelly Services is making the transition to IP Services from InTechnology.

"For our telephony we like to get the best available services and I wish we had made the switch to InTechnology earlier. IP is now the way forward and there is not a better system out there," comments Tony Besley, senior purchasing manager at Kelly Services (UK).

Traditionally a business is likely to have multiple suppliers: one for the PBX, one for the line rental, one for the calls, one for their internet access and so on. In contrast, Unity IP Voice is an end-to-end service, fully managed by one supplier - InTechnology. Customers no longer have to endure the blame culture between multiple suppliers when experiencing a problem. 

InTechnology provides a single point of contact for the service. Furthermore, it offers ease of administration: a simple web portal enables the customer to make changes to their phone service instantly and without any charge. As Tony Besley from Kelly concludes: "Customer service at InTechnology is very strong... we have dedicated service account managers who deal with any service requests or problems."

Stefan Haase is director of InTechnology. For more information visit www.intechnology.co.uk [1]