7 Benefits of Moving PBX to the Cloud [Whitepaper]

As with many cloud applications used to run missioncritical parts of the business, UCaaS has come of age. The rapid adoption by businesses of all sizes attests to its reliability. In addition to carrier-grade reliability for your business phone calls, a cloud communications and collaboration phone system like RingCentral Message Video Phone (MVP) offers dramatic advantages over on-premises systems. These include benefits for your business and employees, as well as your network, data infrastructure, and IT resources. A full-featured cloud communications solution such as RingCentral MVP also offers all the integrated capabilities of team messaging, meetings, and contact centre to address the challenges of today’s business environment.

The typical company with an on-premises PBX uses a patchwork of business communications tools – standalone fax machines, individual internet fax accounts, third-party audio and video conferencing, and web meetings, and now team collaboration. This approach typically lacks connection or synergy among the various tools. In addition, as the service accounts have accumulated over time, you may need to manage multiple, and sometimes redundant, bills from the various providers.

RingCentral MVP integrates phone, video, meetings, and messaging into one reliable, easy-to-use solution. It also integrates with cloud and back-office business applications. This one-stop service not only saves costs and delivers the synergy of linking various modes of communication, but also eliminates the management, unwieldy billing, and cost tracking associated with multiple vendors.

The RingCentral solution also unifies the image that your organisation presents to the world – a single identity. All employees, whether they work in an office or on the road, make or receive calls from a single business number, giving your company’s communications a consistent and professional appearance. Even remote workers’ outbound calls are routed through the cloud and appear as if they are calling from the corporate location. It eliminates the need for a salesperson to have to provide a personal mobile phone number to continue with business when out of the office. When employees leave the office, calls automatically follow them to their smartphones via the RingCentral mobile app.

Maintaining and administering phone systems at multiple locations – especially where there are PBX hardware and phones from different vendors across various sites – can present a management nightmare for IT. However, by having the entire phone system in the cloud, RingCentral enables any IT team to manage the phone system from any location using a simple web
interface or mobile app. This means you save the cost and headache of sending an IT person with telephony experience to remote locations to perform maintenance or make simple changes, such as adding numbers and provisioning new employees. Or, it can eliminate calls to a local service provider and the frustration of waiting for changes or repairs to be made on their schedule, not to mention the high cost of service calls.

The cloud RingCentral phone system allows you to quickly start up a new location. And for new or existing locations, it does away with the cost and complexity of managing MPLS or other business exchange line connectivity between sites. Instead, all voice traffic travels over the internet backbone.

When you are growing or simply competing in today’s competitive markets, you cannot afford anything – including a business system – that holds you back. You can’t wait for a service provider to add new numbers, or send an IT person to a remote location every time you need assistance. And you cannot afford to be locked into inflexible systems.

MVP can’t predict where your business will be in two or three years, how many phone lines you will need, or how many locations you will have. A cloud system is inherently flexible and scalable. This isn’t the case with on-premises IP PBX that still needs PRI lines, for example, and each line is limited to 23 simultaneous calls. The RingCentral system provides instant access to virtually limitless inbound and outbound call capacity.

Buying and installing a new premises-based system can be very costly. RingCentral MVP eliminates the need for upfront investments in costly PBX hardware, as well as separate building wiring for phones and data, and maintenance items such as additional cards required for adding new employees. Also, few companies can afford to invest in or support a PBX at every site.

The entire infrastructure for your phone system resides in secure, redundant, and geographically distributed data centres where telephony experts manage the system 24/7 (which results in carrier-grade reliability). This becomes an even bigger cost advantage with multiple locations as you eliminate more than one piece of PBX hardware, along with costly MPLS, PSTN, or other business exchange lines. You no longer need skilled IT staff to manage one or more PBXs, or the expense and distraction of travelling to remote locations or calling a local service provider to make changes or repairs.

Many customers also consider investing in IP PBX, as it offers an option that enables IP connectivity, and having one on-premises may appeal to managers who feel it gives them more control over their systems. However, before making a purchase decision, it pays to roll up all the necessary costs, including outlays for network upgrades, which can be significant. RingCentral MVP requires no upgrades to the network core, except for a QoS-enabled router where one is not already installed.

Premises-based phone systems inherently lack direct connectivity to remote and mobile workers, and more advanced systems can charge you separate licensing fees. With RingCentral MVP, workers at remote locations or home offices are connected in the same way as employees in the main corporate office. Additionally, the mobile app – which works on any iOS® or Android™ device – essentially transforms a mobile phone into a desk phone and a powerful communications device.

Calls automatically follow workers wherever they go, and customers always see your business number rather than the employee’s personal home or mobile number. For example, rather than mortgage brokers at a bank providing their personal mobile numbers, they give customers the corporate number. This offers customers greater confidence; and if the broker leaves the company, the number is easily transferred to residing staff. Therefore, customer loyalty is retained with the company, not the individual. Additionally, all of the employee’s valuable contact information resides in the cloud, where it can be easily retrieved by your IT department, rather than on an employee-owned device.

Mobile and remote workers also have access to voicemail, fax, email, and all other company communications as if they are working in the office. The conference calling and HD video meetings further enable mobile and remote workers to easily and cost-effectively work from any location. Finally, the single RingCentral system eliminates the nightmare of accounting for hundreds or thousands of personal phone bills, which can be onerous for employees, their managers, and corporate accounting.

Some legacy PBX systems come with a limited feature set, and more advanced products may charge extra for basic features such as voicemail or the latest UC tools as they become available. With RingCentral MVP, the latest features and capabilities are continually integrated into the system.

A complete cloud communications system, for simpler management, reduced IT costs and less end-user training.

While having your phone hardware and software on-premises might seem to offer control, having it in the cloud actually affords a greater element of control that includes easier management. For example, with cloud VoIP, you no longer need to be in the same physical location as the phone system to manage it. When traveling or at home, you can make urgent changes to the system via a simple web interface using your laptop or smartphone. This direct access to the system also means you no longer have to deal with a third party or wait for them to make adds, moves, or changes. For example, any IT person can make changes using the web interface.