Is cloudy IP PBX suitable for small companies?
Today, the industry of office telephone exchanges (PBX), keeping up with the times, offers many hosting or, as they are called, cloud, telephone systems. Initially, such systems caused the interest of customers and created new opportunities for choice. Now the noise has settled down a bit and it's time to compare the advantages and disadvantages of cloud and private PBX, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
Here are 5 considerations that we think should be guided by the choice between a local or cloud PBX.
One can often hear arguments for the low cost of a cloud PBX, since small companies do have a limited budget. For the American market, the cost of a local PBX for 75 users is close to $ 75,000. For cloud PBX, this cost is approximately $ 22,500. However, this calculation does not take into account the so-called total cost of ownership of the system. If you recalculate this cost for the entire time of using the PBX in the company, the total cost of ownership is very high.
Resource Nojitter made a trial request for calculating the cost for a company of 2000 users + a call center for 75 operators. 16 vendors offered 24 different projects. Then the data obtained were normalized . The results are presented in the graph below.
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The blue line is the local PBX, and the red line is the cloud PBX. The calculation was made for a period of five years. The graph shows the place of intersection of lines in the area of ​​about the second year. Indeed, in the first year, the cost of owning a cloud PBX is very small, because the company does not bear the costs associated with software and hardware PBX. But not for the second year, the cost of a cloud PBX and local PBX are compared. From the beginning of the third year, the cost of a cloud PBX begins to exceed the cost of a local PBX, and these costs do not decrease, but remain at the same level or even grow. At the same time, the local PBX requires major, albeit large, costs at the initial stage of implementation, and then its cost of ownership is minimal.
The monthly small payments offered by vendors of cloudy automatic telephone exchanges, at first seem attractive. However, if we are not talking about short-term profit, but about the costs, distributed over time, this solution turns out to be very expensive. Of course, the cost may be different for different vendors and for different service packages, but a small company should consider its costs well, and not momentary, but long-term.
Suppose that the issue of long-term costs does not matter to us. Suppose also that the opportunities provided by the cloud and local PBX are about the same. The difference may be that the vendors of cloud PBXs provide a certain standard tariff package of functions for the user. And you can not change this package, or a set of its functions may not be suitable for your users. For example, you need call forwarding and a voice menu. But do not need a conference. However, vendor cloud PBX offers them in a package, and you can not refuse them. In other words, you pay for features that you do not need, or do not have features that are important to you.
In his own PBX, the administrator can always flexibly configure the functions necessary for a particular user, and if this user is not currently in the workplace, he can dynamically transfer them to another user, since He has full control over the station.
A corporate PBX can be tightly integrated with information systems available in the company, for example, with a local CRM system or an automated dialing system. The system administrator completely controls the local PBX and flexibly adjusts it to the requirements of the business. In the case of a cloud PBX, most of the system functions, especially advanced ones, are controlled by the vendor. I must say that vendors of cloud PBX advertise the flexibility of settings, but they are unlikely to add additional features just for the sake of one user. They offer some average solutions “for all”. Even if the vendor of the cloud PBX agrees to make improvements, the cost of these improvements is difficult to determine in advance. As a rule, the vendor offers to switch to the “senior” package of services that you may not be able to afford.
Vendors of cloud PBXs claim that for the end user there is no difference whether it works from the local PBX or from the cloud. Quality and speed are the same. This is true, but only in the ideal case. In practice, with the increase in the number of local users, the complexity of the network infrastructure or due to the simple removal of the company from the location of the cloud PBX, problems may arise with prioritizing voice traffic coming to the company via the Internet from the cloud PBX. In the local network, the system administrator can cheaply and simply prioritize the voice traffic of the local PBX, simply by enabling this feature on the switches. When using the cloud PBX, the vendor will offer to install the so-called Session Border Controller, which will solve the problem of prioritizing VoIP traffic. By itself, this controller costs several (up to seven) thousand dollars and further complicates the network infrastructure.
In short, the company's technical specialist can fully control both the VoIP PBX itself and the entire let of voice traffic. In the case of a cloud PBX, most of the system remains beyond the reach of the sysadmin and depends on random factors. Here it is necessary to mention the fact that VoIP traffic passing through the open Internet is theoretically much easier to intercept and listen to.
Vendors of cloud PBXs declare a team of professional technical support, which will solve all the issues with the installation, configuration and support of the telephone system. And it is true. But the fact is that in most small and medium-sized companies there are still many local IT tasks that need a system administrator to serve. For example, it is 1C support, anti-virus, user support, printers, backup, etc. Thus, a person is still needed and the salary he receives is the same, but part of his duties are now transferred to the support service of the cloud PBX. Switching to the cloud PBX, you still will not refuse the services of a sysadmin, but you will have an additional item of expenditure on external technical support. And instead of saving, you get additional costs!
In general, the transfer of IT systems to outsourcing is not always justified for a small company, because in this case the company loses control over the system and becomes too dependent on one vendor. As it was said, some vendors can go for revision or customization of a typical solution, but it will cost much more than using an existing specialist to set up a local PBX (or a one-time invitation from a consultant for this system).
Recently, small and medium-sized companies are overwhelmed with offers of cloud services, in particular, cloud PBXs. Everywhere their convenience and availability is advertised, however, it is difficult to find a qualitative comparative analysis of hosting and local PBXs. I hope these recommendations will help small companies to evaluate not only short-term financial benefits, but also to calculate the total cost of resources in the long term.
Here are 5 considerations that we think should be guided by the choice between a local or cloud PBX.
1. Total cost of ownership
One can often hear arguments for the low cost of a cloud PBX, since small companies do have a limited budget. For the American market, the cost of a local PBX for 75 users is close to $ 75,000. For cloud PBX, this cost is approximately $ 22,500. However, this calculation does not take into account the so-called total cost of ownership of the system. If you recalculate this cost for the entire time of using the PBX in the company, the total cost of ownership is very high.
Resource Nojitter made a trial request for calculating the cost for a company of 2000 users + a call center for 75 operators. 16 vendors offered 24 different projects. Then the data obtained were normalized . The results are presented in the graph below.
')
The blue line is the local PBX, and the red line is the cloud PBX. The calculation was made for a period of five years. The graph shows the place of intersection of lines in the area of ​​about the second year. Indeed, in the first year, the cost of owning a cloud PBX is very small, because the company does not bear the costs associated with software and hardware PBX. But not for the second year, the cost of a cloud PBX and local PBX are compared. From the beginning of the third year, the cost of a cloud PBX begins to exceed the cost of a local PBX, and these costs do not decrease, but remain at the same level or even grow. At the same time, the local PBX requires major, albeit large, costs at the initial stage of implementation, and then its cost of ownership is minimal.
The monthly small payments offered by vendors of cloudy automatic telephone exchanges, at first seem attractive. However, if we are not talking about short-term profit, but about the costs, distributed over time, this solution turns out to be very expensive. Of course, the cost may be different for different vendors and for different service packages, but a small company should consider its costs well, and not momentary, but long-term.
2. Individual or average functionality
Suppose that the issue of long-term costs does not matter to us. Suppose also that the opportunities provided by the cloud and local PBX are about the same. The difference may be that the vendors of cloud PBXs provide a certain standard tariff package of functions for the user. And you can not change this package, or a set of its functions may not be suitable for your users. For example, you need call forwarding and a voice menu. But do not need a conference. However, vendor cloud PBX offers them in a package, and you can not refuse them. In other words, you pay for features that you do not need, or do not have features that are important to you.
In his own PBX, the administrator can always flexibly configure the functions necessary for a particular user, and if this user is not currently in the workplace, he can dynamically transfer them to another user, since He has full control over the station.
3. Easy customization
A corporate PBX can be tightly integrated with information systems available in the company, for example, with a local CRM system or an automated dialing system. The system administrator completely controls the local PBX and flexibly adjusts it to the requirements of the business. In the case of a cloud PBX, most of the system functions, especially advanced ones, are controlled by the vendor. I must say that vendors of cloud PBX advertise the flexibility of settings, but they are unlikely to add additional features just for the sake of one user. They offer some average solutions “for all”. Even if the vendor of the cloud PBX agrees to make improvements, the cost of these improvements is difficult to determine in advance. As a rule, the vendor offers to switch to the “senior” package of services that you may not be able to afford.
4. The degree of user satisfaction
Vendors of cloud PBXs claim that for the end user there is no difference whether it works from the local PBX or from the cloud. Quality and speed are the same. This is true, but only in the ideal case. In practice, with the increase in the number of local users, the complexity of the network infrastructure or due to the simple removal of the company from the location of the cloud PBX, problems may arise with prioritizing voice traffic coming to the company via the Internet from the cloud PBX. In the local network, the system administrator can cheaply and simply prioritize the voice traffic of the local PBX, simply by enabling this feature on the switches. When using the cloud PBX, the vendor will offer to install the so-called Session Border Controller, which will solve the problem of prioritizing VoIP traffic. By itself, this controller costs several (up to seven) thousand dollars and further complicates the network infrastructure.
In short, the company's technical specialist can fully control both the VoIP PBX itself and the entire let of voice traffic. In the case of a cloud PBX, most of the system remains beyond the reach of the sysadmin and depends on random factors. Here it is necessary to mention the fact that VoIP traffic passing through the open Internet is theoretically much easier to intercept and listen to.
5. Availability of technical support
Vendors of cloud PBXs declare a team of professional technical support, which will solve all the issues with the installation, configuration and support of the telephone system. And it is true. But the fact is that in most small and medium-sized companies there are still many local IT tasks that need a system administrator to serve. For example, it is 1C support, anti-virus, user support, printers, backup, etc. Thus, a person is still needed and the salary he receives is the same, but part of his duties are now transferred to the support service of the cloud PBX. Switching to the cloud PBX, you still will not refuse the services of a sysadmin, but you will have an additional item of expenditure on external technical support. And instead of saving, you get additional costs!
In general, the transfer of IT systems to outsourcing is not always justified for a small company, because in this case the company loses control over the system and becomes too dependent on one vendor. As it was said, some vendors can go for revision or customization of a typical solution, but it will cost much more than using an existing specialist to set up a local PBX (or a one-time invitation from a consultant for this system).
Conclusion
Recently, small and medium-sized companies are overwhelmed with offers of cloud services, in particular, cloud PBXs. Everywhere their convenience and availability is advertised, however, it is difficult to find a qualitative comparative analysis of hosting and local PBXs. I hope these recommendations will help small companies to evaluate not only short-term financial benefits, but also to calculate the total cost of resources in the long term.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/191856/
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