SMEs Resolutely Behind VOIP… but why?

A recent survey from IBISWORLD revealed that VOIP services are among the top IT technologies with an expansion of 20.1% in spite of an overall decreased growth rate in the IT sector.

“VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.”

VOIP Info

Colin Duffy chief executive of UK VOIP provider, Voipfone, cited the advent of the technology in 2008 as bringing advanced telephony features to SMEs, which were previously only available to big companies for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mass market penetration is now being achieved not just with large enterprises but with companies with as little as 20 employees. This rise in demand with SMEs was borne out by a recent survey carried out by Star which revealed that, amongst those businesses with 100 employees or less, 41% have already deployed VoIP technology since it was first introduced in the late 1990’s.

Increasingly, organisations require telephony systems which are not only cost effective but can help to deliver better customer services and enhance productivity. This is where VoIP can really deliver over traditional PBX systems. Beyond what is perhaps the most compelling reason, cheaper calls, there are a number of factors driving the demand.

As VoIP is based on software rather than hardware, it can be easier to maintain, upgrade and scale up or down. With IP telephony, SMEs can also add functionality and flexibility to their communications to deliver an enhanced level of customer service, such as directly connecting web users with customer support staff and using automated functions such as call forwarding and three-way calling, all of which are rapidly becoming essential tools in our 24/7/365 world.

VoIP is also the route to more advanced applications that converge together, much like the usually touted Unified Communications philosophy. What this actually means is that we are seeing facilities like ‘presence’, mobility solutions and rich-media conferencing converging voice, data, application and video technologies and services.

Sources: SME Web; Techwatch; VOIP Info