Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Adoption rates of hosted telephony are increasing as SMEs look to reduce the costs and complexities of business telephony. SMEs are factoring in revenue growth, enhanced productivity and additional features but what are the top 5 drivers for SMEs to move to hosted telephony?

1 – Out of contract

SMEs with phone systems that are out of their service contract often struggle to find parts and fix faults. There are limited funds to make another large capital investment and a need for additional call features such as application integration. 

When you are looking for a partner for voice and data services, you will almost certainly be given access to a portal, but how do you know whose portal would be right for you? What makes a good dealer portal? Consider the following:

What does it do?

As a dealer you will probably be preparing the quotation, with your supplier billing, supporting and paying you a monthly commission. Does the portal generate professional co-branded proposals that can be emailed to your customer and how easy is it then for them to review and place the order? Most dealers want to see recommended prices but with the option to change them as they deem appropriate. Can your supplier do this? Is it a straightforward margin share with automated commission or do you have to invoice for a percentage each month?

If you have customers looking to buy voice and data services, you may be asking yourself this very question. To help you shortlist potential suppliers, consider these 4 Ps.

Products

Does the company provide both voice and data services? What internet services are available, at what speeds? What is the coverage like? How many carrier services do they provide, just BT, or all the major service providers? What telephony services do they offer? What hosted voice platform do they operate? Do they also offer SIP trunks, calls and lines?

The key thing to compare here is range of services available. To avoid partnering with multiple suppliers, find one that can offer the widest range of connectivity. When considering voice services look for the platform that is best supported with the widest range of call features.

LinkedIn is officially the world’s largest professional network with over 433 million members in 200 countries. Their mission is to connect professionals to make them more productive and successful. The network provides access to people, jobs, news, updates and insights, all designed to help you be better at what you do. As well as setting up your own account you can also set up company pages to attract followers, post company updates (news, opinion pieces, videos, podcasts, infographics etc.) and drive engagement.

With so many of your colleagues, customers, suppliers and competitors on LinkedIn, getting the basic etiquette right is as important as turning up to a business meeting on time.

5 ways to inspire leadership

According to the Tech Nation report, the digital economy grew 32 percent faster than the rest of the economy between 2011 and 2014. The sector accounts for 1.56m jobs across the UK, with the workforce growing by more than 10 percent over the three-year period - three times faster than the wider UK job market.

App and software development is the fastest-growing niche in the digital economy, growing by 17 percent overall in 2015. Data companies and hardware manufacturers also posted growth of more than 10 percent.

When a sector experiences ‘super-growth’ it attracts more entrants and with barriers to entry in the local supplier market now lower than ever, management and leadership become the key to continued success. 

5 ways to inspire leadership

They say bosses tell people what to do and leaders inspire them to believe in what they can do. Are you looking to inspire your team to help grow your company? Review our tips below;

A recent survey by Vanson Bourne found that 74% of small businesses embraced BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to work to improve productivity. Microsoft also recently reported that 59% of small businesses were likely to embrace the cloud to reap the productivity benefits. As productivity is such a driver for change, we decided to share our top tips for running more productive IT services.

1 – Automate

Manual processes are notorious drivers of rework and lost efficiency. For example, automation has reduced invoice processing costs by 53 percent for some companies, and decreased clerical demands by 25 percent.

Where should you start?

The first step is to determine the most arduous tasks that take up your time, whether it is an IT service responsibility or a business management task. IT, billing, monitoring, management, backup and reporting can all be improved through the use of automation. Rather than wasting time and money on manual tasks while simultaneously putting you at risk for more errors, consider automating business processes that take up more time than you can afford.

Why does there never seem to be enough time in the day? As entrepreneurs and business owners we are always busy -  products to sell, problems to solve and ideas to develop. So many people demand our time that it often feels like we are no longer in charge of our own day. Anyone who runs their own business will know the saying ‘work on your business, not in it’.

Strategic planning

How many of us actually get to leave the office and sit on our own with a coffee and think about our strategic direction, what’s happening in the market and what’s next.

Why add hosted voice to your portfolio?

Demand from SMEs

A recent report by HIS forecasted the worldwide hosted VoIP market is to reach $15 billion in 2019, with 68 million seats. A report from Cavell showed that the UK hosted VoIP market had grown by 266,392 seats (13.95%) in six months to reach a total number of 2,175,065 seats. This growth came mainly from the SME end of the market.

Demand is being driven by a few factors, the availability of cost-effective, reliable internet connections and the opportunity to purchase an enterprise-grade phone system with no real upfront investment, on a monthly pay-per-seat basis.

As more channels of communication become available to us, it is easy to get lost in the technology and forget the basics when it comes to customer communications. We need to communicate with our customers to keep them up to date with products and services, price changes, provisioning updates and of course billing. We also want to make it easy for them to contact us when they want to buy something. Check out these top tips to help you hone your communications and get back to basics.

Audience

Who are you talking to?

Review your mailing lists, magazine readerships and social media followers regularly. Are these the people you want to talk to? If not build the right list. It takes time but is worth doing to make sure you have good white lists and relevant followers. Is it worth sending customer updates via social media if your LinkedIn contacts are made up of marketing agencies, recruitment agencies and people wanting to sell to you?

Are your customers ready for the cloud?

According to the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) 86 percent of UK-based organisations may now be using two or more cloud services for accountancy, customer relationship management or document management and storage. 50 percent of organisations questioned are expected to move to cloud applications in the next few years.

A reliable internet connection is essential for businesses wanting to access cloud applications. With so many internet connectivity products and suppliers in the market, SMEs and their suppliers are finding it difficult and confusing. This is why some business IT and Telecoms providers are partnering with companies like Jola.