Simplifying Your Business Communication Systems Strategy

The requirements for business communication systems have changed significantly in recent years. Today, consumers expect to be able to communicate through more channels and are more impatient about response times. Employee communication needs can be even more complex, and improving communication can increase employee productivity by up to 25%.

As businesses try to adapt to these changing demands, the result is often a patchwork of complex and disparate solutions. Thankfully, there are steps companies can take to streamline their communications. In this article, we’ll give tips on how to take some of the complexity out of your company’s communication systems.

Signs Your Business Communication Systems Have Become Too Complex

We’re just coming off the heels of an unprecedented shift in how work is viewed. Remote work is now here to stay, and many businesses developed their communication strategies to accommodate this change in a hurried fashion. As the world returns to a new normal post-pandemic, it’s good to look at some signs that your business’s communication systems have become too complex.

Lack of a Modern Communications Platform – Just as there have been tools created to help streamline every other business need, communications platforms exist that greatly simplify the way businesses share information. If your business isn’t already taking advantage of one of these systems, your communications are almost certainly more complex than needed.
Excessive IT Costs – Every disparate piece of the communications puzzle requires additional work in your IT department. If you find that your IT costs are more bloated than you’d like, it’s possible that simplifying communications systems could free up some expenses. A close examination of how much time IT staff is spending on communications-related infrastructure can reveal a lot.
IT Resource Constraints – Not every company has the resources to hire as many IT staff as necessary to keep up with the work required. For smaller companies with complex communications, IT costs won’t balloon out of control. Instead, the department will lack the resources to keep up with the work assigned to them.
Too many moving pieces – Even if IT staff isn’t having a hard time keeping up, relying on too many different disparate pieces for your communications strategy increases friction in the company. Having to manage multiple systems and switch between them constantly to keep up with conversations and other information slows down productivity.

Ways to Simplify Your Communications Systems

There are several strategies you can use to streamline the way communication works for your company. These include technological solutions and business strategy solutions. Let’s take a look at some of the common ways businesses remove complexity from their communication systems and the benefits of each.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

UCaaS brings together several communications strategies into a single platform. Nearly every modern business now relies on a mixture of voice, video, email, messaging, and cloud services for its communications needs. If each of these services is entirely distinct, communications data become siloed, and accessing all of it requires additional steps. UCaaS takes all of those aspects of communication and unites them under a single platform.

Reduce Costs – UCaaS saves costs by reducing the number of providers required to fulfill a company’s communications needs. Paying several companies for each aspect of communications can add up quickly and obscure the total costs. At the same time, UCaaS streamlines bill payments and simplifies troubleshooting by consolidating all communications infrastructure under a single company.
Boost Productivity – In order to do their jobs effectively, employees need access to a wide range of information. Without UCaaS, this means switching between different software platforms, dealing with log-ins for multiple solutions, and trying to keep track of where each bit of relevant information is. UCaaS brings everything together so all that friction is eliminated and employees work more productively.
Facilitate Remote Work – With employees demanding the ability to work from anywhere, companies need a way to make that happen. UCaaS systems allow employees to use any internet-connected device to communicate through official company means to both co-workers and customers alike.
Improve Collaboration – UCaaS platforms include features that make it easier for team members to find and share information. Screen sharing abilities, team chat functionality, and easy filesharing are all brought together in one package. The result is a team that can focus on working together to do their jobs instead of fighting with communications technology.

Related: Unified Communications Providers: Are They Worth the Investment?

Sip Trunking

There will always be a need for traditional telephone service at businesses. But traditional telephone services no longer have to be delivered over telephone lines. Sip Trunking allows companies to continue using voice services in the way that they always have, but with significantly more flexibility by utilizing voice-over IP (VoIP) instead. This is a common step in bridging traditional voice with UCaaS technologies.

Reduce Costs – Traditional telephone services can be a mess of confusing charges. Local, long-distance, and international billing all add to the complexity of calculating your payments. Businesses rarely know what their bill will be until it comes. Sip trunking takes the guesswork out of billing by providing companies with a single monthly cost.
Consolidate Networks – With a traditional phone infrastructure, companies usually depend on at least two networks; one for voice and one for data. Larger companies with multiple locations may have to depend on multiple providers for each. Sip trunking consolidates the two networks into one. This simplifies the system and often increases reliability by moving everything to a modern data connection.
Eliminate Physical Infrastructure – Traditional phone service relies on wires, and. expanding your business means waiting on a phone company to run a new wire. Employees need handsets to talk on. Sip trunking, on the other hand, uses the same connection as your internet does. It works easily anywhere your connection reaches. Employees can use any device with internet connectivity as a softphone.
Remove Barriers – Sip trunking isn’t limited to working on your company’s Wi-Fi connection. It can work anywhere there’s a network connection. This means employees working remotely anywhere in the world will have access to your company’s communications system using an app securely installed on their mobile devices.

Managed Services

Keeping a network infrastructure up and running is a difficult task. It requires specialized IT personnel to take time away from other tasks to ensure your company’s communications keep running smoothly. Managed services are a good way to save money and take the strain off of your own IT staff. With managed services, your business can rely on outside experts to keep everything running while your staff focuses on core competencies.

Reduce Costs – Managed services come with a full team of people who can work on behalf of your company. However, because they are also providing services for other companies, you save money by only paying for their time when you need it.
Improve Expertise – A managed services company is fully staffed with communications network specialists. Contracting with one allows you to bring more experts onto your team than if you had to hire those staff members yourself.
Reduce Downtime – Having a team of experts on call does more than save you money. It helps to minimize the amount of downtime your company experiences when something goes wrong with your communications network.

Related: How SASE & SD-WAN Relate and What It Means for Your Organization

Consolidate Providers

We’ve now listed three ways to simplify your business communication systems. Depending on how many managed services you want to have handled for you, this could mean working with three or more companies to get everything done. However, it makes more sense to find a single company that can do it all.

Consolidating all of your business communication needs under a single provider gives you a single point of contact when things go wrong. It’s also often cheaper to hire one company to do everything you need in a package deal rather than picking and choosing companies in an a la carte fashion.

Get Started with a Business Communication System That Offers Everything You Need

BCM One is a team of communications network specialists that you can customize to perfectly fit your business needs. From NextGen communication products to managed services, BCM One can cover every communication need your business has. To learn more about BCM One or to get started, contact us today.