How Your Phone System Can Improve Business Agility

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In this fast-paced world, agility is much more than a buzzword.

It’s an organizational imperative.

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In the context of business, agility is the ability which enables an organization to adapt and respond to rapidly changing business environments in cost efficient and productive ways.

There was a time of stable competitive advantage, where sticking to a single core competency was sufficient and big companies dominated. Sure, they were slow to react to market change, but they had huge cost advantages and could lock down distribution channels, suppliers, and other sources of strength.

According to Forbes, seventy percent of the companies that were on the Fortune 1000 list a mere fourteen years ago have now vanished –unable to adapt to change. Over the years we’ve seen digital disruption change the business landscape. We’ve watched the Internet become pervasive, embraced cloud-based applications that update multiple times a year, acquired mobile devices that connect everywhere in the neighborhood and around the globe, and embraced information workers who use their own tools to do corporate work on their own time.

With every new contract, businesses must determine if they need to add resources to deliver quality goods or services on time. Without this kind of agility, you can’t meet rising customer demands or beat the competition to market.

In this regard, an outdated business phone system can have far-reaching implications. One of the most impressive features of a modern phone system is scalability.

Scalability:

This may also sound like a buzzword, but there are several main scenarios in which a scalable phone (communications) system (cloud or on site) can add tremendous value to your business:

Rapid Growth:

If your company experiences or is anticipating periods of accelerated growth, then a scalable IP phone system gives you the power to quickly add lines and extensions as you add employees to handle higher volumes of customer calls.

Seasonal Spikes:

Some companies know they’ll need additional phone support during peak times of the year, such as the holidays or tax season. Only a flexible system allows them to manage ebbs and flows with both ease and less cost.

Highly Competitive Markets:

In today’s on-demand world, businesses that are proactive – or at a minimum, respond rapidly – often win the business and the long-term customer loyalty. If you’re operating in a highly competitive market, can you afford to wait for your communications capabilities to catch up with customer requests? Probably not.

If your business phone system cannot scale with ease, your phone system stands to hamper employee productivity which impacts your bottom line.

Here are some additional top features of a modern business communications system (cloud or on site) that can help you to improve your business agility.

Work is an activity, not a destination

Flexibility:

Whether your employees are working from their office phone, a phone at home or a mobile device, modern communications technologies can deliver a consistent user experience that transitions smoothly across multiple devices, platforms and networks.

Integration:

Voice, video, chat and screen-sharing have become key collaboration features of modern unified communications solutions, by expanding the ways in which employees communicate with one another and with customers.

Intuitive and Easy to Use:

Forget about long tutorials, having to install plugins every time you start a meeting or trying to remember dial in numbers. A good business communications system should be easy to use and intuitive for new users, making communications simple and seamless. Your company does not have time to hesitate when opportunities arise. A modern and flexible communications system can give you a competitive advantage while enabling you to exceed customer expectations – two compelling reasons for evaluating your current phone system to determine if it’s really helping your business to be as agile as it needs to be.

Convenient Administration:

Adding, removing, moving and changing users, and even adding new sites, can be easily managed from a convenient, intuitive web-based portal. This ‘anywhere-anytime’ accessibility means IT teams or even non-technical administrators and leaders can keep staff productive and business moving and secure from anywhere in the world that the internet or cellular service is available.

For example, adding staff to contact centre queues or enabling your staff to work from home during inclement weather could be just a few clicks away...

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