Opinion: The new rules of enterprise IP telephony

Say Goodbye to your PBX and hello to networked applications and open standards adaptability

'With the emergence of IP telephony and the move from traditional communications hardware boxes to networked software applications and open communications standards such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for VoIP, it's clear that PBX systems have run their course.
 
The downfall of the PBX has been on analysts' projection boards for some time.

Back in February 2003, for instance, Gartner's "Next-Generation: Enterprise IP Telephony" report stated rather inauspiciously that by year-end 2007 "traditional enterprise telephony system manufacturers will have ceased development of TDM-based PBX systems, and will have announced their intention to discontinue support within five years."

To many business owners and IT decision-makers, life without their trustworthy PBX phone system is a scary proposition - as is the thought of migrating to new technologies.  

Yet at the same time, the IP-based convergence of voice and data on a single network has opened a whole new world of communications.

It is increasingly making businesses and their employees more effective at collaborating, serving customers and generating revenues than any previous generation of technology.
 
The rules of business communications have changed, primarily in that IP telephony and its open standards approach make the enterprise more readily adaptable.

This means that your enterprise can either continue to conduct business as usual with a PBX that's soon to be extinct, or it can play by the New Rules of IP Telephony and set ground-breaking trends for how your business, employees and customers interact.
 
Following are four such New Rules to think about if you haven't already made the move to IP communications.
 
Old Rule: Dial-tone is all you need.
New Rule: The value is in the applications.

Some businesses need little more than a telephone to open the pipeline to customers.

But now that e-mail, Web chat and instant messaging have joined the list of multimedia options consumers insist on, it's safe to categorise such businesses as the minority.

Which is where the New Rule comes in for value-adding applications.

Rather than adding one hardware box after another for a PBX, ACD, automated attendant, Web server, chat server, IVR system and on and on, pre-integrated application bundles allow an enterprise to replace costly, inflexible multi-box equipment that doesn't always cooperate across media channels.
 
Moreover with data running closer than ever alongside voice interactions, the new breed of "information worker" who interacts with customers (as well as partners and suppliers) must be able to access product information, pricing, customer or inventory data while on the phone or in a Web chat.
 
On the voice side, several new IP PBX phone and communications systems offer pre-integrated client applications to manage queued calls and Web chats from the desktop, including client options for selected Microsoft Dynamics applications and Outlook.

Choose an IP PBX system developed on an open-standards software architecture, and integrating the business applications your employees use most becomes fairly seamless. 

Old Rule: Applications are what they are. Disconnected.
New Rule: Pre-integrated functionality out of the box.
 
Imagine you're a customer contacting a business. All you care about is getting consistent quality service regardless of the contact channel or transaction you want to perform.

Because a PBX and other communications boxes aren't always fully "connected" themselves, an enterprise can't realistically leverage hardware to connect things like desktop business applications and customer databases.
 
Most of the IP PBXs now hitting the market, however, enable an organisation to unify data as well voice applications on a data network. They arrive pre-integrated and fit directly on the network, where they are easily managed with other existing data and communications servers.

They also reach to the end-user level, pre-integrating to applications for IP telephony - as well as for things like CRM, ERP, accounting packages, screen pop, unified messaging, and conferencing - greatly minimising any chance of application disconnects when also integrating enterprise business processes.
 
Consider, too, that pre-integrated call queuing and routing in today's IP PBXs allow a business to more quickly and accurately queue calls, chats and Web call-backs, and do so with no expensive external devices.
 
Old Rule: "IP-enabled" is close enough.
New Rule: Buy an IP system

If a proprietary vendor tells you their "new" PBX is IP-enabled to accommodate SIP and VoIP, run away as fast as you can. Besides PBXs being on the way out, the truth is they were never designed, and have never been redesigned, for open standards like SIP without having to bolt on more hardware. And even that approach isn't close enough for an effective IP solution.
 
If you are committed to finding a true IP communications system, look closely at its back-end architecture with regards to a SIP carrier environment for IP telephony.

Does the system converge data and voice networks into a single IP-based network to reduce access?

Does it sufficiently compress IP voice packets on the network to send more calls over a single circuit? Must you purchase gateways to convert VoIP traffic to TDM just to hand it to your telco?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, it simply isn't an IP system, "IP-enabled" or not.
 
Old Rule: To get more, you have to pay more.
New Rule: Greater functionality, cost effectively.
 
The age-old rule of proprietary vendor lock-in is: "You want an IVR system and a CRM connector to supplement your customer service processes? No problem. But you have to buy a few more boxes and maybe some middleware, which only we can provide..."
 
When it comes to adding features and functionality to a communications system, wouldn't it be much easier to simply activate a pre-integrated application via licensing?  

Perhaps more than any other benefit of a pure software IP communications system is the ability to activate applications virtually on-demand with a license for users.  
 
If expanded functionality via licensing isn't enough, just think about how much your enterprise can save with a software-only approach to IP communications.

Centralised station device administration; in-house moves, adds, and changes, with no need for vendor maintenance contracts; plus a single application server on the network to deal with.

Most of all, your enterprise gets the cost-saving ability to purchase media services as you need them, without the vendor dictating your spending decision.

Business as usual? Or the "New Rules" of IP Telephony?

While the New Rules of Enterprise IP Telephony aren't set in stone, they do provide a  gauge of where the telecommunications industry is headed.

Whether your business decides to follow them is up to you. But one thought as a final word of wisdom: Business will always be about gaining an advantage and IP telephony gives your enterprise the advantage of rapid adaptability for constantly changing market and customer requirements.

Conduct business as usual with your age-old PBX, however, and you can kiss that advantage goodbye.'