VoIP – Outsource or ‘Do-it-Yourself’?

A lot of enterprises are now investing in VoIP systems for their communication needs. It has become quite evident to everyone that VoIP holds lot more benefits than the traditional TDM phone networks. Immediate benefits in the cost of calls within the organization, the cost of cabling, and advanced features around Unified Communications clearly spell out that VoIP is the way forward. We’re not here to convince you to make the move from traditional phone networks to VoIP, and we do assume that you’ve already made a decision to move phones into the IP environment. It’s the question of management of the VoIP infrastructure.

There exist two paths forward with regard to managing your VoIP infrastructure -

(a) Manage internally through the IT team
(b) Outsource to a vendor

Here are three aspects one would want to evaluate when looking at whether to outsource VoIP infra management or handle it in-house.

Core-competency

There always remains the question of core-competency. If managing any form of network infrastructure is not the organization’s cup of tea, outsourcing is the path forward. The advantage of allowing someone else look at issues related to day-to-day management of phones, trunks, service requests, etc is that it frees up more time for core technical resources to focus on other aspects of innovation. While your organization might be from the finance sector, manufacturing sector or some other sector, you would still have an IT team to look at IT solutions to enable other departments to function better. Why would one want the team to spend time on mundane routine tasks?

Skill set and training

While one can easily treat VoIP as another network application, which covers the standard areas of availability, security, reliability, one needs to figure out whether it would make sense to train the internal network IT team on this technology. This would include considerations such as cost of training, competency of the team internally, time spent to train, etc. There also remains the problem of having to constantly upgrade the team on latest technologies. Assuming that you’ve already outsourced your network infrastructure management, the onus would remain on the vendor to train his resources.

One also needs to consider the time it would take to interview candidates suitable to manage the voice infrastructure and subsequently train them to deploy and manage your VoIP network. This would result in a delay in realizing the benefits of moving to an IP based communication network

Set-up costs

Most outsourcing vendors already playing around in the VoIP field would generally be well-versed in setting up VoIP infrastructure. Companies need not spend time understanding the tools and the various nuances of having to migrate their old phone networks to a more contemporary one. Every VoIP installation is different from the other considering the business needs of the company. Experienced vendors would normally have covered a wide array of industries to understand which solution would meet business requirements in terms of quality, features, availability, etc.

Vendors would also be aware of other applications, such as Microsoft Lync, Office Communications Server (OCS) etc that would make communication seamless. Such vendors also offer a thorough assessment and advice on the best solution at the lowest cost considering the business needs and rate of growth.

In conclusion, choosing the right VoIP management strategy holds the key in unleashing the true potential of voice networks within the organization and we feel that a partner with experience in both communication and data networks is the one best suited to manage your VoIP network.

Tags: Collaboration, TDM, Telephony, Voice Infrastructure, VoIP Outsourcing

	Author: Nikhilesh Murthy Marketing Manager - Messaging and Collaboration
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