Enterprise Class Phone Systems With Best ROI

By Kevin Stewart
Updated: July 25, 2011

Return on Investment (ROI) is a measure of profit gained for an asset purchase. In the technology infrastructure field, this is generally considered to be a measure of time for the cost of the asset to be recovered through cost savings. For example, if an organization spends $10,000 on an equipment purchase, and the organization realizes cost savings of $1000 per month, then the equipment would have a 10 month ROI. This method of calculating ROI only takes into account cost savings. It does not factor in productivity gains or other potential advantages of the equipment purchase.

Quantifying existing costs for phone systems

The first step in calculating ROI for enterprise phone systems is to determine the current cost of phone services. This should be a fully loaded number that includes hardware and service costs for providing phone services. These services should be fully replaced by the enterprise phone system you are considering.

Systems with the best ROI

The actual ROI for any equipment purchase will depend upon your existing costs of delivering voice phone services. The following vendors offer relatively low cost of entry and a wide range of features to maximize their potential for ROI.

ShoreTel

ShoreTel is a leader in unified communications (UC), which is a natural extension of any enterprise phone system. Today's mobile workforce needs to have the ability to access voicemail, email, and text messaging features using a single platform. ShoreTel enterprise phone systems add these capabilities, which enable businesses to offset more than just the cost of phone services. This provides not only cost savings but enhancement of capabilities that can lower total costs substantially.

Fonality

Using its cloud platform to offer expanded access and drive costs lower, Fonality delivers an enterprise quality solution with a great deal of flexibility and extensibility. In addition to unified communications, Fonality systems can also support call center deployments and other large scale communication systems. These systems can be designed and implemented without a large scale commitment of resources, thereby bringing costs under control.

Nextiva

Expanding on its small business focus, Nextiva also offers enterprise VoIP solutions that feature very low initial cost and high flexibility. Without making a large financial commitment, an organization looking to upgrade its enterprise class phone capabilities will find most of its needs met with Nextiva systems. Also available are hosted VoIP plans, which might be an even better choice for the growing business.

Maximizing ROI involves establishing realistic cost savings goals, defining the right feature set for your business, and keeping initial and maintenance costs low. Each of these systems can help any organization meet these goals.
 

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