by Eric Eckman, Director of Business Development, Broadvox
Did you know that Unified Communications (UC) may help protect you from disaster? For most businesses, disaster preparedness is expensive and complicated. Owners often purchase backup generators, extra trunk lines from their telephone company, and develop emergency procedures. Then they assign task forces, hold strategy sessions, conduct studies and propose safeguards and processes that perhaps sit on the shelf. The effort is costly, requiring expertise and labor that many companies simply cannot afford. Therefore, sometimes they take their chances and hope for the best.
But disasters will and do occur. Many organizations have taken steps to ensure their data is secure and they can recover quickly from emergency situations, but what about customers who continue to call for support or to place orders, unaware of the situation? How will communication take place if the building suffers a power outage due to a hurricane or severe winter storm? With traditional communication systems, these phone calls are unanswered and business comes to a halt.
The advantages generally cited for IP communications include cost-effectiveness and productivity gains. However, in addition to these VoIP opens the door to a more flexible, disaster-resistant way to do business, if Internet connectivity is still available after an emergency. Employees can move SIP-enabled phones to their homes or anywhere that may have access, plug into a LAN and conduct business as usual. Customers need not know that the real office is flooded or burned to the ground. They are immediately connected and things run smoothly.
Add SIP trunking and organizations can operate in any location with Internet access, which can provide flexibility and continuity during disaster recovery. Employees with a broadband connection can share files and make and receive calls using the same tools available at headquarters.
Taking advantage of the flexibility of geographic distribution via trunking can help during emergency situations. In traditional environments, data is stored in one location. Many firms have backup files at a remote location, but even then it takes time to retrieve and restore data and make it current after a disaster. Trunking enables data transport and storage to and from multiple locations, eliminating the vulnerability of centralized storage.
So if your company has not already done so, take some basic steps to ensure continuity in the face of disaster by choosing a SIP trunking provider with a well- designed and secure network. Prepare for emergencies by encouraging employees to work from home occasionally so they will be comfortable with the differences that working in a virtual office brings. Take advantage of trunking with either your legacy PBX or POTS connectivity using an Internet access device or add it to your IP-PBX infrastructure.
More at broadvox.net.
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