Managed Telecom Services Deliver Business Continuity Automatically

You never know when an unexpected turn of events is going to keep you out of your office. You may not live in earthquake country, or a hurricane zone, or a tornado corridor, but that doesn't exempt you. Everything from fires to broken water mains to police actions can unexpectedly mean that you're suddenly not able to do business where you thought you would that day.

Acquirent, an outsourced sales execution firm based in Evanston, Illinois, knows this all too well. When its eleven employees were told to evacuate the premises unexpectedly one day, they had no choice but to pack up and go. But the disruption was surprisingly minimal.

Built-In Business Continuity
Because Acquirent offers outsourced sales services, founder and CEO Pete Kadens had a high level of confidence in choosing an outsourced phone system. He had deployed Geckotech's hosted IP phone system, which meant that his telecommunications capabilities weren't even inside the affected location.

"We all just packed up our files, laptops and Cisco phones and went home," says Pete Kadens. "Everyone plugged in their office phones at home to their DSL or cable and the office was back up and running with no disruption of our business. Even during the drive home incoming calls were automatically redirected to our cell phones. Without Geckotech VoIP, I don't know what we would've done."

Managed Services Bring More Flexibility
Managed telecom services provide a great deal of flexibility for companies who don't want to own their own phone system, both in terms of adding people and avoiding capital expenditures. And VoIP systems bring added benefits in terms of integrated electronic in-boxes and easier collaboration between colleagues.

But they also bring an added measure of protection in the event of a disaster. If you have a small or midsized business, take a moment to think about how you would continue to communicate among colleagues and clients if you were unable to work from your office, and consider the value of managed telecom services in that situation.

Perhaps you've already considered a managed network services solution to reduce your operational costs, or free-up your valuable time to reinvest in your core business. Now you can add one more benefit to the list – have a game plan for the unexpected interruption to your business communication capabilities.

IP Virtual Private Network Service Options

Service providers offer a variety of options for managed services. The following describes the first of the top three most popular managed services, and the associated options, to help you determine which services would be most useful for your company.

Businesses gain both tactical and strategic advantages when adopting IP Virtual Private Networks (VPN). In the short term, they benefit from cost-effective, secure network connectivity to branch offices and secure access to remote workers, teleworkers, and global partners.

In the long term, they position themselves to take advantage of new value-added, IP-based applications and to support more users and applications at a lower cost.

Choosing a Best-Fit IP VPN Solution
Cisco commissioned the Yankee Group to describe the decision-making process that enterprises used to select one of three broad types of IP VPN managed services (click on image to enlarge).


You can use the decision tree to determine which of the three options for managed IP VPNs is most appropriate for your company:

• Network-based IP VPNs – Service provider provides complete management services.
• Managed CPE-based IP VPNs – Service provider installs and manages the equipment on the customer premises and provides connectivity.
• Do-it-yourself IP VPNs – Business installs and manages the equipment; service provider provides connectivity.

Small Businesses: Your TelePresence Room Is Ready

Conventional wisdom says TelePresence -- the next-generation video conferencing technology -- is best positioned for enterprise customers with big IT budgets. But through affordable managed services, small businesses are poised to join the TelePresence party.

Fact is, TelePresence can benefit small businesses in many ways. It can allow entrepreneurs to meet virtually with business partners, customers, investors and even job candidates scattered across the globe -- without booking expensive business trips or depending on impersonal conference calls.

TelePresence creates a virtual environment where all participants feel as if they're seated in a single executive conference room. You can read each person's body language. You can maintain eye contact. And you can focus on deep discussions.


Only for Big Enterprises?
Now, for the challenge: The TelePresence industry is gaining momentum within large enterprises that want to improve virtual communications with customers, board members and other key influencers.

However, small business owners are not very familiar with TelePresence. And in many cases, small businesses couldn't afford the upscale conference room designs and back-end IT infrastructure that TelePresence requires.

A Better Option
Of course, entry-level TelePresence systems allow small businesses to get started with high-end video conferencing without breaking their budgets.

Still, there is another option that small businesses should consider: Managed TelePresence services, which are popping up in hotels, airport terminals and other places that involve business travel.

In a typical scenario, many upscale hotels will soon offer TelePresence conference rooms that you will be able to reserve for an hourly fee. Assuming the hotel chain has locations throughout the country and across the world, you'll be able to invite customers, partners and remote employees to participate in TelePresence sessions simply by telling them to drive to a local hotel.

The hotel, working in partnership with a service provider or major Telecom partner, will manage the entire TelePresence experience -- shielding the small business owner from any potential IT complexities.