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The key considerations for any SMB business owner before investing in a new phone system or new unified collaboration solution are whether this investment is improving profitability, increasing productivity or reducing operational cost. Asset investment needs to deliver a positive return on investment. It should enables your people to be more efficient and productive.

Below, you’ll find the TOP 5 Tips for choosing an IP PBX for a Small Medium Business.

#1 Easy to use real time communications

Studies according to “MobileSQUARED advertising report,” a mobile research firm, shows that 90% of messages are read within 3 minutes, this is clearly showing how time sensitive and real time communications have become critical to business today.

SMBs can benefit greatly from simple tools, like email plug-in application that allows users to access contacts without opening separate applications and be able click-to-call, click to IM, click to SMS directly from their email applications. This is a very effective way to increase productivity and to decrease cost, especially if integrating with 3rd party internet calls providers.

Conferencing is also becoming the cornerstone of the real time communication. You will want to check the sound quality of the speaker on the desk phone as well as the microphone to ensure that your conference calls are audible for you and your participants (wideband audio, noise cancellation….) This is very important when you have frequent and multiple daily business conference calls. This element is often overlooked as a key requierement for productivity increase.

In addition, surveys have shown that many SMB employees keep a paper directory document and use it everytime they want to call someone in their company. By the simple fact to integrate a directory in the telephone system and to provide a “call by name” feature, even with external alphabetical keyboard on the deskphone, it will provide great improvement on daily productivity.

#2 Investment protection

You may want to consider how requirements might change over time, and make sure you get a system that will scale with your future company size and needs. This could requiere some significant analysis. But, it it important to pre-plan your decision based on future expansions, and based on selecting a vendor that has been in the market for many years, which has shown that it will be able to support and maintain your system in the long term.

Reduce operational cost by planning to reverse the cost curve between operating and managing complex systems. Look in to replacing with a system targeted for SMB which offers high business value, low complexity and attractive pricing. It is impressive to see how cost effective and capable SMB telephony systems have become – you could pay much less today in operating cost but get a strong productivity increase. Make sure you are selecting an easy to use and easy to maintain telephony system, and this will assure a much lower operational cost on the long term.

Many SMB are also considering CAPEX and OPEX as cost of operating a network. Don’t put too much significance on initial capiral expenditure and installation cost, look at the long term on-going cost, and do an analysis of the true real cost of ownership. One of the significant factor that should be looked at is the “gain or loss” of revenue because of the telephony network. A ROI is measured by increased transactions, increased productivity, increase customer satisfaction and then by cost saving.

#3 Mobility – BYOD – remote workers

In early 2014, internet usage from mobile devices exceeded PC/laptop usage.

The challenge for a SMB is to balance the risk of opening the door to mobility while gaining the advantages brought by BYOD. Many businesses are coming up with alternate solutions, for example, limiting functions and restricting access to company information.

Other capabilities providing users with Web applications can keep users in touch with their company anywhere using any compatible desktop web browser (from a smartphone, a tablet, a desktop computer or a laptop on Mac/Windows, etc…) whenever they have internet access, simplifying the maintenance and support. This permits users to access call logs anywhere, and to forward their extensions to any phones whether a mobile or home phone, etc.

Applications such as NFC (Near Field Communications) have been gaining traction with easy on-site mobility that delivers benefit from session shift between desk phone and their NFC-enabled smartphone.

More and more companies consider how mobile users and teleworkers can work from anywhere, anytime, whether from home, or from a Starbucks, on the road. Providing the right solution could be complex, between a highly secure but expensive solution, or a simple solution with higher security risk. The analysis of the different solutions should be reviewed carefully and selected based on individual companies’ needs.

#4 Network Assessment

SMBs have a need to implement productivity-enhancing IT services with reduced costs. With that need, they face the complexity between network security, mobility, quality of services and class of services for local applications or cloud applications running on their data network.

A study done in 2015 “Network barometer 2015” looked at large installed based of mid to large customers showed surprising results:

– 60% of network devices have at least one security vulnerability

– 74% of wireless access points are still older models (802.11g and older) that don’t support a sound mobility and security strategy.

– 53% of network devices are aging or obsolete (and it is growing year over year)

These points above show it is critical to review the status of your network infrastructure.

If you are a SMB owner looking at implementing VoIP, BYOD or real time application, it is critical to review the current status of your data network.

SMBs have to find the right balance between security risk, cost and advantages to open the network. Upgrading your network to the latest technology and latest software version is a critical element to make sure VoIP, UC, and BYOD investments run smoothly based on your infrastructure.

#5: Technology alone won’t solve your collaboration problems

Based on a study in March 2015 from “Harvard Business review by Mark Mortensen,” every week a vendor introduces a new gadget, system or services that promises to make us communicate and collaborate better. However, the reality is that most results are actually not providing much improvement in collaboration and productivity increase.

It’s not what technology you’ve got, but how you use it! The important point is to align knowledge management systems (or any system for that matter) with how people actually work. While we often think of the future of collaboration resting on the shoulders of technology, that is only part of the story. Sure, technology provides opportunities, but it’s important to view technology and social systems as partners. The promise of tomorrow’s collaboration requires actively considering, designing, and fine-tuning both.

Discuss with our consultants

Going through this exercise can take some time, but this is one of the most important business infrastructure decisions you’ll make, so it’s worth taking the time to pre-plan so you make the right business value decision. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is the leading European provider of communication solutions. We will be pleased if you would like to engage with our communication advisers.

Source: http://blog-enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com/article/top-5-tips-choosing-ip-pbx-your-small-business

When justifying a loyalty initiative, too many executives focus ONLY on the financials, but there are 15 major business benefits – each a competitive advantage – that only a loyalty initiative can provide…

Many of the so-called loyalty programmes in operation today are not really loyalty programmes at all. Frequent customer is a more accurate term. To be loyal to a business is one thing, to use it frequently is another – it could be a result of circumstances that there is no other choice. Clearly, if another choice becomes available, then the distinction becomes critical. This means that most prudent businesses aim to create loyal customers, not just frequent customers.

Of course, not all customers are potentially loyal customers, for a variety of reasons. So the ideal loyalty programme would be one in which already loyal and potentially loyal customers benefited, but other customers didn’t.

This means that the customers have first to be sorted into groups, and different approaches have to be made to each group. Or, more likely, a programme has to be designed so that it will appeal to the desired group more than to the other group.

A good point at which to start is at the very beginning – when acquiring the customers. In many typical businesses, as many as 45% of direct, new, one-off purchasers do not go on to purchase a second time. In order to grow and maintain a successful business, three simple rules should be followed:

1. Acquire customers that are likely to repurchase – even though this may be at the expense of initial raw response;
2. Recognise which customers are unlikely to repurchase and limit your marketing spend for this segment accordingly;
3. Focus the marketing budget on those who exhibit the same profile as existing repurchasers but have yet to buy a second time.

The fifteen biggest business benefits that every loyalty programme operator should expect to reap – and use to justify continuing and expanded investment in the programme – are as follows:

1. Retain existing customers
   The effect of the customer retention rate on actual, bottom-line customer numbers cannot be over-estimated. In five years, a firm with a 70% customer retention rate will have lost two to three times as many customers as a firm with a 90% retention rate.Not only does a loyalty programme provide a practical, hard reason for continuing to buy (the accumulation of points toward a reward, or higher levels of service) but it also provides information about the customers that allows their needs to be met more efficiently and effectively. This in turn makes them more likely to remain customers. In addition, loyalty programme operators often report that, once a customer starts redeeming rewards, enthusiasm and engagement both increase.In addition to simply retaining customers, the data from a loyalty programme can be used to better cater for their varying needs. Companies typically use this data to segment their customers for the purposes of marketing, sales and customer services. But customers are more complex than that. Their needs and desires differ from time to time, from occasion to occasion, and depending on the reason for the transaction. In other words, the customer is ‘divisible’. Thus marketing can go deeper than one-to-one; it can identify customers’ changing needs and then provide perceived benefit venue-by-venue and situation-by-situation.
2. Acquire new customers
   A loyalty programme should attract new customers to the business; how effectively will depend on how exciting and how valuable the rewards seem to be to the target audience. Acquiring customers is no doubt essential to any business, but it can be expensive if compared to nurturing existing good customers. It should not be the central focus of a loyalty programme; there are cheaper and more effective ways of acquiring customers. However, it is generally far more profitable to retain and up-sell existing customers than to attract new ones.Using a four-year profile of new customer behaviour from a leading retailer, loyalty expert Brian Woolf has shown that, one year after becoming a customer, only two out of each thousand new customers (0.2%) were in the top customer segment and only twelve (1.2%) were in the second segment. Over half were inactive. Between 95% and 96% of the new arrivals were either in the lowest segment or had left by the end of the year. However, quality of new customers acquired can be raised by careful use of the existing data of a loyalty programme. This can be used to establish the demographic particulars of existing best customers, and then to target prospective customers with similar demographics in acquisition campaigns.
3. Move customers up-segment
   By grading rewards (for example, offering extra points for exceeding a specified spend threshold in a time period), customers can be moved up from one spend level to the next. A good example of this is The Continuity Company (TCC), a provider of best customer marketing programmes, which skews its rewards to encourage lower spending customers to move up through the spend segments. In one of the company’s recent case studies, the top spending band’s contribution to sales increased by 41%, the next band down increased its contribution to sales by 45% and the lowest spend band decreased its contribution to sales by some 7%.
4. Deselect unprofitable customers
   It can be more profitable to lose bad customers than to gain new ones. Cherry pickers (who buy only your discounted lines and nothing else) cost you money, as does any low-spending customer. They cost more money to service than they generate. Designing a loyalty programme that rewards better customers without rewarding this segment at all gives them less reason to stay.Gary Hawkins, CEO for US-based Green Hills Supermarket, has found that only around three in ten customers actually generate enough profit to cover the cost of servicing them. What about the other seven? Does it make sense to keep them as customers? To a certain extent it does: if they can be identified through a loyalty programme, efforts can be made to move them up through the segments and hopefully they will become more profitable customers. Moreover, while possibly not generating profit directly, they are contributing to the size of the business and also contributing to fixed operating costs (rent, rates, utilities etc.).However, the ‘worst of the worst’ could probably be profitably lost. So far, it seems that only financial institutions have gone as far as actually closing unprofitable customers’ accounts. The generally adopted approach by other businesses is simply not to reward them in any way and hope that they will leave.
5. Win-back defected & churned customers
   Customer win-back expert Michael Lowenstein says that the success rate in approaching ‘lost’ customers can be three to four times as high as it is when prospecting for new customers. For example, the rate for converting prospects might typically be 5%, while that for reactivating inactive customers might be as high as 15-20%.In the book ‘Customer Winback’, the authors point out that there are several reasons why customer win-back has a greater chance of success than acquisition. You have advantages with lost customers that you don’t have with prospects, including information about their past purchase history, where and how to reach them, and their preferred communication channel.
6. Increase Customer Lifetime Value
   Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV) is increasingly being recognised as one of the most important measures of the worth of a customer. It takes into account not only the customer’s value now but the expected value over their projected lifetime as a customer. It is arguably the best way a marketer can demonstrate unequivocally that a programme is working: the CLV of targeted customers must increase.
7. Best customer marketing
   Simply put, best customer marketing (BCM) involves spending more time, effort, and money on your best customers in order to maximise the return on marketing investment.The strategy has been honed to a fine art by leading marketers such as Brian Woolf and Gary Hawkins, and has become the driving force behind the leading loyalty programmes in the world today.
8. Build relationships
   Building relationships is crucially important but not always as straight-forward as it might seem. It has been said that relationship marketing is powerful in theory but troubled in practice – an unpalatable concept but probably one with which many marketers could identify. If ever there has been an example of “many a slip ‘tween cup and lip”, counting on the building of relationships with all and sundry in order to generate profits must be somewhere near the top of the list.Building a relationship with customers leads to improved behavioural loyalty and thus to increased bottom-line profits. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, no. In fact it doesn’t always work like that. It has been argued that attempting to partner with all customers, regardless of their characteristics, might not always be the best way forward.There are factors that alter the importance of the relationship/behaviour/profits equation quite significantly. Age is just one of these factors. Studies carried out in the UK in the 1990s concluded that customers under 45 were most loyal and those over 65 were least loyal. Yet other studies found no clear relationship between age and loyalty. It used to be thought that older customers were more loyal to brands than younger customers but even that is changing, with some studies finding no clear relationship.
9. Create brand advocates
   Advocacy is one of the highest forms of loyalty that a customer can show. Advocates are so satisfied and pleased with your offering that they tell their friends and associates.To most people, a personal recommendation is far more convincing than any amount of promotional material they receive – even if they already trust the brand.
10. Adjust pricing levels
    A loyalty programme can also help to formulate pricing structure. If enough best customers are happy to buy a product at a particular price there seems little point in reducing that price simply to attract cherry-pickers.But aside from helping to decide what pricing changes should be made, the after-effects of changing prices can also be studied by segmenting and testing offers on the loyalty database – for example, which customer segments buy significantly more or less when prices change, either gradually or suddenly.
11. Responding to competitive challenges
    A good loyalty programme’s ability to tie purchases to individual customers allows quick and accurate identification of customers who defect when new competition opens nearby. They can then be enticed back with customer-specific special offers or even direct contact.For example, one small store had to face up to a competitor opening a much bigger store on the same parking lot. In anticipation, the small store was extensively remodelled, causing considerable disruption. Over the period of remodelling (a matter of several weeks) turnover dropped by 40%. However, a loyalty programme enabled management to identify regular shoppers and mail them a letter thanking them for their patience and enclosing some special offers. All but 183 customers returned to the store. The store management team then sent handwritten invitations and a US$10 gift certificate to those 183 customers. All but three returned.After the new competitor opened, the smaller store’s whole customer database was mailed an offer containing US$5-off coupons for US$50 orders in each of the following twelve weeks. Any customer using all twelve received an extra US$10 certificate. The result was that sales actually rose by between 6% and 7% over the months following the new opening. The competitor’s store (which was approximately twice the size) achieved less than half the sales of the remodelled store. This shows the power of knowing who your customers are.
12. Select stock lines effectively
    Knowing what best customers buy frequently helps choose which lines to stock and which lines to expand on. By way of example, the owner of a small UK-based suburban supermarket had twelve months’ notice that a large national supermarket was opening right over the road from him. He realised that without major changes he would not survive. What he did was simple but clever. The suburb in which he was situated was mixed, having mainly low-cost housing but also a very exclusive area. Many of his customers were low earners who bought their basic requirements every day or two from him – in essence, what they could carry home in a couple of bags. He knew that they would migrate to the lower prices and bigger ranges of the big chain.However, a considerable number of the more wealthy people would call in on their way home from work to pick up bread and milk and a few odds and ends. He started noting what they bought, and what they never bought. Over the months, he stopped ordering products that they never bought, and increased his range of things that they did buy. Over the year, his store slowly changed from a small supermarket to a very big delicatessen. His wealthy customers told their friends and the composition of his customer base changed from mainly low earners to mainly high earners. When the supermarket opened over the road, his low earners did migrate, but he hardly noticed the difference.
13. Plan merchandising more intelligently
    Basket analysis can identify what lines are bought at the same time, particularly by best customers, and planograms can be planned accordingly to encourage cross-purchasing.The apocryphal story of a retailer (usually said to be Wal-Mart) discovering from basket analysis that men who buy baby nappies also buy beer (the refined version on the internet includes “on Friday evenings”) may be true or not – there is a whole web site devoted to discussing its veracity. But this story, regardless of its origin, does illustrate the potential of the principle in its own bizarre way.Data similar to this is used widely to plan planograms for store merchandising. Of course, on one level, plain basket analysis without a loyalty programme is enough for this purpose. But add the dimension of knowing who the customer is, how much they spend, and where they live and you can confidently decide whether it is worth putting a display of nappies in the beer aisle on Friday evenings or not!
14. Reduce promotional and advertising costs
    Because advertising based on segmentation of a loyalty database can be highly targeted instead of untargeted, significant savings can be made. There is no need to send out thousands of flyers that will be thrown away unread, or take pages of newspaper space that is irrelevant to many of the readers.Targeted advertising works measurably. The more sophisticated type of loyalty programme – such as the UK’s Tesco Clubcard – can not only target advertising material almost individually to its many millions of members but it can accurately measure the response rates to those advertisements. If Mrs Smith is sent a coupon for money off Whitesmile toothpaste, the system knows whether or not she redeems that coupon. That information is valuable not only to Tesco, but to the makers of Whitesmile toothpaste. Not only does this form of advertising save Tesco money; it actually earns Tesco money. While national UK magazines are reported to charge between £5,000 and £7,000 per page for advertising, Tesco is said to charge up to £37,000 for an A5 page (roughly half the size of a standard A4 magazine) – and brands pay those kind of rates because it works. Buying space in the magazine is an accountable investment toward measurable sales; one particular toilet tissue brand saw a 27% increase in sales after advertising in this way.
15. Selecting new trading sites
    Selecting a site for a new store is no longer a case of sticking a pin in a map, or choosing a site on a hunch. The loyalty card enables you to profile the demographics of best customers and – because it is often likely that the best prospective customers will have similar demographics – choose new locations much more accurately.In addition, if the addresses of existing customers are known, they can be plotted geographically and sites can be chosen where there are outlying pockets of customers or gaps in coverage.

Source: http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=120

1. Check your local telecommunications authority.

Depending on your location, most governments require a license from telecommunications authorities before you can set up a call center. You don’t want to encounter any issues with any government agencies after your investment. Check it out first.

2. Go to any telecommunications provider and ask for two things
A toll-free number with a multi channel interface (ISDN)

Go to any telecommunication provider in your area and ask for a toll-free number and a telephone connection that’s capable of receiving multiple calls simultaneously. This is normally an ISDN PRI.
Apply for a broadband with SDSL connection

SDSL is an acronym for Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Unlike standard ADSL broadband, upload and download speeds are the same with SDSL, A bandwidth of 512 kb is capable of receiving 6-8 calls simultaneously with acceptable audio quality.

You can also choose to apply for a leased line. But SDSL is much cheaper than leasing a line. You simply need to pay a flat monthly subscription with no additional charges.

3. Get hold of an IP PABX

IP PABX stands for Internet Protocol Private Automatic Branch Exchange. In simple terms, it is an office’s own full IP telecom system that reduces the cost of office communications. IP PABX allows different offices to share a common phone line, thus reduces the number of direct lines which would otherwise be installed per office.

While the configuration of your IP PABX will be provided by your vendor, you might need to hire a permanent person to take care of this device and its configuration.

4. Purchase IP Phones and lots of Ethernet cables

How you connect your computer to a hub is the same as how you would plug in the IP phones to the IP PABX.

5. Have your support number routed to your IP Gateway

IP PABX would normally provide you with the facility to connect directly to ISDN PR to start receiving calls. If not, your best option is to get a VoIP for consumers.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the term. With the adoption of VoIP by consumers (which is ideal for small call centers), consumer VoiP PBX have appeared with PBX functions becoming just a simple software feature of a consumer-grade routers and switches.

6. Install the necessary call center software

You will need to install an application to your agent’s computer that should provide real time information on the current status of a customer, and any other business policies involving such status.

Check out for a call center management software that doesn’t just provide the ability to control and handle daily customer-related business tasks, but also features instant routing of privileged customers to the best agents, reduces holding times for customers, and offer more efficient scheduling of employees and detailed reporting.

There are also management contact software that will coordinate and manage the interactions between your company and your customers.

Customer satisfaction and the overall business can be greatly influenced by the use of the right software for call centers. You will have a satisfied customer if you can reduce the wait time and connect them immediately with the concerned department. This helps improve customer perception. Customer expectations are high and given the advancements in technology that has made everything fast paced and they expect businesses to be on its toes ready to resolve their issues and with the information they want. To keep up with such demands the best you can do is to set up with the reliable call center system.

Investing in the right online contact management software can reduce costs effectively. The better your business handles calls, the better you earn. Efficiency is the key to a successful call center business.

Source: http://callcentersphil.blogspot.com/2011/10/6-steps-to-set-up-call-center-for-small.html

In recent years, loyalty programs that reward buyers for sticking with the brand have steadily grown in popularity.

Between 2008 and 2012, U.S. loyalty memberships increased by 10 percent per year – reaching over 23 memberships per household.

But for all their growth and popularity, do loyalty programs really pay off for the companies that offer them? A recent McKinsey study suggests that on average, they do not – and may in fact destroy value for program owners. The study, involving 55 publicly traded North American and European companies, showed that those that spend more on loyalty, or have more visible loyalty programs, grow at about the same rate – or slightly slower – than those that do not (4.4 vs  5.5 percent per year since 2002).

Notably, this trend appears to vary by sector, with loyalty focus having a positive impact on hotel growth, but negative impact on airlines, car rentals, and food retail, for example. However, as a whole, companies surveyed that had higher loyalty spend also had EBITDA margins that were about 10 percent lower than companies in the same sectors that spent less on loyalty.

Despite relative underperformance in terms of revenue growth and profitability, over the past five years, market capitalization for companies that greatly emphasize loyalty programs has outpaced that of companies that don’t. This may reflect the hope that meaningful loyalty programs can drive long-term value – and perhaps that data amassed through loyalty programs will pay dividends in due time. Still, why do many loyalty programs fail to deliver this long-term value? And how do the winners manage to buck the trend?

Hallmarks of success, the ones that buck the trend

Companies that have developed loyalty programs that succeed in driving revenue growth share some common characteristics:

Integrate loyalty into the full experience:  Starbucks, the brand that created loyalty by differentiating the ordinary experience of drinking coffee, has also managed to create a strongly differentiated loyalty program. To do this, the company integrated payments and mobile technology with the Starbucks shop experience to make the transaction more enjoyable.

Use the data: The Target REDcard combines loyalty and a valuable discount program – 5 percent at the point of sale. They have moved past the flat “discount-only” model by building out industry- leading data capabilities, using the data to target highest-value consumers (e.g., future moms).

Build partnerships: Despite Tesco’s massive success at using data to drive loyalty, Sainsbury slightly outpaced the giant’s sales growth in the UK for the last three to four years; in part this could be due to a new form of loyalty program. Sainsbury is the anchor retailer of the Nectar coalition, which allows consumers to collect rewards across a large number of non-competing retailers in the UK. Through Nectar, Sainsbury offers a broader value proposition to its customers, and captures external data from coalition partners.

Solve customer and industry pain points: Amazon’s largest success in loyalty is built around solving one of online shoppers’ primary pain points: delivery. For $79 a year, members of the online retailer’s “Prime” program get free two-day shipping, plus free digital content. Prime not only integrates tightly with Amazon’s customer and convenience-focused brand, it also creates a loyalty program for suppliers, who rely on Fulfillment By Amazon for access to Prime customers. While Prime’s stand-alone profitability is a closely guarded secret, it is estimated that members spend over four times more with Amazon than non-members.

Maximize difference between perceived value and real cost: Like most hotel loyalty programs, the major focus of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program is to attract high-value travelers by offering rewards t for personal leisure travel. Redemptions generally occur on weekends, when these hotels have relatively low occupancy and incur limited incremental cost. Starwood has also developed a series of offerings (e.g., upgrades, flexible check-in, Internet) that are highly valuable to their top customers, but bear little marginal cost. Overall, Starwood’s loyalty program has improved its brand appeal and helped the chain achieve above market growth, despite relatively low overall guest satisfaction scores.

Allocate loyalty reinvestment to the most profitable customers: Southwest Airlines’ loyalty program has been a hallmark of its brand, and the 2010 revamping of the program appears to have maintained its customer appeal, while better correlating its spend to profitability. While most airlines attach rewards to miles flown, Southwest offers rewards based on ticket price. Their loyalty rewards spend remains similar to that of other loyalty-focused airlines (i.e., 8 to 9 percent of revenue passenger miles), but the program is better positioned to drive profitability.

Loyalty programs are not only growing, but they are also becoming more tightly integrated with the supporting brand and shopping experience, offering consumers a seamless experience across point of sale, the Internet, phone and mobile channels. Consumer-facing businesses must think beyond the concept of a me-too, points-based loyalty program. To reap the full benefits of customer loyalty, they must create a differentiated experience, consistent with their brand, to provide a step change in brand preference.

Source: 2014, (http://www.businessinsider.com/effective-loyalty-programs-2014-3)

Once your company grows past the small business stage, you’ll probably provide telephone services to the office through a private branch exchange (PBX) system of some kind—also known as a switchboard. This lets you share a number of incoming phone lines among a larger number of extensions, so it’s not necessary to pay for a separate line for every office employee or workstation, which saves money.

However, you can save even more money by using VoIP instead of traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) lines. There are many IP PBX solutions available, including popular open source products such as Asterisk.

But the implementation and ongoing maintenance of an IP PBX system requires a type of expertise that your IT staff may not have. And if you go with a commercial product, the up-front costs for the hardware and software may be high.

One alternative is to use a hosted IP PBX service. Just as some organizations prefer to use a Web hosting service rather than run their own Web servers, some find it easier and/or more cost-effective to have their IP PBX services hosted offsite—a solution sometimes referred to as IP Centrex. Let’s look at some of the benefits of hosted IP PBX for organizations.

The Centrex concept

The concept of centralized PBX services (Centrex) came about in the 1960s in regard to traditional phone service; the telephone company hosted the PBX service at its central offices (COs). In early systems, an attendant handled operations, controlling the switching via a complex console.

Centrex service never became as popular as on-site PBX systems, and its primary use was at enterprise-level companies and government agencies. However, the combination of Centrex-type service with IP delivery makes this concept very attractive to many businesses today, especially those in the midsize category.

Advantages of hosted services

A big advantage of using hosted services such as Centrex is that you don’t have to make the initial capital investment in expensive equipment. Further, you don’t need anyone on staff to maintain and troubleshoot it—all of the equipment resides at the provider’s site. These can be important factors for a growing business on a tight budget.

This makes for a scalable solution as well, since the provider usually has the means to upgrade your service easily as you add more users or need more sophisticated features. The number of users is almost unlimited with a hosted service, whereas when you use an on-site IP PBX, the hardware and/or software can limit the number of phones that can connect to the system.

How it works

There are a couple of different approaches to Centrex:

• Centrex IP uses Class 5 switches, the same type of large switch used at the telco CO for traditional lines. Centrex IP adds equipment that allows the Centrex service to run over an IP network. Companies such as Lucent and Nortel offer these types of solutions.
• IP Centrex uses an IP-based server, rather than a telco switch, to provide the Centrex features and functionality. In a hybrid architecture, the Class 5 switch coexists with the Centrex server, but the Centrex functions reside in the server, not the switch. In a softswitch environment, the Class 5 switch is done away with entirely, and a softswitch—a media gateway and applications server—provides the services that the Class 5 switch would have provided.

More sophisticated hosted IP PBX solutions include Web-based management so you retain more control over the service. You can use a browser to perform management tasks, rather than having to request that the provider make changes for you.

IP-based server solutions offer more flexibility. They can be part of a unified messaging solution that includes voice mail, fax, and e-mail integration.

Hosted IP PBX options

As you would expect, the larger telephone companies offer hosted VoIP services.

• AT&T Voice DNA provides a virtual IP PBX solution hosted on an application server. It provides for SIP-based VoIP with easy access for remote users at other sites. Not only does it include Web-based tools for administrators, but individual users can manage their call logs and voice mail through a Web interface.
• Verizon Hosted IP Centrex is available through Verizon’s business services division in more than 200 metropolitan markets in the United States, as well as several European countries, including France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. You can get unlimited, tiered, or metered service, and there are many add-on services (at additional cost) available, including conferencing, voice mail, and calling cards.

But it’s not just the big telcos that offer these services. And in some cases, you can get more competitive prices and/or more features for the same cost from other companies.

• Speakeasy Business VoIP offers a hosted PBX solution that includes conferencing capability and advanced features such as “click-to-dial” integration with Microsoft Outlook, voice mail as e-mail attachments, and a remote office feature that allows users to place calls from any phone as if they were in the office.
• Mendax’s Hosted IP PBX service puts an emphasis on security issues and offers advanced PBX features, such as auto attendant, with no limit on the number of concurrent calls that users can place or receive through the system. It also includes online monitoring and modification of features from automatic voice mail to e-mail forwarding.
• GlobalTone’s IP Centrex service integrates with its VoiceConnect and VoiceSelect services, with usage-based pricing and no upfront costs.

Author: Deb Shinder, 2007

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-your-company-benefit-from-hosted-ip-pbx-services/

Many small businesses today are making the switch over to VoIP business phone systems. There are plenty of advantages to using such a service, but a lot of small business owners are overlooking some of the most valuable features. Beyond options like voicemail, call waiting, toll free numbers, call forwarding, and remote operation, you’ll find a host of other features that can help your small business.

1: Door phone entry buzzer integration

This feature allows you to integrate an analog door phone so that you can have a two-way call with visitors and then unlock the door from your phone if you deem them worthy. A great way to upgrade the security of your building.

2: Find me/follow me call routing

Mobile workers will appreciate this feature. Find me/follow me call routing allows you to create a list of numbers where you can be found before the call gets pushed to voicemail. So, for example, you might have your office phone ring twice, but on the third ring, your cell phone starts to ring, and then on the fifth, your home phone. If the list is exhausted, the caller gets sent to voicemail.

3: Voicemail to email transcription

Voicemail to email transcription transcribes your voicemail messages to text and sends them to a preferred email. You don’t have to worry about furiously scribbling names, numbers, and addresses. Take your time and read them in your email at your leisure. This also allows you to file, organize, delete, and search all your voicemails in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

4: Music on hold

If your company often has to put callers on hold, this feature is a necessity. Do not subject your callers to terrible elevator music — or worse, silence. This feature allows you to choose what your callers listen to as they wait. (Tip: You can’t go wrong with Journey.)

5: Bandwidth utilization and inbound/outbound call detail reports

Data! As a business, data tracking is essential to figure out where to direct your company’s time and energy. A managed, cloud-based VoIP service can provide bandwidth utilization information that allows you to view data usage over a period of time. Inbound and outbound call detail reports let you view details of your company’s call history, including rate centers, duration, originator, destination, and cost.

6: Call screening

Call screening is an often-forgotten feature of the VoIP business world that can come in handy. It allows you to look at a number on the caller ID and choose how to treat it. For example, if your spouse is calling, you can redirect the number to your cell phone. Or if it’s a caller that keeps trying to sell you energy supplements, you can disconnect them.

7: Coaching tools

Instead of giving your employees advice after they’ve hung up the phone, give them advice while they’re on the call. Two features can help you train and monitor your employees’ on-phone performance: barge and whisper. Barge allows you to listen to a conversation between an employee and a client without interrupting. You can alert them — or decide not to. Whisper allows you to provide advice, tips, and information to your employees while they are on the phone with a client without the client being aware.

Author: Amber Newman/TechRepublic

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-voip-features-that-can-benefit-your-small-business/

One of the outsourcing trends in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industries today is called call center seat leasing. With fast internet connection and amazing development in communication systems, virtual outsourcing of general administrative tasks has become highly indispensable and cost-effective for many business owners.

A Complete Solution

Call center seat leasing offers a complete solution to any small or large business industry. Through an effective delegation of tasks, business owners will be able to have more time in their hands to address the most important things. Depending on one’s particular needs, a business owner can take a number of call center seats with highly trained agents attending for his or her customer’s problems or issues 24/7.

Less Expense

Hiring directly the services of a good quality BPO company is far more practical and cost less than hiring your own customer service team. In addition, as business owner, you no longer have to manage them and go through the hassle of training them for the job and buying additional office equipment. You can simply eliminate these things with call center leasing. You can have one call center seat or more depending on your job requirements.

Hire the Best

Another best thing with call center seat leasing is that you can choose to only hire the best in the field. With lots of companies offering the same services, you can surely find the best ones that you want to work for your company. You can be certain, too, that every call center or a virtual assistant you hire is carefully trained and possesses the skills required to make the job done properly.

The growing industry of call center seat leasing and virtual assistant services offers great solutions for both business owners and highly skilled individuals to work together for business growth. The Philippines and India are two of the leading offshore outsourcing locations in the world that provide the great and highly skilled people who can serve perfectly to your business needs, giving you greater flexibility and optimum virtual assistance that you want for your business growth.

*IT Support

Nowadays, almost everything works through a computer and internet connection. Any issue in relation to programs and networks need immediate IT support.

Written by: Jobette

Source: http://www.cebuimage.com/top-benefits-of-call-center-seat-leasing/

*Added by NextIX

PERFORMANCE = ABILITY x MOTIVATION x OPPORTUNITY

Performance is a function of the three factors acting together. Ability has to do with whether a person can do a task. Motivation is a measure of whether a person wants to do it. Opportunity is about accessibility; a person can’t do a task if she is not given a chance or if she is denied access to necessary resources or amenities.

This framework – looking at human performance as being influenced by multiple factors – reflects the difficult and variable nature of our work today. All of these factors must be supported by the work environment in order for people’s best work to occur. So, how can the workplace help?

According to Judith Heerwagen, a former scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who is now a program expert with the General Services Administration, productivity and the workplace are related in these ways:

• “A building can positively affect ability by providing comfortable ambient conditions, by enabling individual control and adjustment of conditions, and by reducing health and safety risks. Negative impacts on ability to do work are associated with conditions that are uncomfortable, distracting, hazardous or noxious.
• “A building can positively affect motivation by providing conditions that promote positive affective functioning, psychological engagement and personal control. Moods create the ‘affective context’ for thought processes and behaviors and are directly tied to motivation.
• “A building can affect opportunity by providing equitable access to conditions that reduce health and safety risks, equitable access to amenities and compensatory design options where inequities exist and are difficult to eliminate entirely.”1

Which specific workplace strategies provide the right mix of ability, motivation and opportunity to enhance human performance? Best practices in workplace design can help.

TEN WORKPLACE DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Ten fundamental design elements can positively impact the workplace environment and support the work being done:

1. Thermal Comfort and Temperature

2. Access to Nature, Views and Daylight

3. Sensory Change and Variability

4. Color

5. Noise Control

6. Crowding

7. Human Factors and Ergonomics

8. Indoor Air Quality

9. Choice

10.  Employee Engagement

1.  Thermal Comfort and Temperature

Thermal comfort is created through the right combination of temperature, airflow and humidity. A combination of these elements is required for physical comfort in the workplace. When you hear people complaining about temperature in the workplace, chances are that airflow and humidity are part of the reason.

Keys to thermal comfort include:

• The ideal temperature in office environments is 70.88 degrees Fahrenheit (21.6 degrees Celsius) with a 1-2 percent decrease in performance for every 1.8° F (1° C) above or below.2
• Slightly lower temperatures are associated with higher accuracy on simulated tasks and reduced sick leave.3
• Personal control over ambient conditions, especially temperature, increases productivity. One research study tracked workers in an insurance company as they moved to a new building with advanced thermal controls in their workstations. The study found that productivity increases of 2.8 percent could be attributed to the new workstations.4

Workplace strategies:

• Consider underfloor air, which provides individual control of air flow.
• Provide zoned temperature controls or, if possible, individual controls in each enclosed space (offices, conference rooms, etc.).
• Provide operable windows or operable window coverings to maximize sunlight, airflow and temperature control.

2. Access to Nature, Views and Daylight

• The presence of daylight and windows, as well as opportunities for active and passive contact with nature, sensory change and variability, positively impact well-being.5
• Daylight helps people regulate circadian rhythms, the daily cycles of waking and sleeping hours. When these rhythms are upset, people experience stress.6
• Given complete freedom, people want to be on a height looking down. They prefer open, savanna-like terrain with scattered trees and shrubs and they want to be near a body of water, such as a river or lake. They pay hefty prices to have these views.7

Workplace strategies:

• Organize the floor plate to maximize natural light penetration onto the floor. For example, place enclosed spaces around the core of the building and open spaces at the perimeter where windows are located.
• Use glass where visual privacy is not required.
• Give preference of “nice views” to shared spaces.
• Provide outdoor areas for use by employees. Encourage employees to go outside for breaks, even if just for a few minutes.

3. Sensory Change and Variability

In much the same way that they prefer access to nature, views and daylight, people also prefer sensory change and variability. A lack of visual stimulation during the day can dull the senses and affect a worker’s ability to stay alert. Large expanses of neutral-colored workstations, all with the same height and texture, typically do not support human productivity.

• Sensory change and variability should not include bright lights and noise, but rather, access to daylight, window views to the outdoors, materials selected with sensory experience in mind (touch, visual change, color, pleasant sounds and odors), spatial variability, change in lighting levels and use of highlights, and moderate levels of visual complexity.8
• When the work environment is not stimulating, employees lose focus and creative drive. An environment devoid of sensory stimulation and variability can lead to boredom and passivity.9

Workplace strategies:

• Consider introducing “texture” into a space by using natural materials such as wood, cork, plants, natural fibers.
• Minimize the appearance of long corridors or paths by introducing color, art, graphics, patterns or texture changes.

4.  Color

How people perceive color varies based on their culture and life experiences. However, there are some generalizations about how color is likely to be perceived, either overtly or subliminally, in the workplace.10

• Brighter colors (reds, as well as blues and greens) are associated with higher focus and task accuracy.
• Blue is calming and cooling, promoting mental control and clear, creative thinking.
• Pink lessens feelings of irritation, aggression, loneliness, discouragement and burden.
• Red enhances feelings of strength and energy; it is associated with vitality and ambition.
• Yellow makes people feel clear-headed and alert, allowing for clear thinking for decision making.
• Orange helps ease emotions and boost self-esteem. It creates enthusiasm for life.

Workplace strategies:

• Use color strategically to promote desired behaviors and feelings based on psychological reactions, not personal preference.
• Vary color use through the workplace. Use it as a design technique to identify circulation or the changing character of space.
• Use lighter colors to help reflect light through the space and increase the amount of natural light. (See “Access to Nature, Views and Daylight.”)

5. Noise Control

Noise is an issue in most workplace environments. Interestingly, it can enable or disable productivity, depending on individual preferences and the type of work being done. The key is enabling people to control noise by providing access to a room with a door and acoustical separation when needed.

• Perceived noise (discernible by the average human ear) is typically higher in open office environments, but this depends on a space’s organization, the materials and the nature of work being done.
• When employees have a degree of control over the noise in their environment, they are less distracted by it.11
• Contrary to popular belief, noise interruptions during simple, mundane tasks can provide the stimulation needed to keep going. Interruptions during complex work, however, require a longer period of time to re-orient, and continued interruptions are likely to have negative effects on mood that reduce the motivation to resume work.12
• The U.S. General Services Administration recently published a comprehensive guide to acoustics in the workplace. In it, they state, “Office acoustics is a key contributor to work performance and well-being in the workplace. The ability to find quiet times and places is essential to support complex knowledge work, while the ability to have planned or spontaneous interactions without disturbing others is necessary for team work and relationship development. Having speech privacy is necessary for confidential interactions and work processes. ‘Acoustical comfort’ is achieved when the workplace provides appropriate acoustical support for interaction, confidentiality and concentrative work.”13

Workplace strategies:

• Designers recommend three strategies for achieving a non-intrusive level of speech privacy. They include absorption (through acoustical ceiling, fabrics and carpet), blocking (through furniture system, panels, walls, partitions and screens, and covering (sound masking). To achieve the desired result, all three strategies must be integrated.
• Try to separate energetic, centralized and noisy spaces from quiet areas. Create opportunities for people to come together without disturbing colleagues.
• In open plan environments, ensure that people are sitting near those with similar work patterns or subjects of study.
• Consider a “virtual door” policy in which people sitting in an open workstation aren’t necessarily available to talk.
• Provide headsets to tune out noise.
• Define policies for employees to be able to reserve quiet space and collaboration space.

6. Crowding

When people feel crowded they often feel stressed, which influences their satisfaction of the workplace. The perception of space and whether a person feels crowded varies greatly by cultural background, individual preferences and gender. The following rules of thumb are from Sally Augustin, an environmental psychologist and expert in how people perceive space.14

• Lighter, brighter spaces, as well as rooms with high ceilings or those that have walls with mirrors, are perceived as less crowded.
• In the same conditions, men are more likely to feel crowded than women. Men have better peripheral vision than women, and are more likely to perceive others in the same space.
• People who work in high-rise buildings feel more crowded than people who do not. This effect is reduced for people who reside on the upper stories in tall buildings, likely because they have better views and access to daylight.
• The perception of crowding can be reduced through the use of furniture, plants, decorative elements or pillars. These objects prevent people from feeling crowded or distracted.

Workplace strategies:

• Reduce the impact of “dense” space and the impact of seeing a significant number of people at once by orienting individual workspace openings such as workstation openings or desk positions in an office to minimize views into others’ workstations while seated.
• When possible, provide views to windows to reduce perception of crowding. This could be accomplished by moving circulation to the perimeter of the space and relocating fixed elements such as offices or conference rooms to the interior of the space.

7. Human Factors and Ergonomics

Workplaces that are designed for and around people are more likely to be comfortable, flexible and support productivity over time. This is because they take into account the needs and limitations of the people who occupy them. “Human factors” is an area of workplace psychology that focuses on a range of topics including ergonomics, workplace safety, the reduction of human error, product design, human capability and human-computer interaction. The terms “human factors” and “ergonomics” are often used synonymously.

• According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, musculoskeletal diseases, which include back pain, arthritis, bodily injuries and osteoporosis, are reported by people in the U.S. more than any other health condition. In 2004, the estimated total cost of treatment and lost wages associated with musculoskeletal diseases was $849 billion, equal to 7.7 percent of the gross domestic product.15
• HOK recently conducted a workplace survey leveraging social media to 3,600 employees across multiple industries. An overwhelming 82 percent of respondents report experiencing some type of physical ailment at work. The most common complaints – neck, back and shoulder pain – were typical for workers sitting for long periods during the day. About half of those responding complained of pain in the neck, back or shoulders, while a third reported headaches and eye strain. Workers who stand for long periods of time at their job complained of hip, leg and foot pain. The survey comments indicate that most of the complaints result from poor ergonomics or from being overly sedentary.16
• The American Cancer Society released a report in the American Journal of Epidemiology stating that men who sat for six hours or more a day in their leisure time had an overall death rate that was nearly 20 percent higher than men who sat for three hours or less in the 14-year follow-up period. Women who sat for more than six hours a day had a death rate that was almost 40 percent higher. Dedicated exercise had no neutralizing effect.17

Workplace strategies:

• Provide adjustable furniture such as adjustable chairs, task lights, sit-to-stand desks and keyboard trays, so individuals can adjust their workspaces to meet their needs. To ensure employees are using furniture properly, provide training as needed.
• Provide efficient and seamless technology to enable mobility and efficient work in all work settings provided. Examples: Equip all collaboration areas with  similar technology that is intuitive for users moving from space to space. Ensure technology is “user-friendly” and provide instructions clearly visible to the user.
• Equip employees with tools and technologies that encourage mobility in the workplace. Examples: Provide employees with laptops and mobile devices. Provide VoIP phones that allow workers to easily move between desks or rooms and still make a call.
• Encourage employees to use the stairs by showing them the number of calories burned or time saved. Use signage to make it easy to find the stairs.
• To encourage them to move around during the day, provide employees with wearable devices such as pedometers that count steps or vibrate at regular intervals.
• Design stairs to be more visually accessible and pedestrian-friendly.
• Provide incentives to encourage movement both in the work environment and outside of the typical workday. For instance, an employee competition (with prizes) measuring steps taken per day is a fun and healthy way to create buzz.

8.  Indoor Air Quality

Healthy workplaces are a focus for today’s organizations. The health of the workforce can affect health insurance costs, sick days and productivity. In addition to supporting human factors and ergonomics, the workplace should support good health.

• Americans and occupants of other post-industrial countries spend an enormous amount of time – 90 percent or more – indoors. As a result, the quality of the indoor environment has a significant influence on well-being, productivity and quality of life.18 Indoor settings often contain levels of pollutants that may be two to five times higher – and occasionally more than 100 times higher – than outdoor levels. Sources of indoor air pollution include combustion, building materials and furnishings, household cleaning, maintenance, personal care or hobby products, central heating and cooling systems, and humidification.
• A recent study found that reduced respiratory illness, allergies and asthma, and sick building syndrome19 along with increased worker comfort from changes in thermal comfort, lighting, and improved indoor air quality would produce an annual U.S. savings or productivity gain of between $43 and $235 billion.20

Workplace strategies:

• Invest in carpet, paint, furniture and other workplace finishes with low counts of particulates, gases or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can trigger illness. Recommended “eco labels” to watch for include Greenguard and SCS Indoor Advantage (furniture, seating and furnishings), Green Seal (paints and coatings), Blue Angel (office equipment), Floor Score (hard surface flooring), Green Label Plus (carpet and carpet tile), SCS calCOMPliant (wood).
• Invest in equipment with ENERGY STAR labels.
• Ensure heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and other office equipment is checked and maintained on a regular basis.
• Train cleaning staff on how to use cleaning equipment and products such as handling vacuum cleaners with hepa-filters or nontoxic chemical cleaners.
• Add plants to the office to help clean the air, but be sure to keep them clean and healthy so they do not get dusty or contribute mold spores.

  9. Choice

  Today’s knowledge work requires high levels of concentration, collaboration and everything in between. Well-designed workplaces provide opportunities for both and allow individuals to choose when and how they use them.

  Susan Cain’s book, Quiet, The Power of Introverts, has caused a not-so-quiet revolution from knowledge workers everywhere. She said in an interview, “A ‘best office’ is one that would give people a choice of how much stimulation is coming at them at any one time. I would create an office that has lots of nooks and crannies, lots of zones of privacy, but also lots of zones where people can come together and schmooze and hang out. Another thing is that when people work on projects, there should be more of a tolerance for people working on their own. I think it’s okay to work on a team, but within that team, the individual members need to be able to go off by themselves and do their own things and have a lot of autonomy and more privacy.”

  Sally Augustin claims, “When we don’t feel in control of what happens to us in a place, we are stressed, discouraged and frustrated.  Feeling in control is the key here; we don’t have to actually exercise control to reap psychological benefits.”21

  Workplace strategies:

  • Provide a variety of work settings in the right proportion to support a variety of work functions:
    – Focus work: Provide quiet zones or spaces for concentrated work.
    – Collaboration: Emphasize small group collaboration and provide diverse settings (formal and informal).
    – Learning: Consider the workplace to be an educational environment that supports learning and mentoring by providing e-learning and in-person, one- on-one learning.
    – Socializing: Provide a variety of informal spaces that accommodate work and casual communication while fostering informal collaboration and innovation.
  • Provide technology – headsets, sound masking and white noise – that allows workers to perform focused work when necessary.
  • Provide technology that allows workers to connect and collaborate more effectively in person and virtually. Consider a mix of teleconference, video conference, web conference, instant messaging, social media and other tools to enable different teams to communicate in the way they work most easily.

  10. Employee Engagement

  There is a direct correlation between employee engagement and worker satisfaction. This affects productivity and innovation.

  • Engaged employees are more productive, more profitable and safer than less engaged employees. They tend to create stronger customer relationships and stay longer with their company. Engaged employees are likely to be a company’s best source of new ideas.22
  • Based on 7,939 business units in 36 companies, Gallup researchers examined the relationship at the business unit level between employee satisfaction/engagement and the business unit outcomes of customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, employee turnover and accidents. Significant connections were found between unit-level employee satisfaction/engagement and business unit outcomes.23

  Workplace strategies:

  • Provide work spaces that enable visibility, openness and greater employee mobility to foster engagement. When workers are more likely to see each other, they are more likely to connect and collaborate.
  • Provide collaborative spaces that incorporate the five “Cs”: coffee, CNN (or a “buzz” in the background), circulation nearby, connectivity and comfortable seating. These five characteristics are particularly successful for “hub” or central pantry spaces on the floor.
  • Organize a floor plate into team “neighborhoods,” with a variety of spaces included in each, to foster team identity and sense of place.
  • Incorporate branding, awards and recognition in a visible way to reinforce employee engagement.

Putting it all together

1   NATURAL LIGHT – Open spaces at the perimeter of the floor allow light to penetrate deeper into the floorplate, providing access to daylight for interior spaces.

2   VIEW – Shared spaces are located along the window wall with access to light and views.

3   NOISE – Phone rooms dispersed throughout the workplace support the open environment and  provide opportunities for private phone conversations or heads-down work.

4   NOISE – High traffic areas by large conference spaces, breakout space, and reception, are located at the entrance to the floor, consolidating activity and noise to minimize disruption to individual workplaces.

5   NOISE – Separating open workstations with enclosed spaces helps to maintain noise. Too many open workstations create a feeling of overcrowding and can be too noisy.

6   CHOICE – A variety of spaces can support different functional needs. Employees choose from a variety of spaces, depending on the task at hand, as well as when and how to use them.

7   COMMUNITY – Organizing space types into “neighborhoods” has many benefits, including minimizing the feel of overcrowding, encouraging informal interaction and supporting a team environment.

Source: http://www.hok.com/thought-leadership/workplace-strategies-that-enhance-human-performance-health-and-wellness/

Where Silicon Valley goes, business follows.

There’s a strong case to be made that Silicon Valley and nearby San Francisco have become the center of the world, displacing even New York and London. That’s because the computer industry is centered there, and technology currently is the number one force that is changing the business landscape. Even if a business has nothing to do with technology, it is strongly influenced by the trends that emerge from the Valley.

Not only are the tools changing, so are the business processes as a result of new technology such as mobile, cloud computing and wearables.

Technology trends

Ever-evolving and adaptive technology is driving and transforming business every day. Businesses that want to thrive are in a constant race to adapt and take advantage of these technologies while they’re still relevant and useful, or otherwise these businesses eventually will fall by the wayside. Here are six technology trends that businesses will have to embrace to stay ahead of the game.

Payments get even easier

While every business today accepts credit cards, and even Grandma is getting savvy about transferring money via Paypal, the friction of making payments is going to be reduced even further in 2016.

With Apple Pay, Google Pay and a litany of mobile payment solutions flooding the market, the trend is toward making payments as easy as a click of a smartphone button, reversing transactions just as easy and sending automatic invoices by email a snap.

Right now this definitely is a business-led technology trend.

Only 17 percent of consumers in a recent Creditcard.com study said they pay for items using a smartphone most of the time, and adoption rates are low according to almost every study. But research firm, Gartner, predicts that the mobile payment industry will be worth $270 billion in transactions by 2017, up from $235 billion in 2014. That and a forward-thinking strategy has led businesses and technology firms to make a massive push for consumer adoption and the future of payments.

Earlier this year, Google bought Softcard for its Google Pay solution. Samsung acquired LoopPay, and turned it into Samsung Pay. Paypal bought Paydiant in March for much of the same reason. And, of course, there’s Apple Pay, which the company says currently accounts for two out of every three dollars spent using contactless payments.

In terms of merchant adoption, almost every day a new major retailer the likes of Target and Best Buy announces it’s now supporting one new payment system or another.

Security becomes non-negotiable

No business leaves its doors unlocked at night, but the dirty little secret is that most businesses and their cloud service providers have been playing loose and fast with digital security.

Email is not usually secure, employee mobile devices are unprotected in many cases. VoIP phone systems are not always fully encrypted, and web sites have gaping holes. In the mad dash to embrace the latest technology, security often is an afterthought – and both consumers and businesses are starting to wake up to the liability.

Nearly 5,000 company data breaches have compromised over 815 million records containing information about medical histories, Social Security numbers or bank data since 2005. Which lead the U.S. House Financial Services Committee to overwhelmingly approve legislation that would force companies that lose control of customers’ sensitive personal data to notify both customers and law enforcement.

Business leaders also are sounding the alarm. In October, T-Mobile CEO John Legere publicly ripped into credit monitoring firm, Experian, when the company exposed the private data of roughly 15 million T-Mobile’s customers.

White Hat security statistics show that 86 percent of all websites tested had at least one serious vulnerability, often more. The biggest culprit is at the transport layer, according to White Hat, with a likelihood for security breaches as high as 75 percent for many businesses.

Security concerns have reached a critical mass, and one of the biggest technology trends in business right now is ensuring that those holes are closed and all systems are adequately protected. This is taking the form of encryption during both data transport and at rest, enterprise mobility management for mobile devices, containerization so hacks don’t infect entire systems and adoption of cloud solutions that take security as a fundamental priority.

Communications gets embedded

Along with easy, embedded payments, communications are embedded directly into apps and web sites. While currently Skype and WhatsApp are the darlings for talk, chat, video and file sharing, they still require users to open a dedicated app. Real-time communications (RTC) and the emerging embeddable communications standard, WebRTC, are changing that.

According to ComScore 11.3 percent (and growing) of all internet users rely solely on their mobile devices to get online, and this year you’ll start to see more click-to-call buttons embedded directly into apps to cater to directly to this quickly growing mobile minority. When a customer has a question while shopping within an app, they can just press a button and connect instantly to a customer service rep. When they have trouble setting up a product, a simple press of a button and they’re immediately connected to a trouble-shooting video session.

A few, but not many, companies are already getting on board.

The best known example of this is Amazon’s “Mayday”. The button on its kindle devices allow for an almost instant communication with a customer service representative, any time of the day. And Bank of America has started to embed its click-to-call “Teller Assist” service into their ATM machines, allowing bank goers to connect to a live teller, via video chat, if they’re having issues at an ATM.

This technology has been by and large reserved for the few big companies that could afford it. However new technology companies like Agora.io are making this embeddable communications possible for almost any business with an app. With an easy to implement SDK click to call voice and video chat can be seamlessly integrated into any business’s app. Making this embedded communication feature something that will be proliferating the market in 2016 and beyond.

Connected devices bring real-time updates

Inventory that self-reports when it is low. Field equipment that signals when something is wrong. Trucks that self-track. Products that notify a company when a refill is needed or a malfunction may occur.

Rolls Royce and other aircraft manufacturers are building their aircraft with sensors embedded within them. By using these sensors to collect and send real-time data to stations on the ground, they can detect if anything may start to break down – and gives them the ability to avoid potential calamities. This is the realization of the Internet of Things revolution, and 2016 is the year that the promise of connected devices gets real.

There is an estimated $19 trillion of value at stakefor companies and industries as a result of the Internet of Things, and every business needs to figure out how it can take advantage of devices that can report and communicate with each other.

Wearables reach employees

With self-reporting devices comes business velocity, and the wearables trend makes it easy for employees to interact with real-time data from connected devices throughout the course of a day.

Some companies are giving wearables to their employees on the ground for second-by-second inventory updates. Others are using them internally to see how their corporate employees interact.

Companies like the Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer Hitachi have developed a proprietary wearable called “Hitachi Business Microscope” which comes in the form of an ID name tag card that hangs around an employee’s neck. These ID cards have several sensors within them –everything from infrared sensors, a microphone, accelerometer and more.

When an ID card comes within a certain distance of another, the card starts to record body behavior rhythm data and face time and sends this data to an internal server. The ID card measures how long you talk to specific people, how far away you stand from them and more. Hitachi is using this data to better understand how their employees interact and collaborate with each other.

Just like the introduction of tablets a few years ago, businesses are still figuring out how wearables can integrate into business processes. But companies such as Salesforce clearly see the direction of things, which is why it’s already launched 20 Apple Watch apps for business use. For quick and constant feedback, wearables are going to start playing a noticeable role in business this year.

The cloud envelops everything

Nearly every business uses the cloud for all or some of its business software. Roughly 93 percent to be exact. The cloud enables connectivity with other systems and reduced maintenance and mobility among other benefits.

The past few years have seen widespread adoption of cloud computing, but 2016 is the year that businesses will start to complete the process and move the remainders of their systems to hosted solutions.

Currently 68 percent of enterprises run less than a fifth of their application portfolios online, an unsustainably low figure given the necessity for connected systems and interaction with connected devices, APIs from other businesses and mobile workers. Unsurprisingly, startups in Silicon Valley likeCoupa – which provide online procurement software and services to other businesses – are already showing the way by relying entirely on cloud solutions to run their businesses.

There are other business technology trends, of course, but these six represent the largest changes. Businesses would be wise to take note, make improvements and advance toward the future.

Contributor: Peter Scott

Source: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/01/13/6-business-technology-trends-for-2016/