Since Cloud PBX is still new to the Taiwan market, most people are not familiar with the technology. They associate VoIP with free poor quality OTT services.
In fact, due to the progress of fixed line and mobile networks, VoIP quality has met or surpassed legacy technology and is the new standard in all developed countries for wireline and wireless telephone service. Cloud PBX is already the dominant choice of businesses in many western countries. According to a report from Technavio, COVID19 is accelerating the growth of Cloud PBX to USD 23.89 bn during 2020-2024, at a CAGR of about 18%.
Cloud PBX has become prevalent because legacy PBX simply cannot keep up with rapidly changing enterprise needs. Companies faced with expansion, office moves, or reorganization find legacy PBX to be a hinderance. For smaller businesses or startups, tying each staff member to a desk phone is unacceptable.
An illustration of how Cloud PBX works
Cloud PBX provides all the business functions of legacy hardware PBX including call transfer, free internal calls, auto-attendant, call pick up, call forward, and 3-way calls. In addition, Cloud PBX provides new functionality such as mobile extension, multi-location support, digital fax, online administration, an integrated address book, and toll savings.
Differences between Cloud PBX and legacy hardware systems in addressing 8 business needs
n addition to increased functionality, Cloud PBX provides a better user experience while addressing common concerns.
1. Upfront cost
Legacy PBX requires the purchase of a hardware system and professional on-site installation. Due to the complexity of the hardware and lack of management tools, professional on-site help is required each time a business needs to add, move or make a change to the system. The fees are not predictable and can add up over time.
EVOX Cloud PBX resides in the cloud and does not require any hardware installation. Once the service is activated online, users can begin by just downloading the app to their preferred mobile device or PC.
There are no physical limitations to the system, which means it can be used anywhere for one or more offices. This makes EVOX ideal for telecommuting, multinational offices, and multi-location businesses. Businesses using EVOX can quickly and easily expand, move offices, add/change team members or branch locations, and direct all phone traffic under a single account.
2. Office relocation
Moving your office requires physically moving the phone equipment and wiring the new office. Not only does this incur the expense of a professional installer, your office may be unreachable for days or even weeks while the phone system is relocated.
Cloud PBX is installed in the cloud and not in the office, so it is location free. When you move your office to a new building or even a new city, there is nothing to worry about. Not only do you save time and money on moving and re-installing equipment, but your phone system works without interruption.
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Cloud PBX allows you to move your office without changing your phone number or moving equipment3. Expanding your office or adding new branches
The limitations of legacy hardware make it difficult to expand your business, add a branch office, or move into a new location. It is costly to hire a specialist to upgrade or install new hardware or software, and in some cases you may not even be able to upgrade.
Cloud PBX makes it easy to expand, add staff, or move them around. You can easily add users, change extensions, modify calling privileges, and more with the EVOX online admin site. Furthermore, there is no limitation on the capacity or number of locations.
When you expand, add franchise stores or department sales counters, you can set up their phone system from the headquarters and give them admin access to self-manage when they are ready.
4. Mobility
With legacy PBX, employees are tied to their desk phone. When employees are outside the office, they are forced to use their personal mobile phone or carry a second company issued phone for business calls. When employees use their own phones, businesses lose oversight of call traffic and have the added expense of processing mobile phone usage reimbursement.
With EVOX the office phone extensions are mobile, and employees can use their device of choice. After downloading a simple app, they are connected to the office and never have to worry about missing important calls when they are away from their desks.
There is also no need to get reimbursed for calls because they are automatically paid by the company. Outgoing calls are received by customers and clients as though they are from the business phone line. When they are off work, employees can turn on Do Not Disturb to avoid receiving business calls during their private time.
Customer service staff may choose to use the PC/Mac app to handle calls in the office where call history and address book makes it easy to look up contacts or recent calls. There are also professional grade headsets that work with EVOX to cut down on fatigue or physical stress from long hours of phone calls.
For customers who prefer desk phones, EVOX also supports many major brands of IP phones .
5. Ownership cost - management
Legacy PBX systems do not come with a management tool that a customer can easily learn and use. Consequently, PBX management such as adding extensions, moving lines, and other modifications require a visit by a trained supplier or distributor. These service calls are not only expensive, but they can cause business down time due to scheduling.
EVOX provides a web-based admin site which allows customers to manage their system with an easy-to-use interface. The admin can easily add/remove and change users, configure outdial permissions, and program the system configuration and auto-attendant and voicemail greetings etc. on their own from any web browser.
6. Security and reliability
Legacy PBX equipment installed in the office or the equipment room is susceptible to fire, physical intrusion, power outages, as well as cyber attacks. Any incidents like that can paralyze the office for days or weeks. The cost to adequately protect your office equipment against such threats is simply beyond the means of almost any business.
On-premises IP PBX are, in fact, favorite targets for hackers. According to the National Center for Cyber Security Technology, over 30 million attacks on government facilities from outside the national borders were detected in 2019 including the ransomware ColdLock in May.
EVOX is hosted on the Amazon cloud (AWS), which is located in the most secure and reliable data centers around the world. They are protected by the most powerful tools against cyber attacks. Putting business data in AWS is analogous to putting your money in a national bank, which is far more secure than your home.
When there is a power outage in the office, and all your office equipment, including your office network is down, you can switch your mobile phone or PC to 4G wireless to continue using EVOX apps to keep your business connected.
7. Ownership cost - maintenance
Almost all legacy PBX becomes obsolete within 5 to 10 years. And even before that time, any problem or failure requires onsite service by the supplier or a trained professional. When equipment reaches end of life maintenance and spare parts become difficult to procure, forcing businesses to replace them with a newer system.
Since EVOX does not require any hardware on premise, it does not require any maintenance, repair, or warranty service.
8. Continuous upgrade and improvement
A decade ago, leading enterprise communication equipment manufacturers developed and promoted Unified Communications, which integrates functions such as text message and voice conference with PBX functions.
However, a vast majority of customers were not interested and instead chose to use cloud services like Zoom, GoToMeeting, and Slack for these added functions. And now almost all PBX manufacturers have stopped developing and moved their business to cloud systems.
Given this industry trend, manufacturers have stopped updating their on-premises PBX equipment. Not only are they not developing new functionality, but even maintenance service and parts will grow scarce.
EVOX is a cloud system that is upgraded and improved continuously with multiple releases each year along with updates to the mobile and PC apps. EVOX releases not only fix bugs, but improve user experience, and introduce new features and functions according to customer feedback.
Cloud PBX is a step towards cloud migration
As businesses digitally transform, they are transitioning from on-premises software products to cloud services. The same is true in the telecommunications services space. Businesses are also adopting the concept of the “mobile office” to improve the mobility and flexibility of their workforce.
Users are accustomed to cloud services such as Office 365, Facebook Business, and Salesforce, that are easy to learn, use, manage, and customize. They expect that cloud services continue to improve and evolve to help businesses meet new and changing challenges.
The last two decades of the last millennium was the golden age of PBX with improved efficiency of business communications. However, technology has marched on and such on-premises equipment has now entered its sunset years.
Cloud PBX service, was introduced to provide a bridge for our customers to migrate to the cloud. It is rapidly evolving and improving to meet the needs of our customers as they transition to the digital economy.
