Perhaps one of the soundest strategies in business today is to plan for the long term but to prepare for the short term. Many companies have found that they are best served to keep their options open. They are utilizing temporary workers and contractors, they rent their facilities, and they operate largely off of contracted and finite-term work.
The result is sound business operations, but the necessary logistical considerations have proven more challenging. At the forefront of these needed components is telephony. When companies experience busy seasons and slow stretches in their work, it can be very expensive and impractical to make constant changes to traditional phone lines. Consequently, they have begun to shift toward Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as a clean, effective method of generating sufficient telephone function without excessive burdens of expense and equipment. A system for operating these phone systems through VoIP is Session Initiation Protocol Trunking, or SIP Trunking.
Variable Workloads
SIP Trunking is not a hard-wired system. It uses existing Internet lines to layer multiple streams of voice communications onto each other, reducing hardware requirements. As a result, no hard wires are required to increase or decrease its capacity. The value of this is clearly visible for certain firms. Seasonal work such as annual financial closeouts or any business tied to the weather can have surges and ebbs in the volume of telephony required. Traditional hard-wired systems require a constant stream of technicians to add and remove lines, with considerable delays and great complexity added to billing.
With SIP trunking, all the processes required to alter line quantities are electronic. This is not only faster, it’s also less complicated for companies operating in rented space or historically significant buildings, both of which could have limitations on the amount of work that can be done. Work is executed remotely with no long waits for a technician’s arrival, so the business of the day can carry on without a disruptive invasion of ladders and wires.
Flexibility in Location
Not only can firms operate in low-intervention locations, they can also locate personnel remotely wherever they choose, within reason. There is no appreciable difference between adding staff in a main location and adding them in a secondary location.
This can result in less overhead cost as companies no longer need to incorporate speculative surge space into their housing requirements; they acquire the space they currently need and can easily add more workers in any other building they choose. Consequently, they lower rental costs, maintenance expenses, and utilities expenditures, all without the risk of becoming overcrowded.
Greater Durability
Standard copper wire has a finite life span. Frequent service–such as the installation and removal of lines noted above–further shortens its expected years of service. It also requires more electricity for operation; not so much that excess costs are incurred, but enough to increase wear and tear on phone components.
An SIP trunking system has far less of this electrical wear and tear. As a result, the entire hardware apparatus is likely to last longer than hardwired systems. This reduces overhead costs, downtime, and inconvenience. Its inherent resistance to security breaches is also superior to traditional methods.
All-in all, SIP Trunking provides all the function of traditional telephony with modern upgrades for efficiency and security.
Photo credit: Per-Olof Forsberg
