Switching to the IP telephony is a must-do for all companies that want to lower their costs and gain more control over their telephony infrastructure. However, this transition can be tricky and some may end spending more than the benefit they may acquire from IP telephony. Today, there are several providers with very complete technical and financial offers. But unless your company is a small business with less than 10 users, the solution you will have to put in place must fit in a specific business model and take in consideration the specifities of your workflow.

This is why, in order to make this transition a success, some steps must be followed:

Picture the present

You must define or redefine the needs of your business in terms of telephony and eventually add-up the unmet expectations that your new system will have to fulfill.
You communication work-flows will also have to be considered in order to come out with the solution that will suit your company best.

Create a concept

Based on the information you gathered in the previous phase, the operator will be able to propose you a technical offer that should meet your needs and fit into your business.

Test and Deploy

It is always recommended to test your new solution on a smaller scale to identify the last-minute issues and fix them before going live. An internal coordinator might eventually follow this phase and update you.

Training and support

To improve the adoption of the new technologies inside your company, it is essential to plan trainings and information plans. The best technology is indeed useless if the users are reluctant to change.

A support and maintenance contract is also a must-have in order to keep an up-to-date and secure system.