It`s no small talk: Managed voice services can slash communication costs

Almost every company in South Africa will agree that the cost of telephony is too high. However, very few companies are able to accurately reveal the total cost of their complete telephony infrastructure - which, says Grant Bouch, Business Development Manager at GijimaAst, is simply bizarre.

"Telephony is so taken for granted that in many instances, companies simply have no idea what the total cost of this commodity is on a monthly or annual basis. As such, the simple rule that you can`t manage what you can`t measure applies - and as such, this is a cost that cannot be controlled," he says.

While almost every other aspect of technology has come under the microscope of the financial department and must be justified as an expense that will deliver a meaningful benefit to the company, telephony has largely escaped this scrutiny - and that despite the fact that the cost of this commodity is generally regarded as considerable. Indeed, says Bouch, research indicates that large companies with offices located around the country have telephony bills that run into millions of rands.

He pulls no punches when he describes the telephony situation in many companies. "It`s a complete disaster from a management and cost control point of view. While almost every other aspect of business costs are closely monitored, voice environments have been allowed to sprawl without a focus.

"All too often this is simply acknowledged as an unavoidable reality of doing business," asserts Bouch.

But he says reality is changing.

While the telephone has its roots in the device invented by Alexander Graham Bell back in 1876, the technology that enables people to speak to one another effectively over enormous distances has experienced a massive surge in development as the Internet has become a business standard the world over. With that, options for enormously reduced call costs have been introduced - Voice over Internet Protocol, international call-back, Internet telephony - these are just some of the new options that can contribute to significant reductions in call costs.

That aside, Bouch stresses there are far more links in the chain that need to be effectively managed, applying the by-now familiar principle of managed services. He explains: "The phone on your desk, the wire that connects it to the plug in the wall, the cables that connect that plug to the switchboard, the switchboard itself - research has demonstrated that there are as many as 10 to 15 different suppliers responsible for each part of this lengthy puzzle. With so many suppliers, any opportunity for the bulk discount associated with single sourcing is ruled out; then there`s the administrative mountain of managing a mass of suppliers. That translates into greater costs for the business, in terms of paper, processing and man hours," he says.

In combination, the application of technological advances and the introduction of managed voice services becomes a highly compelling business proposition - and GijimaAst has done just that.

"There is no question that this is a specialised service that demands the skills of both sides of the technology necessary to deliver optimal cost savings and benefits - that of telephony and that of information technology," says Bouch.

While voice is increasingly perceived as `just another application`, there are fundamental differences and significant complexities in the underrated domain of voice communication that have proven that voice is, indeed, not just another application. In fact, the technological challenges are far easier to overcome than the cultural divide between the IP/data world of the network specialist and the connection oriented, 99.999% uptime world of the telephony boffin.

According to industry experts such as Gartner and despite the VOIP hype being trumpeted by networking vendors, there is no compelling business reason for companies to plunge their telephony infrastructure (which in many cases is their principal client facing tool) headfirst into the IP world without a clearly defined business objective and a well-reasoned migration strategy. It is in this space that the value of a managed voice service is to be found.

Therein also lies GijimaAst`s value proposition. The organisation is not only a recognised specialist in the provision of managed services in technology terms, but it is also a highly experienced provider of telecommunication solutions.

"Our value proposition is powerful. We can remove all ageing telephony infrastructure, deploy the latest technology - which includes `migratory` PABXs where necessary, to protect any investments in legacy switchboards - and actually reduce the monthly operational expenditure for our clients," he claims.

And what of capital expenditure, widely regarded as the enemy by any business leader? "As a managed service, there is, in many cases, no capital expenditure. Because telephony is in many cases so neglected in terms of the application of best practices and the principles of business efficiency, that we have demonstrated to clients that we can reduce their costs significantly, improve their infrastructure and still operate a sustainable and profitable business unit," says Bouch - and he stresses that the savings for the client are not trivial. "We`re talking about enormous sums of money."

There are other advantages, he continues. "Real benefits include system optimisation and improved utilisation, consolidation and centralised management, as well as the application of best practices, standards and tools to manage the voice environment. This is what companies expect from managed technology services which are mission critical - yet to date, these have not been applied to voice, which is still the most critical application in almost any business. We`re changing that with GijimaAst Managed Voice Services," Bouch concludes.