3 Business Communications Tools You Should Know

When you start looking at your company’s communications costs, you may not always like what you see. If you think you are paying far too much for far too little, you aren’t alone. Many businesses just like yours are making the switch to communications tools that can be leveraged through the Internet. This month, we will take a look at some of these solutions. 

VoIP and Conferencing

Every business needs to have a telephone system, that much is understood. Traditional telephone companies haven’t invested in their infrastructure and it shows. While some telephone companies have started updating their systems, the functionality that the modern business needs necessitates interactive capabilities. This is where a VoIP solution comes in. For a fraction of the cost of a traditional telephone system, companies can use their existing Internet connection to run an enterprise-level telephone system that has all the features they need. 

A base Voice over Internet Protocol solution comes with some of the features you most expect out of a business phone system such as call forwarding, voicemail, call routing, and more; but, when you expand a VoIP solution, you can get very powerful tools such as conferencing, instant messaging, and even video chat solutions. Hosted in the cloud or on dedicated local hardware, VoIP is one of the strongest and most cost-effective communications tools you can get for the modern business. 

Email

Most businesses use an email system for business correspondence. Some even use commercially available solutions. This isn’t ideal as there is plenty of information exchanged in the course of business that would be sensitive in nature. That’s why we believe that it is important for a business to use business-grade email. There are quite a few different options to choose from as businesses can opt to host their own email, or select a cloud-hosted solution. 

If security is a concern--and it almost always should be--a locally-hosted server could be the way to go. Today’s cloud-based email platforms, especially those that come with high-end productivity suites, are created with advanced tools like built-in encryption and artificial intelligence. These tools go a long way toward making the cloud-hosted email a viable selection for the modern business. 

Messaging and Collaboration

No matter what communication solutions a business chooses, it has to be able to fuel increases in productivity. Today, there are cloud-based productivity suites on the market that provide people the ability to work together in real time. This collaborative growth is a main component of the development of new and exciting productivity software.

In fact, the need for organizations to maximize their resources on projects has pushed software developers to begin to create better collaborative software. New software with hundreds of third-party software integrations, real time instant messaging, and other great features are revolutionizing project management. 

With more people working together from different locations, and more businesses outsourcing key parts of their operations, communications are going to continue to be one of the most important aspects of the business landscape going forward. If you would like to talk to an IT professional about which new communications tool would be a good fit for your business--and, how these tools will save your company money--call the IT experts at XFER today at 734-927-6666 / 800-GET-XFER.