Enterprise VoIP Featured Article

The current financial crisis does not seem to be letting up. After weeks of holidays and celebrations, companies have resumed mass layoffs. The major ones among them include insurance provider Cigna, aluminum producer Alcoa, data-storage company EMC and computer products maker Logitech (News - Alert) International.

 

Now is a good time to gain insight into the real business scenario across the world. Technology Marketing Corporation interacted with a few companies in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector to share their experience on the crisis.

 

Alteva, a provider of enterprise hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), says that technology can offer multiple benefits in times of crisis. Innovative communications technologies such as VoIP have helped many firms globally to reduce communications expenses.

 

TMC (News - Alert) caught up with William Bumbernick, chief executive officer, Alteva, to get a glimpse of the performance of the company during this meltdown.

 

WB: In general the hosted VoIP market has seen an increase in growth during this time of a downward economy.  As I speak to peers in the industry they are mirroring this sentiment.  Hosted and “as a Service” models become more appealing when budgets are being scrutinized.

 

In 1999 there was an increase in PBX (News - Alert) replacements due to Y2K concerns.  Those PBX’s are now at their replacement intervals of 8 years.  These companies are forced to look at PBX replacements and the most cost effective method of accomplishing this is via a Hosted model.

 

The core benefits of hosted solutions are annualized and upfront capital reductions.  These core benefits drive customers to this solution rather than to competing solutions in a downward economy.

 

WB: We are rapidly hiring sales and operation staff to keep up with the new growth. Additionally, we are retooling many critical processes to ensure an increased scalability in our support and implementation models.  We believe that the economic slowdown is bringing added publicity to this market space and that as the economy turns, hosted solutions will see a greater increase in adoption rates than expected.

 

WB: We have not seen one geographic region do better than another, however, we have seen a slowdown in verticals such as professional recruiters and financial institutions.

 

WB: We have not noticed any differentiation between our domestic and international customers.

 

WB: At this point the only negative affect from this economy is that collections have extended by an average interval of 12 days when compared to the same period last year.

 

WB: Due to cash flow issues imposed on our customer by this economy, Alteva has implemented leasing and low upfront cost programs.  These programs enable our customers to migrate to a more efficient communications solution while protecting vital cash reserves.