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Telviva Communications

The Cloud is calling: Why your old PBX is holding your business back

While local businesses might want to hold onto their on-premise PBX systems for as long as possible, advances in technology would likely see them losing their competitive edge to those organisations that invest in enhancing communications between employees, and with customers and suppliers.

They are likely to be hampered further as traditional premise-based PBX systems become obsolete, with vendors following a strategy of bringing PBX to end-of-life and are no longer supporting them. While small companies can look to sweat their old PBX systems, larger businesses with compliance obligations, for example ISO27001, need to upgrade to supported hardware and current operating systems that have support, are patched for security, and can be reliable as they age.

The required upgrades, as well as support for changes, repairs and moves are expensive. Furthermore, the costs for providing the infrastructure to house the equipment and having to provide backup services for events such as loadshedding is also expensive, and requires more IT and maintenance resources than necessary.

On the other hand, upgrading to a modern, cloud-based service provides them with a service that has a continual update process of features and functionality, is patched for any vulnerabilities, protected by security measures, and has support services from specialised teams.

Of course, some businesses might be tempted to consider switching to cellular communications. This is an option, but to date there has not been a comprehensive cellular service where the company has full sight of all the communications and interactions with customers, suppliers and stakeholders. Integrations with customer relationship management (CRM) and other business systems are key to improved personalisation and enhanced experiences, while organisations also need the ability to comply with specific industry regulations, such as keeping call recordings where financial matters are concluded. 

Simply put, plain cellular communications does not yet provide the ‘Class 5’ services of an advanced PBX service.

Access to Class 5 PBX Features

A complete business communications tool, such as Telviva One, gives all businesses access to Class 5 PBX Features that were once exclusive to enterprises. This includes features such as caller line ID, smart call routing, call and numbers forwarding, call history, hunt groups, pick-up groups, feature codes, voice mail, multi-level interactive voice response (IVR) and more. Organisations can also select from add-ons such as standard or regulatory compliant cloud-based call recording.

It is not just about voice however; as it is delivered as a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), Telviva One seamlessly synchronises fixed-line and mobile voice, video, and chat in a single platform. Meanwhile, plans such as Telviva One Premium also include CRM integrations and multi-channel engagements across channels such as website chat and audio, and instant messaging such as WhatsApp.

In addition, Telviva easily integrates with a company’s business systems with no lock-ins, and they can select their preferred network access providers and handsets. Ultimately, this vendor-agnostic approach lets businesses choose the most cost-effective option available to them. As it is cloud-based, companies can rapidly scale up or down depending on changing business requirements.

Beyond just the ease of use and features that are available, organisations can further reduce their total cost of ownership by being part of South Africa’s largest cloud-based free call community. We have found that our 4 largest customers, with 2 700 sites and 35 000 extensions, have had greater than 40% savings by moving from their on-premise based systems to our hosted cloud platform. 

Most if not all vendors of traditional PBX systems have already migrated their product to the cloud, and the PBX” per se has become outdated and is now generally referred to as a legacy system. The future of PBX systems lies in their ability to adapt to new technologies and evolving business needs, providing more flexible, cost-effective, and feature-rich communication solutions. 

This is only possible where modern systems can interoperate with other services with Open APIs, Websockets and other integration methods not easily accessible from traditional PBXs. There is more to this, like being able to provide AI services with digital assistants, transcription services, analysis, and all the other advanced services being developed. All of this, however, is only possible after switching to the cloud.

Telviva One is an all-in-one communication platform which provides a cloud phone, video collaboration and team messaging which can be consumed on any device. Contact us today to get started.

By Rob Lith, Chief Commercial Officer at Telviva

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