According to the 2015 Kauffman Index, we’re seeing a rebound in startup activity after a five-year decline brought on by the Great Recession. In fact, the 10 percent increase in the rate of new entrepreneurs in 2015, which resulted in 530,000 new business owners per month, was the largest in 20 years. The age, ethnicity and educational background of new entrepreneurs are more diverse than ever.
Although startups have to watch their budgets carefully, they need infrastructure. They need a technological foundation that allows them to access applications and data and deliver business services. They also need the agility to adapt their business operations and ensure that customer needs are being met.
The cloud makes sense for startups because it allows them to set up operations without the cost and complexity of building and managing a data center. In a cloud computing model, IT resources such as systems, applications and data storage are hosted by a third-party service provider and accessed via the Internet.
Instead of paying for in-house infrastructure and expertise, the organization pays a monthly fee for the on-demand use of services delivered from a provider’s shared infrastructure. These services can be scaled up or down according to current need. Email, file sharing platforms, data analytics, accounting software and customer relationship management systems are just a few of the tools used by businesses every day that can be accessed via the cloud.
In addition, as entrepreneurs are continually out of the office for new business meetings, they need a mobility solution that allows them to seamlessly communicate with staff and partners no matter where they are.
Cloud-based phone systems are becoming more widely used for a number of reasons, especially in the startup community. As a startup experiences growth, cloud-based phone solutions allow for simple, cost-efficient scalability. Leading cloud phone systems are monitored around the clock by a service provider’s team of experts to prevent service disruption, and the provider typically has redundant infrastructure to ensure availability in case of a disaster.
As with any other business service, cloud-based phone systems vary quite a bit in terms of quality, reliability, features and price. Choosing the wrong system could prove costly as your business grows.
ShoreTel Connect CLOUD is an end-to-end communications solution that integrates all collaboration tools – phone, chat, web/desktop sharing, conferencing, peer-to-peer video, and instant messaging – into a single application. Deployed from secure, redundant data centers, ShoreTel Connect CLOUD brings desk phone features to any mobile device. Business calls can move seamlessly and automatically from a cell tower to a Wi-Fi connection to avoid spotty signals and dropped calls. By integrating communications with business processes and measuring activity, you can improve productivity, encourage collaboration and better serve customers.
As a ShoreTel Gold Champion Partner, Eastern DataComm specializes in helping startups and entrepreneurs deploy the ShoreTel Connect CLOUD platform. Let us provide you with a reliable, communications solution that helps you control costs without sacrificing the functionality you need from your phone system.
