By now you know we’re a fan of Skype for Business and the capabilities it offers to small or large companies. When integrating all the ways you communicate with a Unified Communication platform and expanding the abilities of Skype for Business, you increase productivity, simplify workflows and increase profitability. The next consideration that comes into play is whether to deploy Hosted Skype for Business or choosing a DIY, on premise solution. We have 8 quick benefits of hosted solutions, but first let’s cover what you should expect if you choose a DIY solution:

Requires Expertise in multiple disciplines:  If you have a staff that is stacked with knowledge ranging from Operating Systems, virtualization, networking, PSTN, VoIP, etc., and they have the time to embark on a wide scale deployment, then this won’t be too taxing.  But you’re also drowning in a wealth of riches! Most IT people specialize in one area, and hiring in experienced IT staff can get very expensive.

High Deployment Cost: There are upfront hardware/software investments, as well as costs for building redundancy into your network infrastructure (Internet, PSTN, Power, Hardware). Capital expenditure is going to be high, but your ongoing costs should be lower.

Complexity: Configuring, integrating, testing and troubleshooting all components of a solution can take 4-5 months to complete in a mid market business.

3rd Party Applications: Deployment and integration of 3rd party applications need to be tested within your existing environment, and in addition to being time consuming, can mean additional expense if upgrades are needed to make your solution work.

Long Delivery/Deployment Time: The average deployment of an on premise UC solution in a company of about 250 people takes 9 to 12 months.

Here are 8 quick benefits and reasons you should choose a Hosted Skype for Business solution for your company’s communication system.

1. Disaster Recovery. A loss of Internet or other catastrophic event at your headquarter location will have a smaller impact on the business operations, as calls will still either go to voicemail or to a cell phone for those at headquarters, whereas other locations that did not lose connectivity it will be business as usual since the communications server is housed in a secure data center.
2. Integration. Working with a trusted vendor for your hosted solution will reap benefits of their expertise and third party applications that they can implement and manage on your behalf.
3. Lower Costs. With a Hosted solution you can expect lower upfront capital expenditure because of lower costs for equipment and setup. Additionally there is a lower monthly cost for calls and features than the costs associated with a traditional phone system.
4. No Maintenance. With a Hosted a solution, all maintenance and costs associated with maintenance is handled by your provider. Giving you more time and energy to focus on what matters to your business and less on day-to-day upgrading.
5. Expertise. IT department or members typically specialize in one area, and it’s unlikely that your department will have the capacity to deploy a DIY solution most efficiently because of the complexity. Choosing a Hosted solution means choosing expertise… A partner specializes in providing a solution that is hands off and efficient in providing your business with the full capabilities and features of Skype for Business.
6. Upgrades. New feature upgrades are done by the provider and do not require additional expense. A provider has established resources, so new feature sets are a possibility, and implementation is done seamlessly to the end user.
7. PSTN Calls. All PSTN calls can be made using Skype for Business, again unifying your communication efforts instead of using various applications to perform tasks.
8. Hands Off. By choosing a Hosted solution your choosing to have an expert in the field handle everything from setup to daily managing. Hosted Skype for Business will effortlessly run in the background of your daily operations and leave more room for you to focus on what matters most. AltiGen’s Hosted Skype for Business is designed to be fault-tolerant and highly scalable.  This resilient architecture employs both application and infrastructure-level redundancy to ensure no single point of failure.

Hosted solutions are the superior option and when paired with an expert in the field like Altigen, you’ll be reassured that it was the right choice in your Skype for Business deployment.