Businesses are realizing that on-premises systems just aren’t cutting it for today’s digital times and many of those critical systems are End of Life or End of Support, creating a significant risk of breaking down the excessive cost of maintaining them. According to Forrester, adoption of the cloud rose from 33% of organizations in 2020 to 42% in 2021 and will hit the 50%-mark next year. There are many things to consider before making the change to Unified Communications as-a-service (UCaaS). Here are some key insights to think about in the battle of communications: on-premises vs UCaaS. 

User adoptability 

Some fear UCaaS because of their familiarity with legacy on-premises phones. Learning something new can be challenging, to be sure. UCaaS is more intuitive and gives users the ability to search in a help field to immediately resolve issues, users have more control to customize features to best suit their work styles and serve their customers. UCaaS can do a lot but it can also work just like your current system so there can be little that needs to change initially, and new features can be added and trained on when users are ready and need them. 

Location 

With on-premises, it is exactly what it sounds like. One must be physically present at every office location. UCaaS, however, allows one to take the office wherever they are as long as there is an internet connection. A study shows that the proportion of total workload done on-premises dropped from 59% in 2019 to 38% in 2021. With work-from-home and hybrid schedules becoming the new normal, it is imperative that an employee can be connected from anywhere. 

Implementation 

It can take weeks or months for on-premises phone systems to be installed. On the other hand, UCaaS can be deployed and implemented within a matter of few days. It can be rolled out in phases by office, department and individual user keeping disruption to a minimum. Access Tech can set you up with a proof-of-concept trial to see how it fits into your environment. This is a fantastic way to test and plan what the full roll out looks like. 

Cost 

On premises requires a large upfront capital cost for equipment and implementation. There are ongoing costs for telco services (phone lines) and ongoing maintenance and software updates. The older the phone system, the more these recurring charges increase. UCaaS has little to no upfront costs. The fees for service are on a per user licensing model and can scale up and down as you need more or fewer services. A study showed a company’s client’s cost difference with 100 users and three sites: $2,650 for on-premises and $2,400 for UCaaS.  

Change is challenging. For over 12 years we have helped hundreds of businesses through phone migrations and other complex IT transformations. We provide access to the best UCaaS providers. With our combined 50 years of experience, our in-house presales, engineering, project management, and customer service support dedicated to you, we are your outsourced telecom experts. Contact us at Access Tech where we can start with a conversation about your business goals and challenges and build from there. We connect business strategy to IT solutions.  

For additional information, here is more on cloud migration vs. on-premises.