Hosted PBX - Benefits for Large and Small Businesses

Any growing company wants to be more competitive. In its pursuit for excellence, a company would want to concentrate more on the core businesses rather than its infrastructure. It would want to implement the latest cutting edge technologies to increase its capabilities, without high capital expense. One of the non-core business functions that can be outsourced is the client/customer interaction. A PBX phone system that is hosted or virtual meets this demand without being too expensive. One of the greatest advantages of a hosted PBX system is the less complexity involved in maintaining and upgrading it.Companies that have been using premise based PBX systems for years are more often than not dubious about switching over to a hosted PBX system. The doubts generally refer to issues such as long-term cost, level of control, future expansion, features, and complexities involved in implementation. Hosted PBX is a relatively new technology. Being based on IP and VoIP technologies, the potential of this system still remains greatly unexplored. Hence, when it comes to future advancements hosted PBX is bound to meet the demands of a growing company. This kind of service being provided by a service provider is scalable to a large extent. A company does not need to invest in newer equipments to meet its growing demands. All the newer lines and bandwidth are made available through the service provider. A company need only pay for what it uses. Additionally, a hosted PBX system boasts all the advanced functionalities which are usually affordable only by the Fortune 500 companies. These include Auto Attendant, Voice Mail, Fax to email, Follow Me Call Forwarding, and Personal Voice mailboxes.A hosted PBX phone system is sometimes implemented through the IP (Internet Protocol) medium. It is therefore sometimes referred by terms such as VoIP PBX or IP pbx. One of the greatest plus points when it comes to hosted pbx systems is the ease of implementation. There is no need of purchasing any expensive hardware. All the required equipments and hardware are present in the service provider’s site. Even though these equipments may be expensive, the cost is distributed among various clients. The cost that comes down to individual clients is therefore a fraction of the cost involved in a premise based pbx system. Companies that cannot afford to evaluate future communication needs can chose to implement a hosted pbx system. All the overheads and future requirements are handled by the service providers.Another major advantage when it comes to hosted PBX system is disaster recovery. Since the functionalities are provided over the Internet, any damage to the public telephone network can have little effect on the system.