Business organizations of all sizes become understandably cautious during harsh economic times.  With the global economic recession having an impact on almost all industries, there is a natural tendency to put business spending and investment plans on hold.

However, organizations that become too cautious can miss terrific opportunities to save money, boost performance and create competitive advantages. Voice over IP (VoIP) and the communications technologies it enables — including unified communications, videoconferencing and telepresence —present organizations with just such opportunities.

Experience from early recessions and economic slowdowns suggests that companies that continue to invest in their IT and communications capabilities are both better able to survive a downturn and can be in a stronger position to thrive when the crisis subsides — sometimes grabbing market share from their competitors in the process.

“For companies able and willing to continue their IT investments during the recession, visual communications and collaboration products and services should become a central part of their strategy for survival — and for creating a dominant position for themselves come the upturn,” said Dominic Dodd, principal analyst for the Frost & Sullivan technology research firm.

Stretching the IT Budget

VoIP is a proven winner, cutting long-distance charges by uniting branch locations and teleworkers over WAN and VPN links, and reducing toll-free number costs by effectively routing inbound calls. Converging communications onto a single network lowers maintenance and support costs, while conferencing can help reduce travel expenses.

With VoIP, remote offices don’t necessarily require their own PBXs, nor are they isolated from the central phone system. Small offices can often connect to the main office IP phone system through a high-speed data line. All employees can be reached through four-digit extension dialing and access the same voice mail system, regardless of location.

“VoIP can greatly enhance an organization’s ability to respond to changing business demands. Traditional PBXs tend to be pretty inflexible — adding, changing and moving extensions is not all that easy, and extending full voice features to remote sites may well be impossible,” said Vince Conroy, CTO, FusionStorm. “With VoIP, an employee’s extension is no longer tied to a physical phone jack. Employees simply plug their IP phone sets into the nearest data port and log in to accept calls and access phone system features.”

Such flexibility is a real boon to today’s increasingly mobile workforce and the rise in telework. It enables remote workers to stay in touch through virtually any Internet connection. It also allows organizations to utilize “hoteling” — setting up unassigned workstations that mobile employees can use as needed — to reduce overhead.

Creating Flexibility

Videoconferencing, telepresence and unified communications all can help organizations become more flexible and resilient. These technologies can allow companies to reduce the cost of travel by replacing many face-to-face meetings with effective alternatives. Organizations also can avoid the costs, carbon emissions and general wear and tear to their employees that accompany long-haul flights.

Furthermore, telepresence and videoconferencing, as key elements of real-time collaboration, can aid organizations in making faster business decisions, increasing their agility and responsiveness to customer demand while helping them to realize business goals more quickly.

Unified communications platforms that combine phone, fax, e-mail, instant messaging, teleconferencing, videoconferencing and Web conferencing over a common IP network, offer many benefits that positively affect the organizational bottom line. In a recent survey of 766 IT professionals, 61 percent of respondents identified increased productivity and 56 percent identified operating cost reductions as the most important benefits. Other benefits cited included more reliable communication (48 percent), improved cross-functional communication (44 percent), and more effective use of remote or mobile workers (41 percent).

“Customers are constantly asking us whether unified communications solutions can really deliver these kinds of benefits,” said Conroy. "They can, so long as they are deployed in a systematic and thoughtful manner that the existing network infrastructure into consideration. At FusionStorm, we utilize an implementation methodology that helps customers maximize the value of their investments and see a rapid ROI."

For many organizations, 2009 is a pivotal year for making decisions about their communications capabilities.  In 1999, there was a significant increase in PBX replacements due to Y2K concerns.  Those PBXs are now nearing the end of their useful lives, and companies are being forced to consider their options. While it is true that organizations that haven’t already invested in VoIP may face significant up-front costs in hardware and training, these costs frequently are paid for in first-year ROI.

It’s natural to take a hard look at IT spending during a recession. However, it isn’t the time to stop spending — merely the time to reassess where and how the money is being spent. Technologies such as VoIP, unified communications, videoconferencing and telepresence deserve special attention because in addition to cutting costs, they can create business efficiencies that drive new levels of productivity, collaboration and responsiveness. That’s a bargain in any economy.