The need to communicate in the living species is something that we are born with it. To quench this insatiable thirst many innovations have taken place in the past. Be it a telephone, a walkie-talkie or the latest ones like that of SIP trunking, every technology has been welcomed into this world with open hearts. The offering from the ever churning industry is the hosted PBX. Though the technology offers us a great deal of features, it has given us a food for thought. A dilemma, which is better hosted PBX or the in-house. Both of the methods have features aplenty but also have their own shortcomings. Zeroing upon the right kind is a herculean task, but such decisions are the fine line between success and failures.
Show Me the Money
- If this was a boxing match, in-house PBX would have been knocked out at this round only. The cost savings provided by the hosted PBX are incomparable. The initial setup costs peanuts and maintenance even less.
- Call rates are also monthly rate dependent, based on your plan.
- In-house PBX is very costly to setup and maintenance would take up a lot of your capital resources.
- So, if the only thing you are looking in the PBX system is cost, then you might have got your answer. Otherwise read on.
Gymnast like Flexibility
- After the cost issue is dealt with, you would naturally want that your system to be flexible so that it can meet the needs of the ever changing market. In-house PBX provides such flexibility. Any provider would add the feature you would like to add in the system but this addition will happen only after every other client of the host will give a NOC to it.
- So the change you need will happen after a certain amount of delay. But In case of in-house PBX the whole equipment belongs to you. You can add or remove any service or feature you desire, it provides ultimate kind of flexibility. But one thing to consider is that the complex tasks needed to make the change would be done by your own technicians but in hosted this will be done by the provider.
- The IT team might not be well versed with all the underlying features, given the dearth of good technicians which is not farfetched, giving you ample headaches.
- With market getting so competitive it is an added headache to worry about trivial settings that PBX system might require, so I personally would recommend, Hosted PBX.
Grow As Per Need
- Can my communication system handle the expansion my business will go through? This is one big question every business asks itself. So which one of the hosted or in-house PBX can handle expansion better?
- The answer is hosted PBX. Any number of lines can be added or taken off, on the click of a button, but such is not the case with the in house PBX. All that is required is a setting oin the dashboard or a call to the provider and Voila! You are good to go.
- The IT team has to undergo rigorous procedures in order to make your system scale up or down.
- You might think that I am Pro Hosted PBX but in reality it does give you a lot of abilities and take off the burden from your shoulders.
Additional Perks
- Well this is another bout that hosted PBX wins without breaking into sweat.
- Features like call forwarding, call blocking, caller ID, IVR and many more are on offer in hosted PBX. All these features come free of cost and the provider does not ask for any cash in return.
- In-house PBX may or may not provide these features.
Conclusion
The choice of the PBX system is highly based on the environment it is going to work in. So choose the system which suits best to your needs and demands. For a run of the mill environment, hosted PBX is the logical and most suitable choice as it provides plethora of features at a very low cost.
