Pros and Cons of the Modern-Day Business Phone
Rampant smartphone adoption means landlines are an easy expense cut for businesses. But working from your personal phone adds new risks. (Have you ever sent a text/email to the wrong person?) Our EasyTech associates have identified these important factors to be considered for mobile security.
Times were, folks liked to keep their business and personal lives apart—the office was an office, the home was a home. Today, these lines can get a bit blurred. The advent of mobile communication—smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the rise of telecommuting—has turned the whole world into one giant work environment.
Such technological developments are certainly a boon to business productivity, but do they come at a cost? Here, we’ll look at the upside, and downside, of keeping your business and personal phone lines separate.
Business Communication in the New Millennium
Before making the decision to pull the plug on your company phone and do everything, business and personal, from your smartphone, we should take a look at how businesses communicate in the 21st century. Inventions like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Skype, and videoconferencing have revolutionized the way we talk. Today’s business phone is a lot more than just a handset and dial.
- VoIP. VoIP is a simple concept with a complicated name. Plainly put, VoIP lets you talk through the Internet rather than through the phone lines. With this technology, you can attach your landline to your computer or use the computer itself to make calls. Likewise, your recipients can be computer, mobile phone, or landline users. The advantage is that VoIP calls can be made to almost anyone anywhere, and are much cheaper than standard calls. Many are free, even overseas.
- Skype. Skype is a proprietary VoIP application that has become very popular in recent years. The software is free to download, and calls made to other Skype users are free as well. Calls to mobile phones and landlines cost only a few cents a minute. With the recent addition of videoconferencing capability, Skype is a handy tool for the modern business.
- Videoconferencing. With the cost of travel rising precipitously in recent years, the prospect of face-to-face videoconferencing has excited many businesses. Only a few years ago though, this prospect was marred by technological limitations by which video signals were regularly lost or scrambled and picture quality was poor. Recent advances in the carrying capacity of broadband Internet, however, have improved videoconferencing a great deal.
Skype and other developers offer low-priced, high-quality video communications to anyone with a computer and a webcam. With Skype, up to 10 people can videoconference at once.
So What’s the Downside?
Given that today’s businesses have these many tools at their disposal—allowing for inexpensive, quality communications—what’s wrong with keeping your business and personal phones separate? Why are many people ditching the business line and doing everything through their smartphone?
It’s really just a matter of personal preference. For some, the advantage of using one phone for all calls seems simpler and more streamlined. Others find that a dedicated business line with VoIP capabilities lets them keep better track of company matters. It may be easier, for example, to track business expenses that way.
Whichever way you go, staying in touch with customers, partners, and fellow employees is easier than ever.