If you’re an ambitious company or a brand new startup you’re always going to have one thing on your mind: growth.
And when it comes to scaling quickly, the first few years are critical; in fact, a bit more than half of all startups actually survive to their fourth year. So you need to get things like communication right if you’re going to flourish.
Unfortunately, when it comes to comms, growth can present a range of unforeseen issues like:
- Increasing costs
- Overly complex platforms
- Increased need for IT Support
- Multiple providers
- Slow channel scaling
So how do you establish a simplified comms strategy with minimal financial and time spend?
Your comms application
To begin with, you’re going to need to consider the application you want to use. Which gives you a couple of options. You can either:
Use a VoIP-enabled platform
There are plenty to choose from. Bandwidth’s numbers can be integrated into any one of them.
Build the application yourself
Building an application yourself isn’t an easy task, but it’s much better than getting one out of the box. Yes, there can be pitfalls and hidden costs, but building from the ground up gives you the customization and flexibility you’ll need if you want to scale up further down the line, saving you money in the long run.
If you have the budget and you need to have a bespoke application, this is the best way to go.
Your infrastructure
Once you have your application in place you’re going to need infrastructure to power it and a network to carry your calls. For this part of the process you have several options:
Do it yourself
Create the voice and messaging infrastructure required to interconnect with the PSTN in every country where you want to do business.
The problem with this option is that it means dealing with a hell of a lot of legislation and regulation, not to mention a ton of complex legal dialogue.
Go through your application provider
At first, this appears to be the most straightforward option. Global access to the PSTN is delivered via SIP trunks and cloud communications platforms will bundle this SIP connectivity as part of the service charge.
But this can become pricey in the long run.
Use a separate provider for your voice connectivity that can integrate into your comms platform
We call this approach Communications-as-a-Service. CaaS providers can extend your favorite comms platform (built or bought) into markets and ensure you benefit from the highest-quality voice. With Bandwidth, that means access to 60+ countries covering more than 90% of the global economy without having to build out any infrastructure, enabling you to move faster into the markets that matter to you.
By unbundling your communications app from your communications infrastructure, you can significantly lower your PSTN access and operational costs by running cloud SIP trunks from a CaaS provider into your platform of choice.
In fact, by adopting SIP trunks nearly half (44.9%) of organizations report to reducing their overall PSTN access spend by an average of 16.1%. In addition, overall operational costs of unified communications platforms were reported dropping by an average of 39%.
You can see where we’re heading with this right?
The advantages of separating your communications app and infrastructure
When it comes to unbundling your comms, the advantages might not be clear at first. But basically, it consists of:
- Prevent scaling costs – By unbundling your comms you get the added benefit of making sure you aren’t boxing yourself in financially when it comes to scaling. Take a look at the recent research from Nemertes on reducing PSTN costs and OpEx by as much as 63%.
- Simplified connectivity – Extend your reach into more markets without having to deal with each provider you might need to get a connection with.
- Reduced need for IT support – Network providers typically have their own support team that deals with connectivity issues, meaning you don’t need a separate comms team that will need to get bigger with your business.
- Single provider – If you have a provider that has access to numbers in the countries you might want to expand into you won’t have to go to different providers each time you want to get into a different market.
A CaaS approach gives you the best mix of cost-saving and control over your comms so you can deliver:
- 45% cheaper communication costs and new revenue-generating opportunities.
- Omni-channel marketing initiatives that deliver improved CX.
- New functionality for products and services.
It’s no small feat to scale a successful business to new markets. It takes a great deal of planning and investment to create a sustainable presence in new markets. At the heart of this planning should be a sound strategy for business communications.
