Recession-Proofing Your Business – Part 2

In a previous entry, I gave some suggestions on how companies like Alteva can take a better approach to its business on a day-to-day basis. In continuing with the “do more with less” mentality, I’d like to focus on just how much a hosted solution can help improve business efficiencies by creating more productivity out of your employees for less cost.

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a customer of ours that we’ve had since the company’s inception. We started to notice that they were taking a little longer to pay and there was a short discussion about late fees. In the end, but we ended up changing the contract terms, but if these terms were not met, there would be extended late fees. I mentioned this in my last blog, but it is important to make sure you have the right processes and core components in place to make your business survive in this recession. Don’t be afraid to look at customers or other vendors relationships that you have that are not profitable for you and make them profitable. Look to renegotiate your contracts, adjust their products/solutions or possibly even let them go. It’s important to analyze each client individually on the expense side.

Who knows how long a recession can last or when and if you’ll come in contact with a company that does poor business. You need to make your business profitable no matter that the economy’s state is. It’s the only way you can survive. Other companies might take those risks, but we look at our accounting functions every week and we make sure we are staying in the model and don’t overspend. It’s also important that we maximize the dollars that we do spend in order for our customers to love that product.

Do more with less. Create more productivity out of your employees with less expense. Ours product provides that service by increasing employee capabilities to make sure they have more time to work for you and that their communications to customers and colleagues are more effective. By offering additional capabilities such as call recording and reporting, document sharing, video conference calls, etc. – we are able to create a productivity enhancement for you and your customers. By providing reporting metrics, you can also reshape how your people are using their communications systems to their customers or internally. How can you adjust those communications or those call centers? You need the right information to make the right decisions.

Take video conferencing for example with its real time video capabilities...I can’t think of what could be any more effective than having everyone sitting in one room. Multiple people from multiple cities on one call, plus desktop and document sharing. Think about all the expenses saved and more importantly, time. No air fair to fly to cities, travel time, hotel stays, car service – resources are being saved financially and physically. Employees working from home are a great value and can offer a huge reduction in office expenses, commuting expenses, and even salary requirements.

Not only can this type of product save your money in your pocket, it’s also environmentally friendly. I blogged about this previously (The Green in Business and I Don’t Mean Money), and I talked about how businesses have the opportunity and responsibility to be good stewards of the environment. With our product, there is a big cost savings in power consumption because it uses less petroleum consumption compared to a traditional premise based PBX. All of the hardware used to create a PBX. He has more than 10 years of senior management and entrepreneurial experience in telecom, IT and managed services. Since 1994, William has been involved in executive levels of leadership within the technology and telecommunications sectors.