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July 15, 2015

Looking for Better Costs on New Deployments? ShoreTel Has Some Great News


By Steve Anderson
Contributing TMCnet Writer

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Every company would like to save money where ever it happens to be possible, and why not? Saving money boosts profitability, as long as revenues stay relatively static, and even if revenues drop a bit, cutting expenses keeps the profit margins static at the same time. Communications services are often one big target for cost cutting, and for those looking to save some money here, a new study from Nemertes Research has one word in mind: ShoreTel (News - Alert).


The Nemertes study had some noteworthy findings involved, perhaps the biggest of which was that, in terms of first year costs and in five year run costs alike, ShoreTel had the best results out of a field of eight competitors for both simple phone systems and for unified communications (UC) systems. That's no mean feat, but the news kept rolling. For both simple phone and UC, ShoreTel came in with the lowest operational costs, and for on-premises UC, it also had the lowest implementation costs.

Said to be part of an annual study known as the IP Telephony and UC study, Nemertes' research found that organizations are on average spending less on a year-to-year comparative basis, mostly thanks to large amounts of competition in the field.  A migration to cloud-based systems also seems to be a major contributor to the pricing structures. Nemertes found that first-year costs for IP telephony with ShoreTel are a mere $566, which sounds great by itself, and compares nicely to a median price of $717 across all the vendors studied. Better yet, Nemertes also found that ShoreTel keeps the lowest prices in first-year operational costs regardless of the size of the rollout involved. On-premises UC deployments come in similarly well, with lowest implementation and operational costs.

Nemertes Research president Robin Gareiss offered up some comment around the results of the study, saying “What's important to highlight is that this research is based on what companies are actually spending on their solutions. Operational costs are the most important of all, and organizations using ShoreTel spend significantly less to operate their systems than those who use other providers. Based on the data, ShoreTel customers spend less initially and over time on their solutions.”

Image via Shutterstock

Naturally, it's not always about costs. But considering that ShoreTel not only represents the lowest cost to get in much of the time but also the lowest costs to keep going, that's certainly a point in its favor. But there are also issues of product, and issues of customer service and even overall experience. We recently saw as much with studies out of Singapore showing that the biggest concerns for those users were price and available plans, with customer service coming in behind those points. Given the level of competition seen in the market, though, it will likely pay to focus on every aspect of the customer experience, from price to customer service, just to fend off the competitors.

For the time being, though, ShoreTel is looking like a great alternative for those looking for a new communications provider—or perhaps as a great prod to get a better deal out of a different provider. Great prices are a good thing in most any market, and may well end up setting the tempo in the rest of the market from there.




Edited by Dominick Sorrentino
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