The days of sitting at an office desk from 9 to 5 are long gone for most small and medium-sized business (SMB) employees. People are at home, at the office, on the road, and at client sites and this makes communications with vendors, partners, prospects and customers feel stressful and complicated, fragmented.  In this complex market, it has never been more important for companies to lower their costs and still remain responsive and competitive.

There has been accelerated technological innovation to urgently cater for remote and mobile working efficiency but, in spite of this, unreliable and expensive communication systems are a challenge for many organisations, which may not have the budgets and expertise to replace outdated legacy telephone and communication systems. They’re juggling multiple connected devices, phone calls, texts, video calls, emails, faxes even – it’s a lot.

Legacy telephone infrastructure was not designed for the ways in which the world works today. Which is why companies are moving away from expensive, inflexible, on-premises communication systems to cloud telephony systems.

Cloud-based telephony solves business challenges

A cloud-based system uses the internet to make calls and can be cost-efficient and reliable. No more on-site equipment – no analogue phones, cable ducts, copper wire or optical fibre, with their installation, maintenance and upgrading burdens, or their ugly cables. The hard, upfront costs of these systems – in the thousands for a few lines – plus monthly ongoing costs are significant. Cloud systems can be used with multiple devices, including traditional phones with adaptors, and it takes only a couple of clicks to add new numbers or extensions. You get full phone system functionality wherever there is access to the internet. Data is accessed and stored in the cloud, making remote work easier and enabling business continuity. Cloud telephony systems are typically less expensive than on-premises business phone systems , and they can grow or shrink according to need. Versatile and scalable, they can fit any business need, with ease.

But beware of the downsides

Cloud-based telephony systems are becoming popular as a result of the benefits, but beware of the downsides.

  • If they are not simple to use, they’re just another hassle. Technological skills are, perhaps surprisingly, often a challenge for users. For others, managing existing scattered communication platforms and options means they turn away from anything new and complicated. Whose got time to study manuals or watch training videos?

  • Server shutdowns: This one’s obvious – if your virtual world shuts down, so does your phone system. Potentially disastrous business disruption can ensue. You need a service provider with availability guarantees.

  • Security: Older PBX hardware was not immune to hackers, and cloud-based systems have the same problem. You’ll want to make sure that your service provider has implemented industry-leading security measures to keep your data safe.

  • Poor voice quality: The advantages of cloud telephony mean little if connections are dropped and conversations garbled. Configuration errors, network congestion, and faulty queuing can cause this, so you need an optimized network and an easy way to identify and solve problems if they arise. Choose a provider that pays serious attention to network capacity and takes a proactive approach to preventing the congestion that leads to poor voice quality.

Cloudya is designed to solve these challenges 

  • Easy, flexible, affordable

    Setup is easy – devices are auto-provisioned in minutes, with zero-touch thanks to plug and play technology. And the intuitive interface with a single phone number and inbox for reaching every employee is very easy to use, significantly lowering the barrier to entry.

    With a 30-day rolling contract, you pay only for what you use, independent of device. There are As-a-Service capabilities, with easy capacity management for upscaling and downscaling on demand.

    Don’t worry about constant updates either. Cloudya, the cloud-based telephone system from NFON, comes absolutely maintenance free.

    And perhaps the best part is that you can forget paying unexpected or additional costs when you want to upgrade your telephone system. It’s automatic, cloud-based and up to date with this solution.

  • Resilient, secure

    NFON’s ISO-certified telecommunication servers are located in secure, tripled datacenters in Germany, which allows us to offer an SLA that guarantees 99.9% availability. Cloudya is built on fully redundant architecture. With access to expert 24/7 support, Cloudya also helps you continue working efficiently at all times.

    VoIP calls are encrypted with strong algorithms and secure keys. Our personal-data processing agreement complies with GDPR and numerous technical security mechanisms practically eliminate VoIP frauds.

  • Voice quality assured

    Our platform delivers excellent quality of voice services, with in-house service management from end to end and regular quality checks by independent auditors.

Case studies

Cloudya from NFON helps you reduce costs, improve productivity and maximise profits, as it did for Spanish managed office provider Alba3, who turned to NFON to provide reliable, scalable business communications.

Global telecom research firm Analysys Mason chose NFON for a more reliable, flexible and cost-effective telephone system for its globally dispersed team.

Industrial chemicals producer Noyen improved internal and external communication by 100 per cent.