Connectivity is crucial to many modern businesses. Whether it’s desk phones, mobile phones, or high speed Internet access, these connections are how businesses find, sell to, service, and support customers. But for businesses, there’s not one right type of connectivity.
For many, there are three or four types of connections that are crucial to optimizing their network access. High speed Internet and cellular network access are modern-day staples, but they aren’t necessarily the only connections your business needs. Data-heavy businesses may also need Fibre connections, and public-facing spaces or employee rest areas might even want to add television to the mix.
The Canadian market for these business services is a vibrant and competitive one, giving businesses lots of options for how and from whom to procure their data, communications, and television needs. A business can source any of those options from a laundry list of providers, and indeed, the first instinct may be to shop for the best deal on Internet, phone, and wireless separately.
But for many businesses, there are compelling reasons to go with one provider that can meet all of the business’ needs. From cost to integration, from ease-of-use to business continuity, there’s a strong case to be made for one vendor relationship to manage all your business’ connectivity needs.
Cost it out
In most business decisions, cost is an important factor, and going with a single vendor can have benefits for both the short-term and long-term costs of connectivity for your business.
And while a smaller monthly bill is an easy benefit to identify, there are other cost savings to be had by bundling services with a single vendor. By having just one vendor relationship to manage and just one number to call when you need education, information, or technical support, businesses can reduce the total cost of ownership for their network subscriptions. So you can spend less time managing your network connections, and more time working on that next big project to add value to the business.
Flexibility and Redundancy
Being able to communicate with the world, and especially with customers and suppliers, is crucial to any business. At first blush, the thought of having “all your eggs in one basket” when it comes to connectivity may seem a risky strategy when it comes to ensuring access uptime. But one provider does not mean one network.
For example, Rogers offers businesses network access options, which includes access to the company’s ultra high-speed fibre optic, cable, or wireless networks. That gives you a wide variety of connectivity options under a single vendor relationship, and provides you with flexibility to offer appropriate service levels by location and application. It also provides an easy way to provide redundancy and ensure uptime – for example, you can easily ensure business continuity by switching critical traffic over to the wireless network if there’s any disruption in your primary business connection.
Know Who to Call
When there are problems with network connectivity, seeking support from multiple vendors can quickly devolve into a “he said, she said” game of finger-pointing with the customer stuck in the middle, playing referee between two disagreeing sides while their mission-critical applications remain down. Having a single vendor partner means it’s clear who to reach out to for any network-related issues, and lets you benchmark network uptime and performance against clear and consistent service level agreement figures.
So while the first instinct might be to shop for the various types of network connectivity your business needs separately, the smart buy might well be to combine services under a single vendor for cost savings, flexibility, and simplicity. It can help keep costs down, and it can free up your time in IT to handle higher-value projects.
Because nobody ever got that next big promotion because the network remained up and running. So the less time and effort you’re spending keeping connections running smoothly, the more time you have to work on the next big project to drive more business value.
