Cost, quality top businesses VoIP priorities

Cost and quality of service remain the top concerns for businesses using voice over IP.

A recent survey of 256 UK companies showed the most common driver in adopting VoIP systems was cost savings, chosen by 53 per cent of respondents.

Most organisations, however, based their decision to switch to VoIP on both cost-savings and business benefits.

Improving customer service and encouraging flexible working, cross company communication and teleworking were the next most popular reasons to use IP telephony.

When it comes to technical concerns, security took a back seat to both quality of service (the primary concern) and interoperability between products from different manufacturers (which came in second).

Smaller organisations with turnover of less than £1m had an easier time than large organisations in getting users to change habit to use the new technology, and said teleworking was a higher priority in driving their VoIP implementation.

Overall 60 per cent of businesses achieved half to all of the benefits they hoped for from their IP telephony system.

David Harvey, MD of Business Intelligence - the organisation which conducted the research - said those companies which don't consider VoIP "just a replacement phone system" had the best results.

Previous research has revealed cost savings are the main reason businesses find VoIP an attractive option.