From a definition standpoint Total Cost of Ownership or TCO is the measurement of how much a technology costs to own, manage and operate. When it comes to your phone system this is crucial in evaluating a solution. You want to gain the lowest TCO when you are looking at a new phone system. The lower you get your TCO, the more significant the gains you will achieve in regards to your company’s overall costs. And we all know that the goal of a business is to create more revenue then costs, which equals profit. So getting your TCO low is important. Actually, 81% of consumers want to see quantified proof of the business value for a solution.
So how do you evaluate TCO? What are the costs you need to look into in regards to TCO? Our partner ShoreTel broke down how to evaluate TCO into 4 categories. These categories include Operational Implementation, Upfront Training, Maintenance and Assurance, and System Management. See below for how they evaluate each and why it goes into your overall total cost of ownership.
Operational Implementation
To begin evaluating your TCO you need to look at what it is going to cost for you to get your system up and running. Your operational implementation costs consists of how much you will spend when it comes to installing each phone and its housing.
Upfront Training
Once your phone system is installed, you and your employees need to learn how to use it. While using a phone is pretty simple and everyone knows how to do it, there are aspects of business phone systems you will need to learn. This becomes even more important when it comes to administration training. This training is specific to how you will maintain and troubleshoot your system.
Maintenance and Assurance
Problems will arise, that is just the nature of things. Eventually something in regards to your system will require some sort of maintenance. What you want to find out here is what solution requires the little of maintenance and how much will it cost to do so.
System Management
Now what is it going to cost for you to hire someone to maintain your system? Are you doing it or are you hiring a IT person/team? What will their salary be? You need to consider the cost of the employee/employees that are keeping your system operational.
Reducing your costs as much as possible should be one of your main objectives when evaluating a new phone system. Examining the TCO of the various solutions can help you understand how much you will be spending in total when it comes to your system. While one system might be more expensive to purchase, the TCO of it can be significantly lower. You need to look at both the costs in terms of the short and long run. Reviewing a system in this manner is the only way you can truly understand how much you will be spending with your new system.