OfficeVenue: cost benefits

OfficeVenue is designed to facilitate communication and team collaboration when personnel are working at multiple locations. Locations may include branch offices, client premises or individual homes. Traditionally, remote workers have relied on dial-up connections to provide access to data at the company’s head office/operations centre and to support voice calls to their colleagues at other sites.

With an OfficeVenue solution, all personnel are connected via a managed IP network. The managed IP network is used to link offices, individual remote workers, partners and associates. The managed IP network[1] is implemented using fixed price tariffs to ensure that there are no metered (per minute) call charges and that charges are independent of the volume of traffic.

With this communications infrastructure, considerable cost savings can result from:

Elimination of metered data access charges

All users, regardless of location, have VPN[2] access to the company’s IT systems. Each has unlimited access to the company’s network without incurring metered call charges.

Elimination of metered voice call charges

By using VoIP [3] technology, voice call charges are eliminated for all intra-company calls, regardless of employee location.

OfficeVenue tracks personnel and ensures that the least cost path (VoIP) is used preferentially whenever the parties communicating are accessible via the managed IP network. The need for internal telephone directories is eliminated.

Other cost savings can result from:

• Reduced training costs (OfficeVenue is easy and intuitive to use)
• Reduced support costs (OfficeVenue users are protected from the intricacies and complexity of the underlying technologies)

Some organisations find that with the features available in OfficeVenue, personnel can spend more time out of the office (e.g. at home or at clients’ premises), this results in additional cost savings through:

• Reduced office space requirements
• Reduced travelling/parking costs
• Reduced taxes (e.g. Climate Change Levy)

On top of this, it is not unusual for individuals to spend between 20 and 40% of their standard working day travelling to/from work. In many cases this can be eliminated or substantially reduced. Over 75% of us put up with traffic congestion each week[4].

Some employers claim substantial reductions in staff turnover and absenteeism resulting from giving their employees more flexibility in their work location. C

[1] ‘IP’ or ‘Internet Protocol’ is the messaging standard adopted by devices communicating via the Internet. ‘IP’ is the de facto standard for many types of data communication.
[2] A ‘Virtual Private Network’ is a secure method of communication via the Internet or via a managed IP network
[3] ‘VoIP’ or ‘Voice over IP’ is a technique for carrying voice calls over the Internet or over a managed IP network
[4] Chart 9.6, National Statistics—Focus on Personal Travel 1992–2000