Benefits of outsourcing

Large enterprises sometimes opt to purchase, implement and maintain their own conference call systems in-house, rather than using a fully-managed, outsourced service from a provider like 247meeting. These in-house systems can be part of an existing product (eg from the existing PABX vendor) or a standalone system.

There are some issues to consider before looking at an in-house system, all of which are mitigated by using an outsourced conference call service provider:

Managing conference system capacity:

Any in-house conference call system will have a limit of concurrent lines. While this may appear ample when being implemented, can it scale up without notice with variable user demand (ie in the event of a lot of user demand will callers not get through to it).

Managing capacity of existing telephony connections:

An in-house system is likely require E1/T1 connectivity or the equivalent from your telecoms provider. If each conference call user in your company typically has 4 guests on their calls, will you have enough capacity to satisfy all callers (or will your regular PABX become saturated as a result of high levels of conference calls)?

Providing multiple international dial-ins with sufficient capacity

247meeting has agreements with over 40 carriers in more than 100 countries to provide local dial-in access numbers. To administer an in-house system you have the choice of making these agreements with multiple carriers (which is costly financially and in terms of resources), or forcing all international guests to dial into your country to access conference calls with your company.

Managing user accounts (adding new, deleting old)

Depending on the type of system, this can be complicated without any web-based interfaces readily available for administration staff to set up new accounts.

Troubleshooting/Maintenance:

You must allow for resources to maintain any in-house system once the initial installation is carried out. If such resources (eg an IT administrator) leave the company, will you be stuck with a system that no-one is familiar with?

Future-proofing and Scalability:

Will your in-house system be compatible with new technologies as they arise (eg Unified Communications, Web Conferencing, presence etc). A dedicated Conference Service Provider such as 247meeting is constantly re-investing in its technology to keep itself at the forefront of the market.