Most small business owners have taken the adage "It takes money to make money" to heart. Capital costs make it difficult for the little guy to compete against larger enterprises and can sink the sturdiest of ships. Tools such as network infrastructure, data security and, increasingly, sophisticated telephony have been priced out of the reach of many smaller companies. Many of them compete in markets dominated by big business, and now want access to the same solutions their competitors are deploying. "Traditionally, the telecoms haven't been set up to address the small business market because it's labour-intensive and offers very small margins," says Jon Arnold, an independent telecom and VoIP analyst. "It's been a neglected space, but now we're starting to see a variety of packaged solutions emerging from all kinds of different sources."
Indeed, the telecoms, cable companies, software developers and hardware manufacturers have begun to pay close attention to Canada's under-serviced small business market. So what's on offer?
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS From a cable company perspective, re-routing an infrastructure that already passes under a large portion of the small business market makes sense. Rogers's acquisition of Sprint Canada two years ago gave the company telecom capabilities and has enabled it to roll out innovative telephony products. "Rogers has been very successful in offering voice over IP in the home, and they've built up their technology and established a good track record that they can now pitch to the business market," says Arnold. "The line has now been crossed, and people are beginning to realize that cable companies provide far more than television services."
Rogers' latest small business solution is Easy IP, which combines Internet access, voice service with unlimited local calling and bundle long distance minutes, e-mail service, IP PBX handsets and full implementation, maintenance and support. "Easy IP is a hosted, integrated communications solution that delivers converged voice and data network access," says Sarah Bryant, vice-president of small business marketing for Rogers. "We have a number of business packages that provide basic telephony connectivity, as well as the ability to include cable or DSL Internet access."
Easy IP starts as low as $74 a work station per month and includes a site inspection and adjustments to existing network setups to ensure seamless integration. The standard solution also includes a feature that distributes incoming calls to both a user's desktop and cellular telephone simultaneously, ensuring that no call is missed. As well, incremental productivity applications can be added to the package, including Internet fax, Web hosting and secure backup. "We understand that cash flow can be a concern for small businesses, so we're eliminating the barrier that they face in upgrading their telephony infrastructure by amortizing the installation fees into the single price per seat," says Bryant. "The sweet spot for us for that solution is anywhere between five and 49 employees, which is really ideal in terms of the combinations it offers."
CISCO SYSTEMS The hosted solution offered by Rogers is one alternative to the more costly on-premise offerings of such companies as Cisco. Three years ago, Cisco began focusing on the SMB market and, in 2007, brought out a series of new products. Among them is the new Cisco Smart Business Communications System, an IP-enabled telephony service that rides on a local area network (LAN). The service combines new hardware products, integrated communications applications and system management tools that essentially provide communications building blocks for small businesses. "This is Cisco's first system designed specifically to meet the needs of small business, and it incorporates voice, data, video, security and wireless applications on a single platform," says Rick Graham, Cisco Canada's area VP for distribution and channel operations. "The solution is quite scalable so, depending on the number of users, it's basically a matter of understanding what features and functionality they want enabled."
