What are examples of ‘chores’ that could be passed on to an as-a-Service offering?
As I said, anything that contributes to the value of the company’s offering or to the overall culture of the organization should never be outsourced. This means you have free reign to objectively assess any activity that costs time and money that isn’t core to your business. Payroll is a great example, as is IT support or your company’s phone system. It just doesn’t always make sense to have a full-time employee on staff to make sure everyone’s anti-virus software is up to date, or a telecom engineer who can re-load your company’s phone server every time it goes down. With offerings like Communications-as-a-Service, if you are having trouble with your phone or simply need to make changes to your system, like adding an employee or new lines, you just pick up the phone and say, ‘I need this done.’ That is the beauty of as-a-Service: in addition to the flexibility it offers, you have the support of an entire team of experts who are accountable to you to handle issues and support your business, and it is properly staffed to do so.
How do as-a-Service offerings make your business better?
Your customers don’t know or aren’t concerned with the fact that you are using an as-a-Service type offering when they receive invoices or that you have a hosted phone system when they dial your phone number. Their only concern is that the service they are receiving from you is good and is what they expected. To them, it is implicit that all the other stuff works seamlessly in the background. By utilizing as-a-Service type offerings like Communications-as-a-Service, it frees you and your resources to allocate your valuable time to focus on your core offering and to build a better, superior service experience for your customers.
Mark Swanson is CEO of Telovations Inc. Reach him at [email protected].
