Savatar Study: VoIP & the SMB

I received the following interesting release from Savatar regarding their new SMB market/VoIP analysis.

The timing couldn't be better. TMCnet, together with Covad, is launching VoIP for SMB, the newest source for small and medium-sized businesses looking for more information regarding VoIP. 

Here's a taste of the release.

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) who have deployed VoIP systems are saying their new converged voice and data infrastructure has met or exceeded expectations, but not for the reasons VoIP providers have been touting.  While providers continue to promote features, SMBs ranked system management capabilities at the top of their list when asked how well their system performed. 

For those SMBs considering VoIP, their perceptions of the technology are clear: they want lower total cost of ownership and better system management.  But providers trying to sell to these SMB are still delivering confusing messages about feature sets that the SMBs don't understand.

A study of 560 SMB decision makers, and an analysis of the product and pricing strategies of major VoIP providers, conducted by the Boston, Mass.-based consulting firm Savatar reveals a stark contrast in SMB's perception versus reality of the benefits of VoIP. 

Seventy-one percent of the 84 SMBs surveyed that had deployed VoIP said their system met their expectations; 22 percent said their system exceeded their initial expectations.  SMBs say their VoIP system performed "very well" or "well" for routing (76 percent), capacity (69 percent), moves, adds and changes (68 percent), multi-location management capabilities (61 percent), and cost (60 percent).

In contrast, those companies who have not deployed VoIP (476 companies surveyed) don't perceive its value nor do they have a strong imperative to implement the technology.

For more on this fascinating report, check out the consulting firm's Web site. And make sure to bookmark VoIP for SMB.