We take a rather complex term and break it down into its feature components using the example of the Virtual Office.

As we mentioned in a previous post on cloud computing, the term itself is hotly debated and its definitions are segmented. So let’s use the example of how Cloud Computing has allowed for the “Virtual Office.”

Cloud computing, at its core, is the ability for someone to take a service like a business phone system and “rent” its usage to a wide variety of customers . Because it’s cheaper and more resource efficient for a single vendor to offer services this way, it means that the end consumers have to pay far less than traditional, non-cloud based services of a similar nature.

RingCentral Office is a perfect example. Let’s say a 20 employee company is growing and wants to expand in a new location cost effectively – one that will also have remote satellite offices where employees will work from home.

Traditionally, this would mean that this company has to:

1. Order a new punch-key PBX (phone system) from a traditional hardware vendor who would charge about $1,000 per phone/desk.
2. Call the local telecommunications company to install a T1 line which contains 24 working phone lines. While the cost of this T1 could range from $300 to $700 per month, the real pain is the installation time.
3. After the hardware has been configured and installed, the same vendor that sold the phone system offers training to the company employees (for additional training fees).
4. After the phone system is bought, the T1 lines from the phone company have been installed and the employees trained on the new phone system, then it’s time for the remote offices and on-the-road sales staff to “integrate” into the new office phone system. And how do they do that? By learning how to forward phone calls on their new office desk phones, of course!
5. Any new moves, adds, or changes (known as MACs) to the phone system often require that the vendor who initially sold the phone system come out (referred to in the industry as “the white van”) and make the changes to the phone system itself.

If this company subscribed to a Business Phone System that runs “in the cloud”, the benefits are compelling:

1. Since the hardware & software that controls a business-class phone system is now delivered over the Internet as a service, this company gets fully-configured VoIP phones delivered without having to buy anything else. The only left to do is connect the phones to the Internet.
2. Since the VoIP phones also have a web interface that controls the phone and call-flow, there’s no training of employees on the new phone system required. It’s very easy to master a VoIP phone. One can even take an interactive demo to see just how easy it is.
3. These Business Phone Systems can be added to your smartphones as well. Remote office workers and road warriors can now truly “integrate” with their office desk phones. Apps like RingCentral Mobile for iPhone can be downloaded and set to show the business Caller ID, even from a personal phone.

Now that’s a simple example of how cloud computing is allowing the virtual office to be “virtual.” Because with cloud computing for business phone systems, every phone whether it’s in the headquarters or living on a smart-phone are all virtual phone systems.

The revolution has begun!

This post offers 3 simple, but powerfully effective ways that even first time
entrepreneurs can do to achieve higher profits, attract new clients,
and build your brand.

1) Will I need more than one extension?

Offering toll free numbers for sales and local numbers for support are small, but critically important aspects of your brand marketing that should not be ignored. In fact, because the rise of Google Local Business listings and other local business directories have grown in everyday use by customers, it’s critical to choose your business numbers in the initial phases of starting your business or new division.

Even if you’re a micro business, you will need to wear many hats taking on sales and support roles. Having more than one phone number offers a professional appearance to your prospective customers and you can place them on your business card as well as your website. It provides a sense of security to your customer base that there is depth to your organization. As your business grows, having unique numbers for sales and support means that you can easily forward the toll free number to your new employee. Best of all, online phone services like RingCentral allow you to track the phone activity of that number, so you can keep track of your contractors and employees productivity as well as get clear metrics.

Even a very small business should be asking:

• How many different phone numbers would one expect at a larger company if they were selling a product similar to me?

  I know many entrepreneurs would say, “I don’t have any competitors.” but for the sake of this exercise, let’s pretend

• Could the 3 to 5 extensions I think I need grow to 5 to 10 extensions in 6 months?

  A good gauge is to have 1.5 extensions per employee. This takes into account the different fax numbers, roll-over extensions, and different numbers one would use for various marketing campaigns.

RingCentral offers a ground-floor start-up business a service called RingCentral Online. There are several packages that are well suited for those companies that may grow from 1 to 5 employees within 12 months and quickly need extensions for various departments.

If you anticipate that your growth will go from 5 to 10 employees in 12 months, I would suggest a higher-platform service such as RingCentral’s 4-Line Office Phone System.

2) How heavily am I going to fax?

Believe it or not, faxing costs for ink & paper as well as the human labor costs of organizing faxed sales contracts can be one of the most costly line items for a small business!

Also, as a rule of thumb, integrating your fax + toll free number + support number is not just ideal, but smart. It will give you an edge over your competitors who do not follow this ideology. The following are verticals or organization types that we’ve seen gain significant time savings and better sales-flow with electronic fax services that are tied to their business phone systems:

• Legal (Attorneys save time and money by having all faxes automatically saved as electronic records that can be easily forwarded, sent in emails, or printed).
• Sales (Faxed contracts and repeats of “did you get my fax?” are things of the past).
• Support Services (Being able to send forms and letters with a mouse-click instead of a physical fax not only saves time & money, it’s better for the environment ).
• Start-Ups (You are going to sign a lot of contracts whether they be NDAs, Sales Agreements, financial statements, fund-raising documents, or general marketing documents. Keeping track of all of them not only makes organizational sense for a business striving for ultimate efficiency – if the company undergoes due diligence for venture capital dollars or a potential acquisition, having everything recorded electronically makes life way, way easier in what is usually a time of stress & anxiety for founders).

Check out RingCentral’s easy integration to a small business phone system plan.

3) How many minutes am I going to need?

There is a phenomenon for people on vacation which gives credence to the old adage: “plan to spend more than you plan to spend.”

It’s tempting to sign in for a plan that doesn’t give you enough options but offers cheap, flat rate long distance. Or sign up for a feature-rich plan that locks you into a paradigm where upgrades and add-ons are cumbersome and expensive.

If you anticipate more than 300 minutes of phone time per employee (that’s only 1.25 hour per week) than a RingCentral Online plan is OK for up to 10 extensions. But if your organization does a considerable amount of time on sales & support, you’ll want a service like RingCentral Office. The flat rates savings are heard to beat, and there won’t be any nasty long distance bills on your monthly statements.

Photos by cirofono and ToniVC

The basics 101 by John Sung Kim

Sending faxes over the internet really just means that while traditional faxes send text as images, the combination of an internet fax service such as RingCentral’s with Adobe PDF Software means that those faxes can be read as text. For attorneys and many small businesses where compliance and record keeping are essential, this is a large step in not only saving money on fax costs, but being able to store their documents and contracts as digital, readable files.

Internet Fax Functionality

One can scan a document as one normally does in a fax, but in a traditional fax the data sent over the telephone line is not recordable. Once a fax is sent, there’s no way to resend it unless it lives in the short-term memory of the fax machine itself (which are notoriously low-computing machines).

In an internet based fax, the data sent is over the internet and that means that documents and image faxed can be stored permanently and automatically into an e-mail inbox or folder. What I particularly like about RingCentral’s Online Fax Service is that they’re also a virtual phone system provider. I can see a record of all the faxes ever sent or received. That alone is a big deal for any small law firm or sales team that relies on getting faxed contracts.

And if the notoriously unreliable fax machines and transmission are at best 95% successful per dial-tone ring over the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) while internet faxing is 99.9% reliable, no one should hear, “did you get that fax?”

Adobe Acrobat Functionality

Because faxes are sent and received as images, one didn’t have the ability to send a fax and then edit it (or store it) as a Word document on a computer. Sounds ridiculous, but think about it – it’s true. Only until Adobe Acrobat (and only recent versions started to do this very well) could one take an internet-based fax transmission (basically a picture of a document) and quickly decode it back into text to be saved as a Microsoft Word document. (They would probably prefer you to save it as an Adobe PDF doc, but still – they’re both good and work just fine).

Did I mention that it saves paper and is better for the environment?

(*I should disclose here that RingCentral hired me to write for them, but we do use RingCentral in our offices as our primary PBX).

These great iPhone apps will help you survive the daily grind.

The introduction of the iPhone into everyday life has done more than make it easier to contact your friends and make you an amateur photojournalist. It has also helped immensely in the business world. We wanted to tell you about some iPhone apps that you might not know about that will help your business run more smoothly and boost productivity at or away from the office.

1. Business Productivity Booster & Tracker ($4.99)

This app is similar to TimeLogger, but goes one step further. If you need to track several employees and check on their productivity, then Business Productivity Booster & Tracker is the tool for you. You can create productivity groups and factors for each group. Add resources into the groups. Track by day, week or monthly. View a progress chart. Lastly, you can export a .csv file for easy printing. This app is a must for any Project Coordinator.

2. Evernote (Free)

Imagine that you are at a meeting across the continent. Your are taking notes while someone writes on a whiteboard and another person hands you 20 business cards. Not to mention that you have met 15 people who you need to know for the company dinner the next evening. Have no fear… Evernote is here! This app will let you take photos of the whiteboard, business cards and your notes and render them text searchable. This feature is also available if you want to leave some vocal notes. It also lets you organize the files to find it easily in the future. And the company dinner? Take a picture of everyone and put in their name so you can study it for later. Great for Partners in a firm that are constantly out of town and meeting potential clients.

3. iXpenseIt Lite (Free)

Do you have problems keeping track of all of those receipts and charges either on the road or off? The iXpenseIt Lite is a great way to help you manage your expenses. A bonus is that you can add a budget beforehand to make sure you don’t exceed your means. This is a must have if you are constantly flying across the country for meetings and sales opportunities. Any CFO or Money Manager would love having this app for their employees.

4. Mocha Remote Desktop Lite (Free)

There are times when I am sitting in Starbucks and the person sitting next to me realizes that I am a computer engineer. We strike up a conversation and ultimately, they ask me for some samples of my work. If I don’t have my laptop with me, then I can easily login to my home PC and show examples of what I do. That’s what Mocha Remote Desktop Lite is for; it gives you a way to access your home PC for whatever reason. I have frequently wanted to send someone an e-mail, but worried that I wouldn’t remember when I got home later. With Mocha, I can send the e-mail right then and there. One less thing to worry about. This is perfect for those Salesmen who are always on-the-go.

5. RingCentral Mobile (Free for RingCentral Customers)

This application creates a Virtual PBX Business Phone System on your cell phone. RingCentral Mobile gives you an auto attendant, on-hold music, customized greetings, call screening and a dial-by-name directory to give you call answering that professional polish. You can also use a toll free number to call from your cell phone. Need to send a virtual fax? No problem. Need to forward a call? Easy as pie. It really is like having an office in your pocket and helps you to organize everything. This app is perfect for executives who need to handle all of the calls and messages they have to deal with on a daily basis.

Make your iPhone your new office assistant and see your productivity soar.

Faxing has become one of those technologies that you can’t do without.

Do you ever have those moments in life when you wonder how people survived in the past without a certain technology? I often ask my mother how she grew up on the Texas coast without air conditioning and she always says “we didn’t know any better”.

Every time I send a fax online, I wonder the same thing. The introduction of the fax to the mainstream business world started a worldwide shift in how we do business. Things didn’t halt for a few days waiting on the client to get the contract and then have it sent back. It set up the current ideology that we can have things now rather than later.

If you needed to get a document to someone in the past, you would have to hire a courier or package delivery service especially if it needed to get there overnight. This involved putting the document together, calling the courier, giving it to them only to have them put it on a plane (or delivery truck), hope and pray that something bad doesn’t happen and then have the document handed to the person it was meant for.

If you lived close, this was a fairly quick process, but what if you wanted to get a document from Miami to Seattle in the late-1950s? Very rarely would it happen overnight unless you sent one of your employees to Seattle and even that might be pushing it.

Luckily, the fax machine has changed all of that. Many think that it was invented in the 1980s and they will be surprised to find out that fax technology was actually created in 1843 by a little known Scotsman named Alexander Bain. The telegraph machine had been created by Samuel Morse in 1835 and Mr. Bain used that technology to help evolve his idea of “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs”.

While the telegraph machine sent dots and dashes across the world, Alexander Bain’s machine used a stylus mounted on a pendulum that would scan a flat metal surface containing images.

This was a breakthrough in communications during a time when new inventions seemed to happen every day. Since that time, the fax machine was improved upon by several different inventors.

• 1850 – F.C. Blakewell invented the Copying Telegraph.
• 1860 – The first fax was sent between Paris and Lyon using a Pantelegraph, invented by Giovanni Caselli.
• 1895 – A watchmaker from America named Ernest Hummel invented the Telediagraph.
• 1902 – Dr. Arthur Korn took a big leap when he invented the Photoelectric System.
• 1914 – Edouard Belin realized the benefits of using remote fax for journalism.
• 1924 – Politicians got involved and started using the Telephotography Machine to send political convention photographs to newspapers. AT&T developed the machine.
• 1926 – RCA created the Radiophoto which faxed documents using radiowaves.
• 1947 – The very first successful fax machine as we know it was invented by Alexander Muirhead.
• 1955 – First radio fax transmission was sent to the other side of the continent.

In the past 5-10 years, the biggest improvement has been online fax machine technology. It helps to save on paper costs and can be lightning fast. It also allows the receiver to file the fax virtually so that it can be referenced quickly in the future. You simply send the fax with your computer and the receiver gets it. What could be faster than that? Telepathic faxing, maybe?

The next time you are sending a fax, be it physically or by internet fax, think about all of those thinkers before you that worked hard to bring this technology to fruition and ask yourself, how did we live without it?

Photo by cliff1066™