A panel of experts presented everything from outsourcing to power savings to better contract negotiation.

When an enterprise looks for savings in their communications budget, there are two possibilities, one-time and continuing savings. An Enterprise Connect panel in Orlando 2011, "Top Five Ways to Save Money on Communications" was the stimulus for this article. Robin Gareiss of Nemertes Research, Doug Carolus of N'Compass Solutions, Stephen Leaden of Leaden Associates and I all presented our recommendations to reduce communications costs. The panel was moderated by Byron Battles of the Battles Group. Although we were asked to present just 5 ideas for the presentation, we went overboard and delivered 8 ideas in detail and mentioned another 6 savings ideas.

Some of the recommendations appear to be modest in their savings but can add up if applied across the board in a large enterprise. Small enterprises may benefit even more because the IT staff is stretched thinly and may not have found time to investigate the potential savings. The savings are listed in the order they were presented. The speaker's name is next to the recommendation title. I have added my own comments to each presentation.

Selecting Low Power IP Phones (Gary Audin)
You can save by selecting the right low power IP phone. Power over Ethernet (PoE) power ratings are classed in three levels of power consumption of IP phones:

1. Class 1 consumes under 4 watts (very few IP phones)
2. Class 2 consumes 4 to 7 watts (most IP phones are in this category)
3. Class 3 consumes greater than 7 watts (these are older multi-featured IP phones)

The following recommendations produce continuous savings:

* Look for the lowest maximum and idle power consumption.
* Select IP phones that have an idle display shutdown.
* Consider a 4 watt Class 2 IP phone instead of a 6 to 7 watt IP phone.

The savings can range from $12 to $30 per IP phone per year by selecting the lowest power consuming IP phone. Many in IT only consider the direct IP phone power consumption. But remember: the cost to cool the PoE equipment that powers the IP phones adds nearly double to the cost of operating the IP phone.

Cloud Based Communications Service (Gary Audin)
Migrating communications services to the cloud is a form of outsourcing. This means that the enterprise moves from capital investments (CapEx) to an operating expense (OpEx) financial position. The advantages of a cloud solution are:

1. The enterprise saves capital/investment dollars that can be applied to other IT projects and/or other business investments. This is important when capital for investment is hard to acquire.

2. When the enterprise budgets the cost of communications service by the seat/phone, the cloud service can be much cheaper.

3. By outsourcing the communications function, the enterprise can reduce its IT staff since most of the work will be the responsibility of the cloud provider.

4. The enterprise does not have to deal with or pay any licensing or software subscription fees. Many of these fees must be paid in advance in the first year for a premise based system, reducing the available capital investment dollars in the first year.

5. Enterprises want 99.99+% availability. This is expensive to accomplish. Enterprises also must have the resources on hand in case there is a system disaster. The cloud service can satisfy both requirements at a much lower cost.

I recently posted an article at No Jitter, "Cloud/Hosted Communications Providers: Survey Results” that is worth reading to understand the providers of cloud communications.