Primus provides IT and phone solutions for small- to mid-sized businesses

Astute small- to medium-sized business (SMB) operators across Canada have come to realize that making the right Information Technology (IT) decisions can help bolster their bottom lines.

But, unfortunately, one of the solutions - maintaining a competent IT staff on their own payroll - can be prohibitively expensive.

This could be solved by outsourcing IT functions, yet more often than not outsourcing companies charge SMBs excessive fees without delivering the highest level of services and customer satisfaction.

Primus Telecommunications Canada's Business Services division could be the solution. Primus is a full IT service provider, offering a wide range of business-related products and services. In addition to traditional services such as long distance, local and wireless voice and Internet, Primus offers hosting and professional IT services such as co-location, shared hosting and Internet Data Centres as well as IP voice and connectivity such as Hosted PBX and TalkBroadband.

Leave all the work to the team at Primus Business Services.

Founded in 1997, Primus Business Services is a provider of IT solutions to the SMB sector with offices across the country, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Oakville, London, Windsor, Montreal and Edmundston, N.B.

"Small-business operators do not want to worry about managing their own servers and firewalls when they are already pre-occupied by the daily challenges involved in growing their businesses," explains A.J. Byers senior vice-president for Primus Business Services. "They may not be particularly tech-savvy. SMBs are telling us that they need help with a host of IT challenges."

Primus specializes in "co-sourcing," or providing a line of telecom or Internet products and services that enables the small-business operator to stay involved with its own IT, while getting the help of a qualified support team that is able to step in wherever it is needed.

"If a customer wants to retain control of his server, that's fine, we can help them with just patching or backup or, we can assume full responsibility for their server management. It is entirely up to them what level of involvement they want," Byers says.

Reliable and stable technology is essential to the continuing health of virtually all Canadian businesses, which have come to rely on it at an unprecedented degree. Keeping their technology - including servers - functional 24 hours a day remains a high priority. Down time is not acceptable.

Primus has established a series of Internet Data Centres (IDC) across the country, which enables customers to house their servers in a climate-controlled, maximum-security environment.

Interruptions of service are never a problem for customers of Primus, which ensures the security and reliability of their servers with 100 per cent up time. Each IDC is fireproof and equipped with generators to supply emergency power and state of the art ventilation.

"We keep our servers running 100 per cent of the time and that enables our customers to stay productive 100 per cent of the time," Byers says.

Primus has also developed a suite of custom services designed specifically to address the unique business challenges facing SMBs.

"We found that a majority of SMBs do not have a lot of capital for investing in complex telephone systems," says Byers. "Most prefer to pay a fixed monthly fee for a fully hosted, telco-grade phone system rather than buying equipment and worrying about the headaches that go with installation and system support."

Cost includes installation, upgrades and non-stop support. Primus technical staff will manage the system from a central location. Primus VoIP technology even allows customers to integrate their telephone and email service.

"If someone leaves a voice-mail message, we can forward it directly to your email and move it on to your BlackBerry, all at no capital cost to you," Byers adds. "What it means is that SMBs can now access an enterprise-class phone system with all the latest features and functionality on a cost-effective basis."

Need to expand your phone network? Just summon the people at Primus.

These are trouble-free solutions that make sense for operators of small- or mid-sized corporations. Primus prides itself on getting to know you first and then taking the time to design a custom service package to fulfill the specific needs of your team.

For more information, please take a look at the Primus website: www.primustel.ca.

Then call this toll-free number: 1.888.502.8380.