Starting a small business, as any entrepreneur will tell you, is about doing more with less.
Take the phone system: You order a couple of lines, install some handsets and you're in business, right?
Wrong.
Can you afford someone in the office to answer phones? And, given today's mobile demands, chances are the visionary and their partners will be out beating the proverbial bushes for business or at least meeting with clients.
All of which demands a more sophisticated phone system, one with an automated attendant, one that combines fixed line with Internet telephony and one which can grow with the business to accommodate more extensions, more mailboxes and more features as things move forward.
The problem, as those same entrepreneurs will also tell you, is that those phones systems are generally designed for 50-seat-and-up businesses and are priced out of range for a micro-startup with big aspirations.
That's exactly the challenge Jeff Strachan of Vancouver faced when launching Footprint Recruiting, a global English-as-a-Second-Language recruiting company.
"There are 15 full-time staff in Vancouver and I'm now in Australia with my wife and family," says Strachan, who jokingly calls himself a "pimp for teachers."
"We're expanding here and I also have two people in Korea."
He found Sutus, a brand new plug-and-play black box that doubles as a backup server and is designed for small businesses from two to 25 people. It's one of a number of products now targeting smaller businesses.
It's the size of a Microsoft's gaming console X-Box and is the result of four years of development by Vancouver startup Sutus.
The company's nascent product, business central, is a bit of a magic box, combining file server, e-mail server, router, firewall, wireless access point, VPN remote access server, automated backup and a business-class phone system with the ability to simultaneously support both standard phone line and VoIP connections.
It also has two 250-Gb hard drives and is a platform for managed services such as voicemail to e-mail, remote phone/softphone support and, more importantly for Strachan, the ability to open offices in a new city by simply adding another phone number.
"The demand for teachers is insatiable," says Strachan. "We advertise on the web and get an overwhelming response, since we don't charge a commission and all you need to qualify is a degree and a good English-speaking voice."
The company gets 3,000 visitors to its website daily, generating 70 to 120 applications and 100 calls a day so it's mission critical the calls land at the right desk without the constant hassle - and wasted resource - of redirecting them.
Strachan said that after outgrowing its first system in 2003, the company searched for a simple plug-in solution.
"I actually bought a system for $2,500 at auction, which sold for $24,000 new and I thought I was the hero of the day," he said. "It had 44 handsets but no one was willing to work on it or install it. I think we sold it for $500."
Now, he says, his staff simply dial his extension to reach him, regardless of which office he's in and incoming calls are quickly routed to the right counsellor. He's also impressed with the VPN (virtual private network) function, which allows him to securely and quickly access the office network and file servers.
"We also record the telephone interviews with the candidates, since we hire them based on qualifications and their voice," he says. "The clients want someone who has a clear, unaccented English-speaking voice. We don't meet 95 per cent of those we hire, it's all by phone."
Sutus's B200 is priced at $3,995 for up to nine users and $5,495 for 10 and more users.
"The idea was to create a product which was simple to use and simple to understand," says Sutus executive vice-president Shawn Shute, noting small to medium-sized businesses are an overlooked market.
Sutus is rolling out its services through resellers and service providers, with the added value potential of being able to deliver a pre-configured box to a customer to make set up as simple as plugging in power and cables.
Like Sutus, New Jersey-based Critical Link is also in the midst of launching edgeBOX, a similar solution for the same market. "This market is so fragmented, so it's a challenge to say where things will go, but we see verticals like insurance companies with branch offices as a good segment, education, hospitals and travel companies, too," says Abdul Kasim, Critical Link vice-president of marketing and business development.
"Traditionally, the systems on the markets are top down and for bigger enterprises. What we're doing is for the low-end business market, which is really price sensitive," says Kasim.
A basic 40-seat package costs $1,200 to $1,500, with add on modules available.
The multi-service business gateway (MSBG) is emerging as a critical device to fulfil the voice and data connectivity requirements of small businesses and enterprise branch offices, says Norm Bogen, director of research at In-Stat, a market research house based in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"The key components of these systems are the router along with the telephony," says Bogen, who estimates the market worldwide for these devices at about US$615 million last year but rocketing to US$2.6 billion by 2010. "It's about voice and data."
In addition to Critical Link and Sutus, Linksys also has a product offering in the space, while both Cisco and Nortel's products start at the 50-seat-and-up level.
Bogen says there are strong channels to get products to market since they can be set up as plug-and-play by tech-savvy entrepreneurs or sold through a reseller or service provider.
Far from disrupting the market dominated by Cisco and Nortel, they are carving out a wholly new segment, he says. Nortel's smallest-scale system, for example, is the business communication manager 50, designed for about 50 employees or so.
Dave Berzin, owner and president of Nucleus in Calgary, Western Canada's largest independent Internet service provider with clients across Alberta and B.C., says having all the bells and whistles of a large company system gives his 30-person team a competitive advantage.
Nucleus also provides call-centre services to clients so when those customers call, they're unaware they're being routed to an outsource support desk, he said. "We have people working from home doing customer support and it's all seamless to the clients," he said. "There are a lot of inbound features on the system."
He also likes the cordless handsets that allow him to move freely around the office and not miss calls.
(Ian Harvey can be reached at harvey@businessedge.ca)
