Better ROI for IT projects: 5 ways to get it done | #customersupport #supporticket

If you’re in need of better ROI for your business’s IT projects, you’re not alone. In fact, according to the 2023 State of IT report, 50% of organizations plan to take precautionary measures to prepare for a market downturn in 2023.¹ And many of these businesses are spending on IT as part of these measures, to improve efficiency and workflows with automation. But we know it’s still important to show how these IT projects are improving your bottom line in a tight economic climate.

From reducing costs on hardware to consolidating customer service and business communications, here are five ways businesses can optimize IT budgets and ROI to achieve operational efficiencies.

Let’s dive in:

1. Avoid surprise billing with subscriptions 
2. Unify and streamline your systems 
3. Reduce up-front hardware costs with DaaS
4. Consolidate your software subscriptions 
5. Improve customer experiences to reduce churn

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5 ways to get better ROI for IT projects this year

1. Avoid surprise billing with predictable, subscription pricing 

Businesses can improve ROI on IT projects by migrating to the cloud. This is an easy way to avoid the hidden costs associated with on-premise hardware maintenance, upgrades, and security. Cloud subscriptions allow for license flexibility and thus, budget flexibility. With a premise-based solution, each feature, service, or maintenance agreement is an added fixed cost. This lack of future proofing is a looming TCO issue for any company in 2023. An all-inclusive cloud solution like RingCentral MVP not only includes basic and advanced features at one low cost, but also continues to deliver new innovations every month to your end users.

With RingCentral, you can expect a more predictable and competitive telephony expense. Overall, our customers in 2022 saw telecom costs decrease by 23% and IT spend decrease by 16% when they migrated from on-prem to cloud. Corteva Agriscience, stated: “We don’t have to factor in roaming charges or additional fees for going over our minutes. RingCentral is much more cost-effective because we pay a fixed amount for licenses—and that’s it. No phone-bill surprises.” 

The same applies to RingCentral SMS. With some other providers, new hidden SMS fees may come as an unpleasant surprise in the form of surcharges, cost recovery fees, or other costs—even charges for unused SMS! With RingCentral SMS, you can rely on predictable costs with our all-inclusive and transparent SMS pricing bundles starting at $0.0085 per message sent/received with no surprise fees. 

🔥Did you know: To give our customers the most value, your allowance is pooled at the account level, meaning you’re not penalized for team members that use more SMS, and you don’t lose the SMS for those that use less.

2. Unify systems across locations and departments

Having different infrastructure at different locations (or even in different departments in the same office) is costly to maintain. It requires manual tinkering to stand up new sites or additional users. It also introduces complexity and even more costs when connecting with global sites. These factors, combined with the lack of scalability, has driven many businesses to adopt unified cloud communications. 

RingCentral offers a cost-effective solution for multisite management. With its web interface, non-technical staff can easily add phones or numbers, make changes, or handle moves from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Additionally, RingCentral handles updates, bug fixes, telecom compliance requirements, decreasing IT costs for ongoing updates. And that means an increase in ROI for these important IT projects. 

If you operate a business that requires some on-premises equipment, RingCentral can interconnect your on-premises PBX and cloud users through free onNet calling too.

🔥Did you know: Our customer, Fidelity Real Estate, was able to reduce their telecom costs by 50% by deploying RingCentral’s an integrated communication service. 

3. Reduce up-front hardware costs with Device as a Service (DaaS)

Many businesses face these two issues: the need to save money while also improving organizational speed and efficiency.  It can be expensive to provide hybrid workforces with the devices they need to do their job optimally. But it doesn’t have to be. 

With Device as a Service (DaaS), organizations can deploy equipment with a cost-effective, subscription-based service, which decreases capital costs and improving your ROI for IT projects. DaaS can also make sure that they have the necessary infrastructure in place to meet their needs as they grow. Not only can it reduce IT workloads by up to 16%,² it also actually declutters your tech stack if you choose your vendor wisely. Pick a vendor that can provide hardware, software, and IT management all wrapped up in one neat bow.

With RingCentral’s DaaS, you’ll get get lower upfront costs, a headache-free fulfillment, and easy upgrades to use best-in-class hardware from Jabra, Logitech, Poly, and Yealink for your RingCentral Rooms conference rooms or headsets for business communications and contact centers. 

🔥Did you know: According to a 2022 survey of over 1300 RingCentral customers, our customers saw a 20% decrease in hardware costs with RingCentral.

4. Consolidate your software subscriptions 

Today, organizations use multiple communication apps, relying on standalone products such as SMS and fax, and even 2 or more messaging apps for their collaborative and communication needs. Not only does this increase app overload, it also adds to the  additional subscription costs charged by third-party vendors.

With RingCentral, you can consolidate 4 or 5 subscriptions into one. Enjoy business calling, SMS, eFax, team messaging, video meetings, digital whiteboarding, and webinars all in one subscription. 

Optimize your IT budget with a business communication system that includes automation tools, so that you can do more with less. For example, you can automate call logging and call transcriptions by integrating RingCentral MVP with popular CRM apps such as HubSpot and Zoho to gain insights and improve close rates. Or maximize the return on investment in Microsoft 365 by utilizing Teams for messaging and video and RingCentral’s advanced cloud phone system for advanced communication to reduce TCO. 

🔥Did you know: RingCentral customers experience as high as 75% faster integrations.

5. Improve customer experience and reduce churn with the right support technology

Your existing contact center solution might be a hassle to maintain and a nightmare to upgrade. Plus it doesn’t provide the digital experience that today’s consumers expect and the ability to integrate with your other systems, not to mention self-service capabilities.

At RingCentral, we bring together market-leading unified communications (UCaaS) that is deeply integrated with contact center (CCaaS) solutions so you can enable easy collaboration for your employees and agents and deliver seamless omnichannel experiences for your customers — all across 30+ digital and voice channels. 

Agents enjoy a simple, intuitive tool to onboard quickly, receive up to the minute guidance, and can work from anywhere. Our solutions are powered by one common telephony that is easy to manage, one secure and compliant platform to mitigate risk, one vendor relationship to deliver high ROI by up to 615% and reduce payback time to less than 3 months. 

🔥Did you know: Our customers see an average of 30% reduction in cost to serve with RingCentral. 

Better ROI for IT projects: Spend less and save more with RingCentral

Many IT leaders are beginning to re-evaluate their tech stack in light of the market uncertainty. Now more than ever, they need to balance priorities around cost, risk and innovation to accelerate time to value on projects.

Through rapid investments in AI, reliability and cloud resilience, RingCentral helps you decrease total cost of ownership (TCO) and mitigate continuity risks while increasing end-user value and productivity. Run and grow your business easily while we help you maximize your ROI. 

Want to get a cost savings estimate? Check out our free ROI calculator, no strings attached.

¹ “The 2023 State of IT Report.” https://swzd.com/resources/access-state-of-it-2023-tech-buyer-trends/

² “Modernize and thrive with device as a service.” https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-sg/solutions/industry-solutions/industry-market/modernize-end-user-it-with-device-as-a-service-whitepaper.pdf

Originally published Feb 13, 2023