NIU

telephony trends

Posted by Stacy on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:06 PM

Writing a business plan sounds simple, at least it did for me, but now that I am actually doing it, it is much harder than I had anticipated. I thought you basically just picked a location and a business and boom you had your own place, now I can see why they are having us write our business plans before we get out of school. You don't think about the little things in business, like the furniture you will have to purchase, the office equipment and even what type of lighting, heat and telephone system.

I was speaking to someone in my class and she was telling me that while writing her business plan she looked into what information technology was available for use in her office. She said that she found it amazing all the phone technology info that she had come across, and that got me thinking about what type of phone system I would need to use. Obviously more than one line would cost more, but would probably be necessary to keep my business flowing. I would also need to have a voice mail and call forwarding system, especially at first so that I could easily pick up my calls when I was out of the office. In any case, I decided to go online and see what telephony trends were out there. I actually found some really great voip services, phones that go through your high speed internet connection. The cost was really reasonable, so that I could afford to put in multiple phone lines, and I didn't realize that they offered so many different services. I was thrilled because this savings will help me get other things that I need to get my business off the ground. I am learning so much creating this business plan and I really can see that this is going to pay off. Some people are creating a fake business plan, just to get it turned in and get a grade, but I am really trying to create an accurate business plan that I can really use to put together my business. I look at it this way, if I do the real work now, it will be less work that I will have to do when I first get out of school. Just because I am turning it in for a grade, doesn't mean that it can't be my real business plan too.