The Allworx Story — Realizing we don’t have to compromise…
We began as a very small business—a group of engineers and other professionals with a strong inclination to establish our own company and define our own destiny. We have all worked for big enterprises, designing and bringing to market award-winning products.
We started our own firm, in 1998, to help other businesses—big and small—get their products to market successfully. We know about those efforts. We also know the pitfalls and the challenges of the design and marketing of a top-notch technical product.
Setting up a small business was a challenge we hadn't encountered before.
- It wasn't getting the business—we had plenty of clients.
- It wasn't finding qualified staff—we knew the people we wanted and where to find them.
- It was simply setting up workable office systems to support our business efforts, within our budget.
The search for small business phone and network systems
The phone system had to work and we had to have a new network system. In addition, we needed to coordinate meetings and the use of our limited resources, without adding staff and wasting valuable time. We also needed to have access to the Internet.
We discovered that every one of these requirements involved finding the individual options, research to find the best options, and then finding a reputable vendor. When we finally settled on a phone system, a network, and the group software we needed, we were managing 3 vendors plus the phone company and an Internet provider. Each vendor agreement required calls, meetings and contracts. Each one had to be planned and scheduled. Each one had a cost associated with it—most had a list of costs.
Before we knew it, we were spending over $35K just to get the basic setup in our offices. We didn't have time to figure out schedules and meetings, since we were busy meeting with vendors. Several people had to stop working on projects and focus on our infrastructure effort for over a week, losing time developing our product and working more weekends than usual. That was expensive, and costly to our work processes. Because we're engineers, we could install the system components. We rigged together a baseline setup that included phones, a network, and Microsoft Exchange/Outlook for email and group software. Even the installation was much too time-consuming, since every component had to be installed separately, and every user had to be entered into each separate system, including network, email, voicemail and Internet. And once we were up and running, there was a lot of time spent troubleshooting and managing repair scenarios when things went wrong. We were having to compromise and not optimize.
We got through it, established our firm and met our deadlines, but it was much more difficult than we expected. It was more difficult than we think it should be. So, our engineers set to work designing a solution that makes it easier to set up an office and simpler to run the infrastructure. It's less expensive to establish the basics for a business without disrupting your business or making your compromise on what you really need.
The Solution: the Allworx System
The Allworx system now runs our business, which has grown, adding staff, office space and locations. Allworx saves us time and money every day, and we have more control over our business operations. Now, whenever we open a new office or add an employee, it's a much simpler process. And that's the way we think it should be, because we all have work to do.
