ShoreTel offers lowest total cost of ownership – Aberdeen

Local distributor Tellumat cites ease of use, deployment and management

ShoreTel, the fast-growing provider of unified communications (UC) solutions, has been rated as offering the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) in a new business user survey by the Aberdeen Group.

“The study validates that ShoreTel’s UC solution is the easiest to use, deploy and manage in the market,” says Bennie Langenhoven, managing executive of Tellumat Communication Solutions – ShoreTel’s sub-Saharan African distributor. 
 
What is TCO?

“Total cost of ownership is a key metric for assessing costs, benefits and risks of an ICT solution – enabling organisations to integrate business needs with technological considerations in making their purchasing decision,” Langenhoven continues.

“Outside the upfront purchasing cost, TCO also includes issues like the cost of installation, maintenance, training and upgrades. Solutions that make life easier on these counts will win the crucial TCO battle in the corporate decision matrix.”

Why ShoreTel rocks TCO

What makes ShoreTel systems so cost-effective to own?

– Pure IP – ShoreTel’s UC solution was designed from the ground up using modern Internet Protocol communications technology. This makes the vendor’s solutions less complex than the cobbled-together systems from “IP-enabled” legacy technology vendors.

– ShoreTel is based on a uniquely distributed architecture with federated replication as the means to redundancy. If one switch fails, it can simply be replaced. Scaling is as easy as adding another switch.

– The open architecture integrates seamlessly with business applications and processes.

– Moves, adds and changes (MACs) can be done in-house because the system allows for management of users rather than devices, thus reducing the time, complexity and cost of systems administration.

Aberdeen examples

Specific examples of ShoreTel’s ease of use and TCO advantage are highlighted in Aberdeen’s study:

– ShoreTel is the easiest to implement: ShoreTel customers experienced a 67% saving in internal implementation cost per phone when compared to Avaya Aura Communication Manager.

– ShoreTel is the easiest to train and certify: Upfront training costs per administrator for ShoreTel systems were one-third of the cost of training an administrator for a Cisco Unified Communications Manager solution. Ongoing annual training costs were 85% less than Avaya IP Office and 73% less than the average for all telephony.

– ShoreTel is the most flexible – Performing MACs on a ShoreTel system took one third the time it took on a Microsoft OCS/Lync system, and 60% less than the average for all telephony.

– ShoreTel is the easiest and most cost-effective to manage – System management and administration of a ShoreTel system cost 42% less than Avaya Aura Communications Manager and 77% less than Cisco UCM. 

“We considered demonstrations from four leading vendors, but only ShoreTel was able to meet all of our requirements for cost, support, simplicity and integration,” says Ann Roland, IT manager, Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. “We had to do extensive cost justification for our executives who were familiar with Cisco, Avaya and Centrex, but not with ShoreTel. ShoreTel offered the very best TCO, by almost 10%.”

Corporate responsibility

“Total cost of ownership measures the complete financial impact of the UC purchase decision, and should be the most important issue for any IT financial stakeholder,” notes Hyoun Park, Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group.

“To uphold corporate fiscal and governance responsibilities, decision-makers must fully examine all significant upfront and recurring costs to identify the UC solution offering the greatest value throughout the lifespan of the solution.”

Read the full study:

http://www.shoretel.com/resource_center/white_papers/TCO_Benchmarking_Study.html.
Follow Bennie Langenhoven on Twitter: @blangenhoven