It’s tempting when starting a new business or expanding into unfamiliar territory, to try to cut costs on some backroom elements and go for the most affordable option — but this can have serious repercussions. It’s certainly true when it comes to telecommunications and internet services, where too many companies learn that an ‘affordable’ solution seems to be synonymous with ‘barely adequate’, and soon requires an expensive overhaul.
Low-quality internet connections are terrible for business. Employees need reliable connectivity and speed in order to share and move documents, download, upload, use video streaming and conferencing, and generally get the job done. A cheaper telecoms solution in the Cayman Islands might give you enough bandwidth to download or stream video without too much buffering or screen freeze, but have you tried uploading a large file to the cloud or to a client and realized that your internet package only allows the smallest upload bandwidth, often 20 times slower than a ‘barely adequate’ download?
A high-speed internet connection also allows you to utilize the magic of the cloud. Moving your business processes to remote servers on the cloud allows you and your staff to communicate, share documents, images, and videos, and collaborate with each other and your clients anytime, from anywhere — without the need for a backroom full of expensive hardware and depreciating assets.
Scalability is essential when setting up a business communications system and high-speed internet should be at the centre of the system right from the beginning in order to avoid the time and expense of restructuring as the business grows. The growth and maintenance of your website, your customer communications, your social media marketing efforts, your customer orders, and invoices, they all rely on sufficient bandwidth and a reliable internet connection if you don’t want to lose valuable business.
And then there’s basic, and not so basic, telephony: We all know that international phone call rates can be high, especially if you are travelling and using your cellphone provider’s roaming services. Hands up if you’ve received a call from home while you’re travelling, where the caller dials your local Cayman number, you’re thousands of miles away and your roaming service ends up charging you multiple dollars per minute to receive what is essentially a local call.
This is where VoIP (voice over internet protocol) systems show their strength. As with instant messaging or video chat apps, VoIP allows essentially free incoming and outgoing calls to any cellphone or landline anywhere in the world over the internet for a single monthly fee from your local provider.
In the Cayman Islands, users of a service such as Chatterbox can travel and call Cayman from anywhere in the world for just a few cents. Chatterbox’ Cayman enables clients, friends, and family in more than 50 countries to call a local number in their country and connect to you, wherever you are, for the price of a local call. Calls between Chatterbox subscribers, from any location in the world, are free. The service also allows up to five handsets per account, with all the features of a private virtual PABX, including intercom, call forwarding, and conference calls, meaning small businesses have a virtual PABX at their fingertips with no expensive equipment required.
All Cayman internet service providers offer broadband home- and business-based internet plans, many with unlimited data. By taking advantage of ultra-fast broadband internet, along with new telecommunications services and technology, you can streamline your business communications, improve productivity, and lower your business costs all in one go.
Bottom line: don’t stint on your broadband. Fast and reliable high-speed internet is one of the most important elements of doing business in this connected world.
