If you are considering the installation of a new telephone system for your business, you are probably aware that today you can have all your own hardware on site, or you have the option of using a cloud-based system. With the latter, all you need on site are your handsets and an internet connection and you are good to go. As your business grows, you need the ability to scale up quickly, and when you take on new employees you have to add new lines, so that is important.

This is harder to do with an on premises set-up as you need to have more hardware on site, and you need IT support. There are also maintenance costs to take into consideration.

Research company Gartner has produced a report which states that integrating communications with the daily applications for business processes and workflow increases efficiency. This is much easier to achieve with a cloud phone system because everyone can stay connected whether they are in the office or out on the road. It provides seamless access to voicemails, emails, instant messaging, CRM tools, and even videoconferencing. Access is available via a smartphone, tablet, laptop softphone, or desk phone to all of the vital business software that everyone needs.

Furthermore, a small business can select from all of the available features, and also turn them on or off whenever they wish. In addition, a cloud system provides features that are typically only found in larger companies, such as Auto Attendant, Virtual Assistant, and so on.

Many employees, such as salesmen and repair engineers spend all their time out on the road anyway, and may only go into the office once a week, if that. Being able to log in from anywhere gives mobile people the ability to improve their productivity.

Using a phone system that is in the cloud protects a business from unusual situations. For instance, severe weather may prevent employees from being able to get into the office, but when using the cloud that doesn't matter. They can work from home and remain productive. Equally, by using the cloud your staff can stay connected to customers under such circumstances. Everything simply keeps running as normal.

Cloud solutions can also easily integrate with other cloud systems. For instance, many lawyers today use cloud-based systems for part, or all, of their work which used to be done on on-premise servers. Instead of using a number of different in-house systems they can now manage everything and have access to everything about a case in the cloud. Being able to integrate their communications with this makes life even easier.

Another very big benefit of a cloud-based telephone system is the ability to scale up – or down – quickly. As your business grows you need to take on new employees, take on new customers, and even open a new office. With the cloud system you can add as many new extensions as you need in order to deal with increased call volume, and you can also deactivate them if need be. A business only pays for the extensions it needs for as long as they are needed.

This is especially useful for a business that has peak times during the year when it has to take on temporary staff, and then returns to normal a few weeks later. Call Queues let businesses customise the "on hold" experience and Call Groups let incoming calls ring on any number of different extensions. This helps to decrease missed calls and voicemails. You could also include messages while callers are on hold about FAQs or an upcoming special promotion.

With a cloud-based system you can also use almost any telephone number you like, wherever you are based. You can even use numbers from some European countries. So you could appear to be working from an office in London when in reality you are in a barn in Somerset.

Your business can continue to take calls even if you are hit with downtime on your internet, because calls can be re-routed to cell phones. You could also unplug the office handset and take it home if you have high speed broadband, and the phone number will follow the handset, and you could do the same with a softphone on your laptop.