You should have an approved business plan and are ready to begin planning the installation of your Hosted PBX. At a minimum, the business plan should provide a cost/benefit analysis of:
- Upgrading your existing network, if any.
- Additional equipment, installation, training and maintenance.
- Anticipated call savings.
- Expected savings in operating costs.
- Assessment of productivity benefits.
- Man-hours required to plan, install, configure and trial a new system.

If you haven't determined how much time will be required in the overall implementation of your Hosted PBX system, then you can estimate that for every 3 hours you spend in the planning phase, you will spend 1 hour in design, and 3 hours in the actual installation of the system. The good news about a Hosted PBX implementation is that the provider
will handle most of the pre- and post-implementation activities. If you have implemented a traditional PBX before, then you will have a better appreciation of this benefit.

You are probably aware that VoIP Hosted PBX service offers substantial benefits over premise based systems, and, in general, a clear business case can be made to immediately
replace your embedded PBX and telephone sets with a VoIP system. Even though a Hosted PBX provides you with a very flexible environment, you might consider phasing in your Hosted PBX as an adjunct to your existing premise-based
system and grow its functionality over a period of time. A hybrid system will enable you to continue to use a portion of your existing investment in handsets, and allow you to
implement a phased cutover on a department-by-department, or even a line-by-line basis, to avoid the risk and stress of a company-wide flash cutover.

Compared to a premise-based system, that capability is an important advantage in a Hosted PBX architecture. Not only can it operate side-by-side with your existing systems,
but by planning the VoIP Hosted PBX roll-out on a departmental basis, you not only minimize risk, but you can keep CAPEX and expense dollars to a minimum and spread
your invested dollars over several months or even several quarters.

If you have never implemented a Hosted PBX system before, we recommend that you take full advantage of this capability, and begin your deployment with a pilot on a small scale in a non-production environment. A pilot is a micro-cosm that is controllable, easily managed, and gives you the opportunity to fine tune and improve your plan. Once you have successfully concluded the pilot implementation and are satisfied that all errors and
inefficiencies have been corrected in your process, then you will be ready to expand your Virtual PBX to serve the rest of your business functions.

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