SA Taxi Finance (SATF) has installed a PBX system from Itec that will accommodate the company's aggressive expansion across the country.
SATF provides finance to aspirant and existing taxi owners, allowing them to buy vehicles for their businesses.
The Ericsson BusinessPhone 250 PBX was installed to cater for 80 users at the organisation's head office in Johannesburg following the company's rapid growth since March 2006, when it was established for the purpose of acquiring African Bank's commercial vehicle finance business.
The Ericsson BusinessPhone 250 digital telephone system caters for organisations requiring between 20 and 200 extensions at a single location, making it ideal for a growing business, says Melanie Evans, project manager at Itec South Africa.
"All BusinessPhone system hardware and software is modular. This makes it adaptable to a wide range of capacity and functional requirements, and provides the capability for system expansion and feature enhancement at any time."
Evans adds that the Ericsson BusinessPhone optimises call flow, is affordably priced, and has been specifically designed to meet the needs of small to medium organisations.
"SA Taxi Finance has undergone a dramatic increase in size and turnover since its inception and we therefore needed a system that is able to grow with the company," says Wilbert Tamboer, operations manager at SA Taxi Finance.
With simplified maintenance and the ability to quickly implement moves and changes, the single converged network helps decrease the total cost of ownership of SATF's communication system over the long term.
The company has since purchased another six BusinessPhone 50 PBX systems for its smaller branches nationwide. These are being linked back to the SATF head office.
"The system provides high-quality, IP-based communication for SATF's voice traffic, resulting in major cost-savings on communication between branches, connecting them via the corporate network," says Evans. "System features include PBX networking, ISDN connectivity to the desktop, integrated cordless extensions and voice messaging, and complete call centre capability. Flexibility is a fundamental part of the BusinessPhone, enabling you to use the components you need to design the phone system you want."
The Ericsson BusinessPhone IP solution lets businesses choose whether they want to use a combination of fixed, mobile or IP extensions, or switch over to a purely IP-based solution. Voice and stability are of premium quality.
"It is imperative to plan correctly when implementing communication systems," says Evans. "There are many variables and existing third-party hardware and software that can affect performance and impact the transition to an updated PBX system."
These include third-party call centres, fax servers, voice loggers, interactive voice response systems, least-cost routers, telephone management systems, unified messaging, and of course Telkom. This is only possible if all parties comply with the requirements on or before the dates outlined and submit them to the project manager.
"One weak link in the chain can negatively affect the success of the installation," says Tamboer. "Itec managed the project professionally and the system was rolled out on time and entirely to our specifications."
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