As you scale your business, it’s crucial to scale your communications as well.
Voice still seems to be the preferred method of comms today, and although the barriers to international expansion are reducing, multinational number provisioning can still be complex.
In order to make life easier, businesses can use SIP Trunking. Where providers can assist with providing local knowledge, expertise, and resources.
A SIP provider: Your one-stop shop
The use of a global SIP provider gives companies a single resource to obtain PSTN access services in all regions. Essentially, a one-stop-shop for their SIP communication needs.
A business can connect its on-premises, or cloud-based calling platform to a single SIP trunking service provider, and leverage that provider’s global presence to cost-effectively route calls, or to receive inbound calls, across the globe.
What a SIP provider gets you
SIP trunking providers typically offer more than just PSTN access. In many cases they provide:
- Easy DID number access in international markets, allowing for a local dial-in presence
- Voice and messaging services to allow for new forms of customer engagement
- Management of call routing to emergency services answering points
What businesses should look to do
If businesses are looking to scale their business to new markets, they should take another look at how they are connecting their current calling environment to the PSTN, especially as they begin to leverage cloud-based UC and contact center services.
The ability to partner with a SIP trunking provider offers not only the potential to reduce cost and complexity but also access to emerging services to support digital transformation initiatives.
Moving to a new market—the pitfalls
When you launch your business in a new market, you’ll encounter a whole new set of rules and regulations governing everything from tax to your communications.
Many of these will depend upon how exactly you’ve chosen to enter the market in question.
Everything from how you file paperwork to the time-frames you can expect regulators to work to.
So what can you do?
Watch out for local legalese
If you don’t already have a relationship with the local regulators, you’ll need to build one from scratch or hope that your comms provider (or comms providers) have a good one, which isn’t as common as you might hope.
In short, you’ll need local expertise.
Of course, you can have a good stab at global expansion without it, but the chances are that you’re storing up problems for your business long-term by doing this.
What happens when a regulation that you hadn’t planned for starts being enforced out of the blue, and your phone numbers are cut off?
The short answer is that you need to find a supplier that has legal expertise in every market you serve, and you need to make sure that either inform you of your regulatory requirements or, where possible, take care of them on your behalf.
You’re going to need 24/7 access
There’s another big hurdle when it comes to scaling your communications internationally, and it’s one of the biggest.
Your product is ready to ship globally – but what about your infrastructure and operations?
If you have a B2C product, you will need to start taking calls from a new part of the world and be able to reach customers with top-quality connections from local numbers.
Your comms need to be up and running before your business can get stuck in, so that means you’ve got to keep a lookout for suppliers with speedy deployment times.
Cloud is a given for that – you don’t want to be dealing with shipping, constructing, and configuring on-site infrastructure if you’re looking for a smooth launch.
But you also need to make sure that your cloud setup is fast: some providers will still require you to fax over documents or will provide lead times that are weeks or even months instead of hours or days.
Make sure you can access all your communications services – from buying numbers to configuring their settings – online, 24/7.
That way, when your product is ready to scale, so are your operations and business comms.
Multiple providers—the headache
Problems also start cropping up when you’re selecting multiple SIP providers.
You might already be using a range of providers for your business comms, in which case the chances are that you’re already familiar with some of these headaches.
These headaches only increase when you start looking at new markets.
What big global enterprises often do is leverage in-region providers to overcome the service limitations of their usual VoIP provider.
For example, an enterprise headquartered in North America may use a SIP trunking provider within its primary operating region that does not have a presence in remote areas like Southeast Asia.
Look for vendor consolidation efficiencies
Basically, because you’re leveraging multiple providers, you’re adding to the costs and complexities of voice management.
So you should be looking for one contract for all your SIP needs, not half a dozen.
That’s why it’s so important to find a provider that covers the majority of global GDP – ideally, they’ll cover every market you might ever want to expand into so that you can continue to grow with them in the long term.
Of course, the more you consolidate your communications, the more buying control you have and the better you’re able to negotiate discounts and perks.
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