Some 65pc of businesses believe they pay too much for telephony

13 Feb 2014

Janelle Eagleton, lead researcher of the Blueface ICT Insight Report 2014; and Alan Foy, CEO of Blueface. Photo by Colm Mahady, Fennell Photography

The majority of business owners in Ireland feel they are paying too much for their communications and 73pc are actively looking to reduce costs, a new report suggests.

In the ICT Insight report released by Blueface, 65pc of businesses feel that costs are too high, particularly when high-cost line rental still accounts for 60pc of Irish businesses.

One of the biggest findings from the report came from mobile phone policies held by companies and how they were used in day-to-day business.

The report among business owners found that while mobile phones are acknowledged by 96pc to be an important business tool, only 18pc supplied mobile phones to all employees. 

Of those 18pc of staff supplied with mobile phones, a considerable majority of this number (70.4pc) are from the higher levels of the company.

In a recent trend to cut down on costs, 59.5pc of businesses surveyed asked their employees to bring their own phones to work.

As is expected with the continuing use of mobile phones in business, the use of landline phones as the first means of getting in contact with someone is now in the minority, with 55.6pc of employees surveyed having a preference to use their mobile phone for ease of access to the person they’re trying to call.

Future trends

The report has issued a number of predications for Irish businesses in the coming years, with an emphasis on the gradual replacement of landline telephones with online services and expect more than 75,000 Irish businesses to move to online voice communications by 2020.

Alan Foy, CEO of Blueface, sees the growth in mobile devices as an indicator of this future trend.

“Next-generation LTE/4G networks will enable a whole new era of device inter-connectedness in Irish businesses. Our Blueface report forecasts that 16m devices in Ireland will be connected to the internet of things by 2020. Furthermore, we forecast that the mobile device will replace the PC and laptop as the central business tool by 2025.” 

The report also predicts the integrated Voice as a Service (VaaS) market will grow to a €700m market by 2025.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com