Email is the most important communication tool for companies. From conveying information to presenting data and keeping in touch via reports, email is indispensable for businesses. But when email system goes down, the operational costs rise. It proves to be time-consuming and expensive for large corporate along with tough for small ones due to scarce resources. There is a way out in the form of Hosted email solutions.
Hosted email providers present the latest technology, supreme expertise, security, reliability, and scalability. By eliminating the need for managing hardware or software, system upgrades and data backups are handled by the providers thereby. It frees money and resources for productive activities and gives a benefit of enterprise-class mail for large and small enterprises respectively.
To find the best email solution is challenging for providers are supplied with endless combinations of options, performance, prices and service levels. The process for picking the right host involves following steps:
Hosted and In-House Email Option
Newly established companies and such with no dedicated IT staff should opt for a hosted solution. A simple in-house email platform with its costs of hardware, software licenses, storage, backups and labor costs can prove to be expensive. It costs a bomb when the client takes measures against unexpected downtime. The owner should consider the cost and benefit of free and in-house hosting.
Ownership cost in Hosted Exchange
In cases, hardware, IT infrastructure, labor and expenses associated with in-house exchange installation make it remarkably pricier than hosted exchange service. The difference becomes even clearer when we consider indirect ownership cost benefits – automatic upgrades, rapid deployment, and scaling. A hosted exchange savings are undeniable for a majority of companies.
Professional or Free Email Hosting
For small business owners, free email services can be a powerful enticing factor with many selling points like fast account setup, convenient web-based interfaces, and easy-to-use features. Free email services are certainly popular as enough options are offered to please a majority of consumer users. Limited contact management tools, deficient mobile data syncing platform, limited customer support, inadequate security measures and unreliable spam filtering restricts functionality. Professional providers invest a lot in maintaining ad upgrading email hosting solutions.
Determining Technical & Business Needs
Evaluation of infrastructure, performance, security and reliability requirements, integration of the system, security along with observance requirements come under these needs. For sales, other departments and customer service need to interact efficiently and collect relevant data.
Email Hosting Option Selection
Wide ranges of hosting options are offered by business email hosting providers: Webmail services, Microsoft Exchange-based services, Professional-grade webmail services etc. In a hosted environment, the responsibility of managing and maintaining exchange servers rests on the provider.
Shared and dedicated hosting are two options, where both provide the same level of security, reliance, and performance. Exchange hosting allows a user to migrate email service provider without coming out of comfort zone of existing MS applications.
A need of Dedicated Exchange
A standard hosted Exchange and dedicated Exchange has its own pros and cons. Standard one uses a physical server shared with other users while dedicated uses dedicated servers and are more expensive than standard.
Provider Options
Depending upon the options provided like: an ability to scale, easy management of archiving solutions, security and privacy policies, malware and spam protection, data ownership concerns, online and mobile access options, communication with customers regarding outages, migration support and responsive customer service should glance.
Making The Final Choice
It is essential to look at the long-term benefits of hosted email solutions for business. It gives the time and resources to lay stress on value-adding to business. It increases productivity and is more effective and efficient than in-house solutions.
