In December 2012, San Diego experienced a multi-day power outage. When TSIA’s headquarters lost power due to the outage, its employees lost all connectivity with both colleagues and customers. With a third of its employees working remotely, TSIA was in need of a better solution for connectivity – one that could withstand power outages and other unforeseen crises.
TSIA is a membership platform for tech executives that enables improved strategic, operational and financial performance. For more than 17 years, the organization relied on an on-premise phone system, but the outage cast its dependence on hardware in a new light.
“It was because of that power outage that we decided to move all of our services into the cloud,” explains Jason Buck, IT director at TSIA.
Although the power outage made Jason look for a solution faster than he otherwise may have, there were other signs that TSIA needed to change its phone solution.
With multiple locations and many employees working remotely, TSIA had no way to tie everything together. Jason was constantly searching for providers in different states that could link to the on-premise PBX at TSIA’s headquarters and would often have to hire technicians with high prices to set those systems up.
For TSIA, RingCentral Office presented an ideal solution.
“We needed everyone on the same phone system with the same connectivity. RingCentral provides four-digit extensions for all of our users. No matter where they work, our staff members don’t have to dial a 10-digit number, and colleagues immediately know when they’re receiving an internal call,” Jason notes.
In addition, TSIA no longer has to rely on outside technicians to set up its phones.
“Now we don’t have to worry about configuring our system – we just get online, make a few simple changes and everything continues running with no downtime,” says Jason.
TSIA’s employees can attest to the benefits of having a flexible phone system. “If you aren’t at your desk, you can forward calls to the RingCentral mobile app on your smartphone,” Jason points out. “It’s definitely a necessity for the virtual world that we live in.”
Along with added functionality, flexibility and a way to stay operational during power outages, RingCentral offers TSIA cost savings of about $600 a month.
Overall, switching to RingCentral Office has given TSIA more options and more flexibility. The company is saving money and connecting more adroitly to its remote workforce. Plus, TSIA no longer has to worry about losing power.
That’s a three-way win, Jason says.
“With RingCentral,” he observes, “we have complete control over our phone system.”
Originally published Sep 05, 2013, updated Aug 07, 2020
