From small bakeries to medium-sized businesses with several sites: now SMEs can focus their personnel and financial resources on their core business. Swisscom’s "Smart ICT" is a unique package that includes telephony and IT setup and operation – billed at a fixed monthly rate.
Swiss SMEs have to make a crucial investment decision: if they go digital now they don’t miss the boat. In the next step they will be able to reduce costs and make the most of new opportunities. However, digitisation ties up capital and calls for expertise, neither of which is easy to come by. Along with selected IT partners, Swisscom is the first Swiss provider to offer SMEs the choice of completely outsourcing their telephony and IT with its "Smart ICT” package. And SMEs benefit doubly: IT setups previously managed locally will be run in the cloud and managed by Swisscom.
"Smart ICT" consists of Internet access with a fail-safe guarantee and IP telephony with collaboration functions (UCC), with the entire IT setup run in the cloud, including a virtual network and the necessary hardware. Modularly designed and upgradable, it is fully managed with personal support. “Smart ICT" is paid monthly, from CHF 140.- per workplace. Everything is included – SMEs no longer need to worry about IT maintenance and can concentrate fully on their core business. “In the SME market we are also focusing on the cloud and managed IT solutions," explains Dirk Wierzbitzki, Head of Products & Marketing. “We know from customers that this is an issue for many of them – so we're offering them a solution that makes it easy to go digital".
Swisscom is also extending its portfolio for SMEs with an existing IT infrastructure. In 2018, interfaces will be added for popular SME software products like Bexio, Abacus and Sage. They let businesses make and take calls directly from the software interface. It is no longer necessary to switch between applications. Talks with other software manufacturers are in progress. The virtual network solution “Business Network Solutions” (BNS) is also being extended: as of the end of 2017 customers will be able to order and configure the “Managed LAN” function at the press of a button.
