Personnel and Training Requirements (Centrex or PBX)

One major advantage frequently claimed for legacy Centrex service was that it needed fewer support people than an in-house PBX system, both at the system analyst/administrator level and at the console operator level. The average PBX (within a typical office complex) tends to require one analyst and two operators for every 1,000 users on the system. A commonly accepted figure for a Centrex-based service is one analyst and two operators per 3,000 users (i.e., locals). Many of these savings are the result of sending most change orders to the telco for implementation, along with the inherent DID characteristics of Centrex.

Voice and Video
A supposed advantage of IP telephony systems, whether Centrex or PBX, is that end users can configure their own phones—but that is true only to a limited extent. The majority of callers into an organization, and most people within it, depend on telephones for real-time, person-to-person communications.

A PC on a desktop may be, largely, an island of personal preference, but this cannot be the case with our phones, as these must be closely integrated into a dynamic system with widespread connections. An organization needs people who possess, or can be trained in, the administrative and technical skill sets to match IP telephony resources to everyone's needs.

All of this means that IP-Centrex will likely continue to need the same number of telephony support personnel that were in place for legacy Centrex. However, this complement of analysts will fall to about one-quarter of those needed for a complete in-house PBX solution in many organizations, because the integration and administration of application subsystems (such as messaging, contact centers, relationship management, and wireless integration) will be the responsibility of the service provider.

Training Needs
Each IP-Centrex-using organization will need to invest in professional training for voice service management, along with good user education, but will gain the benefit of more versatile system administrators and a simpler user environment than was previously the case. In a new generation Centrex solution, the professional telecom analyst will need to be conversant with not only the features of a telephone system, but also much that pertains to the underlying Internet protocol network and multimedia communications systems.

In many cases, these needs will be addressed by the cross-training of voice personnel on data and vice versa, together with support personnel all being trained on the implications of real-time multimedia communications.