We don’t envy you at all! With hundred of choices available in the EPABX industry, choosing one that would best meet your present and future needs, and yet give you a good return on your investment, is a not an easy job. So, here are some quick thumb rules you can use before going in for an EPABX:

Make a thorough assessment of your requirements

• You must know how many people in your company require a phone connection to speak within the company as well as outside the company.
  
  
• You must simultaneously have provision for some additional room in the number you arrive at, keeping in mind the likely growth of your organization in the next 3-5 years.
  
  
• Based on the business you are in, you must make a broad assessment of the likely traffic of the incoming and outgoing calls. If you are in the services industry you are most likely to have a very high incoming call traffic, which will require you to have an operator with a special console coupled with an auto attendant to manage your customers efficiently. If you are in the STD/PCO business your outgoing call traffic will be very high and you will require a high number of telephone lines to be connected to the system.
  
  
• If you wish to exploit the benefits of the different tariff structures offered by the various service providers, it is necessary that your PBX utilizes the subscribed plans optimally by automatically routing the calls via the least cost route.
  
  
• You should also know the quality of power supply in your area. Do you have frequent power cuts? If yes you require a system, which can provide a Battery Backup.
  
  
• You also need to determine how your operations have been structured. Are you a company that relies a lot on computers for business? If yes, you can take advantage of the computer telephony integration option offered by some of the EPABX.
  
  

Having determined your requirements, look at how the EPABX can make a significant difference to the way you run your business

• If you have many people who require to use the telephone lines to make STD calls then you need a system that not only prevents misuse but also offers flexibility to your employee by allowing him to choose what numbers he wishes to dial while remaining within confines of a specified budget.
  
  
• If you are a company concerned about outside calls not attended by your people, you have to choose an EPABX which gives you, at your will, a list of calls not answered by your people.
  
  
• Since you are likely to be buying an EPABX the first time, it may take quite a while for you to get used to the benefits offered by the EPABX and may thus require frequent changes in the way you wish to use an EPABX. It is therefore very important that the EPABX you choose is not only user friendly but also enables you to conveniently change the way you and your people wish to use the EPABX – a menu driven feature option for programming is highly desirable in the EPABX in this context.
  
  
• You are likely to be flooded with lots of literature, each one claiming to offer you more features than the other. Make sure that the EPABX you choose offers you features that are essential in a good communication system.
  
  
• It is also a good idea to check out the look and feel of the product you are buying – just a visual look can tell you about the quality of the product. Be sure to make it a point to ask what specific safety steps/protections have been implemented in the product to safe guard it against accidental short circuits, lightning, fire due to high voltage etc.
  
  

Last but not the least you now have to choose the supplier for your EPABX

• It is very important for you to verify the credentials of the chosen supplier. Most reputed EPABX manufacturers have authorized channel partners to sell and service EPABX.
  
  
• Besides insisting on some customer references, please ensure the chosen supplier is a company with a national presence, adequate quality certification (ISO 9001/2) and the credibility of being part of a well-reputed corporate entity.

The exercise mentioned above is easier said than done. Most customers are unable to get a fix on their medium and long term requirements – so if you are having a problem it is only normal. Given this, it is best to go in for a system which is scalable and gives you a freedom to add features to your EPABX as and when you need them without throwing away what you have initially purchased.