Skype for Business

Scott’s just announced that the Skype for Business Control Panel has had a few updates — and the new features should help make life easier for small and large organisations alike. There’s also a new Business help desk for any support queries.

If you use Skype at work and don’t already use the Business Control Panel, you might like to check it out — it’s free to set up, and brings a whole host of benefits. †

What’s new in the updated Business Control Panel

Easier invitations — you can now invite people to join your Business Control Panel using their email address; if they don’t already have a Skype name, they’ll be invited to set one up, and will be guided through the process. You can even recommend a name if your company uses a standard format.

Members’ directory — you can create a directory for your organisation to make it easy for your employees or volunteers to find each others Skype names.

Itemised call reports — with the permission of your employees, you can view itemised reports of their calls and text messages. As a Control Panel member, you can grant or deny permission as you see fit from the Business Control Panel settings page.

Credit buying improvements — you can now buy up to £750 of credit at once, and can set up auto recharging to make sure that your employees never run out of credit.

† If you’re part of a larger organisation, don’t forget about the Business version of Skype (MSI), too.

Last week, Skype released the results of some research into how video and conference calling are being used by small businesses across Europe.

Small businesses make conference and video calls more often than I’d thought — and I should know, working for a small business myself. Depending on the size of the business (and we’re talking companies with between one and 250 employees here), and out of those of them who made conference or video calls, 11–30% of them made conference calls at least once a day, and 8–30% of them made video calls at least once a day. If we move up a bracket, 55–66% of the companies surveyed made video or conference calls at least once a week.

When asked why they made conference or video calls, many of the responses were as you might expect — to reduce travel or environmental impact, for example.

What’s interesting, though, was the fact that many organisations, particularly the smaller ones, said that they use conference or video calls as a way of working with colleagues while they’re are on the move. It’s not necessarily just about travel, either — I’m equally happy joining in calls from halfway across Europe as I am taking them in my pyjamas on a working-from-home day. Conference and video calling allow for much more flexible working patterns full stop — just don’t forget about the rules for meetings if there are going to be lots of people on the call.

Again, all of this is perhaps unsurprising, but with carbon footprint reduction very much in vogue, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that conference calls can have their benefits even if you’ve just hopped off an emissions-spewing flight to New York.

Not, of course, that I’m recommending you ditch the regular Skype conference call for a weekly return to JFK. Neither the atmosphere nor our marketing people would like you very much if that happened

Update: I almost forgot — as it’s that time of year again, check out Phil’s solution to Britain’s curry crisis

In the FT’s Enterprising Britain series is a video featuring Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, in which he talks at Seedcamp about his desire to help entrepreneurs change the world.

Is Seedcamp the right way to do this? Is the money right? Are the entrants any good?

Still, fair criticism aside, Nic Brisbourne points to some valuable advice from a panel session yesterday:

It is easy to get excited about how great something will be if it works out - be that a new hire, business idea, partnership deal or really just about anything — but if you have a nagging doubt that it might not work then you should give that doubt full consideration. There might just be something in it.

I was interested to see that the Trade and Industry staff at the British Embassy in Tallinn use Skype — appropriate, really, given that Skype’s home is in the very same city.

The Estonian government are big users of Skype, but perhaps that’s unsurprising. This post from Shel Israel’s blog highlights the extraordinary openness with which they conduct everyday business.

In the UK, though, Skype isn’t as big a part of government service provision as perhaps it should be. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be handy if we could instant message people too?

Hi, I’m just doing my tax return, and was wondering whether I should include this bit in box 4. Yes? Great, thanks.

Which government department would you Skypeify first?

The Times published a supplement on Wednesday titled: Internet Telephony: Your guide to VoIP technology for business, which highlights some of the benefits of switching from conventional phones to VoIP systems.

Naturally, the feature includes plenty of discussion of Skype, and a real focus on the benefits of Skype and other VoIP solutions for small businesses.

More interestingly, the supplement doesn’t just emphasise the financial benefits of switching to VoIP — it also discusses the productivity enhancements. Even just in the simplest sense:

When voice and data are combined over an IP network, staff can suddenly work together far more effectively, looking up each other’s status on the system so they make sure they do not call when someone is ‘away’ or ‘busy’. Dialling numbers is also improved by being made as simple a selecting an icon on a corporate directory.

These benefits are reflected in the feedback from Lewis and Hickey Architects, who I wrote about previously. We’ve made a video about their experiences, which you can watch below:

How do you use Skype to enhance productivity? I mean, the emoticons are good, right?

I popped over to Lewis and Hickey Architects in Marylebone yesterday afternoon to have a chat with Ben Mareschal (he’s the bloke on the right), who’s reponsible for bringing Skype to their 40 strong London team.

Lewis and Hickey now use Skype for internal calls as well as phoning their clients. Instead of expensive land line calls to their Japanese client, for example, they use SkypeOut; if their clients are at their desks, they can transfer files without having to interrupt their conversations.

Interestingly, despite other employers’ views to the contrary, Ben quite likes instant messaging:

People used to rely on email, but with Skype you can get an immediate response to a query without disturbing the whole office — especially if you are using the instant chat feature.

And loves the conference call features:

It gets used much more than our specialist system ever did, plus it’s free.

The third big selling point is cost — Lewis and Hickey have saved 7.6% on their total phone bill over the last six months, and over the next 3 years plan to reduce their costs by 50% by using Skype.

Of course, all of this came with very little risk — the team at Lewis and Hickey just had to download it, plug in a few headsets and give it a try. No contractey nonsense to sort out, no waiting to get set up, and no commitment.

Do you run a small business? Or do you use Skype at work? If so, I’d love to hear from you, whether your experiences are good or bad — your company could feature in a future blog post.