Small companies need to get the most they can from every employee. But they also need to supply employees with the best tools and technologies that they can, to enable the employees to do their jobs well.

voice and data capabilities using Internet Protocol telephony (IPT), companies can help a small workforce be more productive, more collaborative and more responsive to customers. They also can streamline their networks to reduce the burden on internal support staff.

In short, IPT can help small businesses be more agile. Here's how.

1. It enables teleworking (also known as telecommuting).

The META Group, which conducts business research on Internet technology, surveyed 435 companies about their potential uses for IP telephony. The survey found that the most significant demand came in enabling employees to work from home or a remote location.

"The No. 1 application they're expecting to enable with IP telephony is teleworking," says Elizabeth Ussher, vice president of Global Networking Strategies. "The technology is there. It works very, very cleanly."

By encouraging teleworking, smaller companies can reduce their real estate costs and extend their workday, while improving employee satisfaction and productivity. In a survey by Kensington Technology Group, 75% of the teleworkers polled felt they accomplished 30% more in the same amount of time. Kinetic Workplace estimated that companies with teleworking programs saved about $12,000 per year per teleworker and reduced real estate costs by up to 60%.

2. Geography becomes less of an issue in deploying human resources.

The additional flexibility that IPT provides can help companies recruit and retain qualified employees based on capabilities rather than geography. Even if a skilled worker — or the company — needs to relocate, IPT can help make it possible to maintain productive relationships with valued employees from a distance.

Take the example of a small consulting firm in California whose top technical sales-support person had to move to Colorado for personal reasons. The company was concerned about losing a valuable employee, but equally concerned about paying hundreds of dollars a month in long-distance charges or increasing the travel budget to bring her back for regular meetings.

With IPT, the technical-support specialist's California customers still dial the same phone number to reach her. She can transfer calls and conference with colleagues the same way she did back at headquarters. She can pick up her voice mail from home or when she's at headquarters with a single mailbox. The transition was completely transparent to her customers.

3. It can extend the work day for your services.

Companies that have call centers and help desks can take advantage of IPT to extend services to customers without overextending employees. Agents and technicians can work from home early in the morning or late into the night with full access to the applications and company databases they need to perform their jobs.

4. It simplifies maintenance.

IPT makes it easier to support change and growth in your organization. For example, moving a person to a different location is as simple as unplugging the IP phone and plugging it back into the network at the new location. All of the user's IP information and preferences travel with the phone, including number, features, even voice-mail messages.

This is especially useful for offices that have flexible schedules, overlapping workforces, or employees who often switch desks. In addition, companies can easily manage voice traffic from remote locations.

5. It gives your employees better tools.

IPT opens up a whole new world of productivity tools for employees. David M. Cooperstein, research director at Forrester Research, provides an example of the new applications possible with IPT. "You can click on three names and have conference calls set up automatically. These kinds of features make the use of voice as a communications tool easier," he notes.

Another example is unified messaging, which enables employees to listen to voice-mail messages on their computer, receive faxes as e-mail attachments, and listen to faxes and e-mail messages over the phone. A study by the Radicati Group of Palo Alto, Calif., found that unified messaging can add 25-40 minutes per day of additional productivity per employee.

6. It can enable new business services.

The Internet has enabled new kinds of collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners. With IPT, companies can build upon this foundation by creating applications that integrate voice with video and data communications.

For example, sales or service staff can conduct training classes for remote customers by working on a shared whiteboard. Administrators, purchasing agents, or engineers can work through documentation with partners in different states — even different parts of the world — discussing and changing contracts or designs in real time.

These types of applications enable smaller companies to support their customers better without running employees ragged with travel, and collaborate more efficiently with a potentially wider pool of partners and suppliers.

Even smaller companies can set up multichannel call centers, where agents can interact with customers using a combination of voice, data and video to be more responsive and proactive. For example, companies can add "click-to-talk" functionality to their Web sites, so customers can speak to a customer service agent immediately if they have a question.

According to Juniper Research, more than 90% of online shoppers want some form of online human interaction. With a prospect engaged in a chat session using IPT, agents can shorten the sales cycle by sharing content through co-browsing, can make recommendations and product comparisons, can instantly transfer relevant support documents to the customer's desktop, and can walk customers through the checkout process.