If you’re like most organizations, your telephone communications infrastructure is a patchwork built over decades — phone systems from the early 2000s, overlapping conferencing tools, and legacy contracts that made sense once but no longer serve you. And yet, you continue paying those bills year after year.

Here’s the truth: most organizations already own the tools to modernize and to simplify their telephony and productivity. They’re just not using them.

As a CIO in the federal government, I faced these exact challenges — outdated PBXs, costly niche providers, and systems so inefficient they seemed designed to fail. But in solving them, we discovered a repeatable path to eliminating waste, increasing productivity, and simplifying operations.

It starts with asking one simple question: Why are we still paying for duplicative legacy technologies instead of using what we already own?

The “As-Is” Problem: Complexity, Cost, and Cyber Risk

Many organizations are still operating with overlapping telephone and video conferencing tools acquired over the past 20+ years — a mix of platforms stitched together to serve a need that has long since evolved. In my former agencies, we found everything from legacy VTC terminals collecting dust to telecom equipment that hadn’t been manufactured since Radio Shack shut its doors.

Even our call center architecture was a textbook case on   inefficiency. Incoming calls were routed through an entirely different government telecom system before reaching us, leading to outages caused by instability during peak service periods. It was a fragile system that required constant attention, and it failed at the worst possible times.

Three common issues stand out in this kind of environment:

• • Inconsistent user experience: Staff had to choose between different productivity platforms depending on meeting content, attendees, or technical limitations. Licensing gaps often dictated what kind of meeting could even be held.
  • Redundant technologies inflate costs: Multiple platforms mean multiple contracts, licenses, support models, and cybersecurity compliance requirements — all of which eat up resources and budget.
  • Expanded cyber risk surface: Every duplicative tool introduced another vector for attack. Each one required separate patching, monitoring, and security reviews — a fragmented and risky model in today’s cyber climate.

And the biggest irony? Most of these tools were doing the same thing — and duplicating what we already had access to through Microsoft 365.

The Turning Point: Simplify, Secure, and Save

Rather than add another solution, instead we made the decision to consolidate and activate what we already owned in Microsoft 365.

By enabling Teams Calling within our existing Microsoft 365 environment, we retired legacy PBX hardware and maintenance contracts, replaced multi-vendor telephony with cloud-based, encrypted calling, and delivered flexibility for remote staff without the need for infrastructure moves. The results were immediate and measurable.

The cost? Just over $5 per user per month. That’s less than half of what we were paying for our hodge podge of systems — and it integrates seamlessly with the tools our teams already used every day.

What You Gain with Teams Calling

Here are five transformative outcomes we saw — and that your organization can replicate:

1. 1. Waste Elimination, Not Just Savings
      Legacy systems are retired. Redundant contracts are cancelled. Support needs are reduced. This isn’t a savings story — it’s a waste elimination story.
   2. One Platform, One Experience
      Calling, chat, collaborating on documents and in meetings are managed in a single platform. No app-switching. No retraining. It’s Microsoft Teams — the platform your staff already knows.
   3. Stronger Cybersecurity, Built-In
      End-to-end encryption between Teams devices means sensitive calls and messages stay protected — without requiring  3^rd party software solutions.
   4. Work From Anywhere, Without IT Overhead
      Staff can use their work phone number from any location, on any device. No need to forward work calls to personal numbers. Just log in and go from wherever you are working.
   5. Licensing You Likely Already Own
      If you’re on a Microsoft 365 G5 plan, Teams Calling is a quick activation. If your agency currently uses the G3 license, upgrading can replace multiple standalone tools you’re already paying for.

Lessons Learned: Simplicity Wins

While the technology behind Teams Calling is powerful, our biggest takeaway was about the people side of the transition. The migration was straightforward, but success hinged on change management. For instance, many staff instinctively tried to dial “9” to make outside calls — a habit from older systems. Teaching them to just dial the number, like they would on their smartphone, took a little unlearning.

We also made a strategic decision not to port every existing phone number to Teams. Only those that were externally published or widely known stayed the same. Everyone else got a new number, and that simplified and sped up our rollout without any negative user feedback. The ease of implementation surprised even our Help Desk team.

The Future State: Streamlined and Scalable

A modern communications environment isn’t about adding more. It’s about doing more with what you already have. With Teams Calling, users can take their number anywhere, use any device, and collaborate from a single platform — securely, encrypted and efficiently.

This isn’t just about technology modernization — it’s about rethinking the way IT delivers value. You don’t need more tools. You need fewer, better ones — and most of the time, you already own them.

Want help planning your transition to Teams Calling? Whether you’re evaluating licensing or preparing for enterprise migration, we’ve been there — let Planet help get you there faster!