Can you imagine running your business without mobile devices? In today’s fast-paced, connected world, smartphones, tablets, and laptops keep your teams agile and your customers satisfied. But while mobile technology brings undeniable convenience, it also introduces hidden complexities – especially when it comes to security, costs, and IT management.

The Mobile Security Blind Spot

Despite their importance, mobile devices are often the weakest link in a company’s security strategy. Each phone or laptop is a potential entry point for cyberattacks – especially if it’s running outdated software or lacks proper device management. With the rise in AI-driven threats and ransomware attacks, this is a risk businesses simply can’t afford to ignore.

Business Mobile Hidden Costs 

Unmanaged mobile estates don’t just create security headaches – they can quietly drain your budget too. Unclear usage policies, fragmented billing, and inflexible contracts can inflate costs without delivering real value. According to insights from connectivity experts, many companies struggle with spiraling mobile expenses due to poor visibility and lack of control.

Rethink Your Mobile Strategy

Here’s how businesses can take back control:

• Implement Mobile Device Management (MDM): These platforms let you track, secure, and update devices remotely – protecting your data and making life easier for your IT team.

• Adopt a Clear Lifecycle Policy: Securely recycle old devices and SIMs to reduce risk and support sustainability goals.

• Prioritize Flexibility: Whether it’s through adjustable contracts or CapEx/OpEx financing, flexible solutions help you scale without overspending.

Final Thoughts

Your mobile estate should empower your business – not complicate it. With the right security tools, cost controls, and management strategy, you can turn a source of risk into a competitive advantage.

Remote working capabilities are essential to business continuity.

In light of yesterday’s announcement by the Government, we are fully committed to providing uninterrupted service to our customers and providing a safe working environment for all employees.

As you would expect from a technology company, we have flexible working capabilities in place, as standard.  We fully understand the difficulties that will be experienced by companies, large and small.

Short Term Support

If anyone needs short term support with remote working, we have a wide range of solutions that can be put into place quickly to help you with your service provision and remote working over these tricky times.

If you are an existing dbfb cloud voice customer, we can provide the Collaborate UC Client free of charge for all of your users. This will allow you to work from any location, on any device and your ability to service your customers will not be affected.

Mobilising your workforce will be seamless, we will remotely configure and provide training – free of charge.

If you are not an existing dbfb cloud voice customers, we can still help you, although there will be a negligible license cost.

Need advice?

Whatever your circumstances, please get in touch. We are happy to provide advice on what to do next.

We understand that the COVID 19 outbreak, brings uncertain and challenging time for businesses, and without wishing to unduly panic anyone, we are seeking to reassure you of our COVID-19 Business Continuity Practice.

We are fully committed to providing uninterrupted service to our customers. As you would expect from a technology company, we have remote working capabilities in place, as standard. All employees are issued with, a laptop, mobile phone and secure internet connection. Our cloud-based telephony platform allows our staff to seamlessly take calls at home as if they were in the office.  To keep our employees fully up to date, we have sent out a link to a video on how to reduce the risk of the virus spreading and what to do if they are showing symptoms.

We understand why some customers are restricting access to their site, please rest assured that our staff will be available by phone or video-conferencing.

If anyone needs short term support, we have a range of solutions that can be put into place quickly to help you with your service provision and remote working over these tricky times. This could be in the form of monthly mobile SIM cards, mobile phones and configured laptops, or video conferencing facilities.

First and foremost, our priority remains the safety of our employees, customers and partners, and we will keep you informed if anything changes.

Should you have any further questions, or require any short term support from us, please contact us on either 01604 673320 or discover@dbfb.co.uk

The children are finally back at school, your furloughed colleagues are gradually returning to work, and the work-life balance that was lost to a worldwide pandemic is slowly, but surely returning to normal. However, for many it is a very new-normal, with at least some level of remote working playing a part in getting successfully back to business.

Working from home was a great short-term solution, but for most businesses, their workforce didn’t have a ‘ready-made home office’, a business approved mobile and internet connection and a cloud-based communications system.

If, like so many others, you’re taking this opportunity to sit back and review the future of your businesses’ digital technology you might find our Top 10 Tips helpful:

1. Research the requirements of your workforce – whether your business is catering for 10 or 10,000, it’s important to understand the needs of every employee. Run a survey, call an online meeting or simply have a chat to find out how your workforce is finding ‘working from home’ and ask for suggestions of anything they feel could make their working day easier/less stressful/more productive.

2. Review the responses and find suitable solutions – PC’s running slow, or even worse crashing, issues with viruses, waiting all day to download important files and employees frustrated with putting in the hours and not getting anywhere fast? If these were the sorts of responses you had, then it sounds like there’s plenty of scope for change!

3. Consider your businesses’ requirements for remote connectivity – Connectivity is a critical enabler for business and whilst a robust plan has probably been developed for office life, this might not yet have been translated to your employee network now working from home. Consider the benefits fibre connectivity can bring to your organisation and what can be done to unlock them?

4. Find new ways to man the phones from home – Being available to talk to your customers or colleagues on the phone is critical for any business. Did you know that calls to the office can be rerouted via cloud-based platforms, such as Microsoft Teams? Meaning all customer facing employees can manage the phones, quickly and simply, from home.

5. Discover the benefits of cloud communication – Increasingly, businesses are consuming many of their critical applications from the cloud, which is also where they’re storing their data. Doing so allows businesses to create efficiencies, reduce costs, and pioneer new products or ways of working that give them an edge over competitors.

6. Give employees the freedom to choose their preferred mobile network – There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of an important call and loosing mobile signal. Make sure your employees have the freedom to connect to the mobile operator of their choice, so that wherever they’re based they always get the best coverage.

7. Remember the importance of digital security – Ensure all of your vital data is secure and saved in the cloud, so that should anything go wrong, you won’t lose important work. Mobile device management allows you to monitor, track, back-up and protect your company devices at a low monthly cost, irrespective of location.

8. Don’t let the bills rack up – One trusted communications provider equals one monthly bill, meaning you can now manage your business connectivity, landline, cloud, mobile and security in one simple place. What’s more, with bespoke billing reports you can save time, hassle and money.

9. Take the complication out of technology – You’ve worked hard to become the best in your industry, as we have in ours. We understand that every business is unique and has its own priorities and requirements, and we want to work together to provide the best possible solution for you.

10. Regularly review your solutions – We’re experiencing an interesting point in time, where no one quite knows what the future holds, but one thing is for sure, the businesses that have the resilience and flexibility to adapt will come out strongest. We recommend a regular review of your business, in partnership with employees, to ensure your communications solutions are continuing to work effectively for you.

Find out more about how dbfb can simplify your technology solutions, follow us @dbfb communications on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram or get in touch at discover@dbfb.co.uk

The coming year may hold several surprises for any business, and therefore never have predictable monthly costs been so important.

When looking for predictable monthly costs, it’s vitally important to understand the full cost of the contract. Headline rates and line rentals always look attractive, but according to research from Citizens Advice (2018), 4 million people in the UK have been charged for mobiles they already own, which translates to a staggering total of £490 million extra on their latest contracts. Before committing to a mobile deal, so be sure to check the small print.

There are 4 ways to source a mobile contract: –

Direct to Network

By going direct to the network, you don’t necessarily get the best solution for your business.  Very little is fixed in business and flexibility is key.  You are tied into a 24-month contract, and when buying new handsets, you end up with a wide array of different contract end dates and a range of different tariffs. If your business reduces the number of staff, your tariff stays the same. There is little flexibility to reduce costs.

Third Party Reseller

A reseller can provide lower-cost handsets from a network, but your mobile contract is supplied direct from the network provider; this means your terms are broadly similar if you had purchased direct.  Your support however, is provided via the reseller. If you have a problem with the signal, you are locked into one network and if your bill isn’t quite right and you’d like to query it, you could expect up to 10 business days before receiving an answer.

MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator

Sky, Tesco & Giff Gaff are MVNO’s and piggyback off the networks. Deals are cheap, however, there can be a compromise on service as you will be one of millions of subscribers.  The experience for the end-user is very much like when using the networks direct; a small fish in an exceptionally large consumer-focused pond.

dbfb – The Difference

A partnership with dbfb offers you unrivalled flexibility and the opportunity to make sure that your mobile plan works for you. You can scale up and down the number of connections you require on a monthly basis. We also offer the choice of network to your end-users without any compromise on service or economies of scale. You benefit from a single contract to negotiate, a single invoice and one supplier that you trust.

Our voice services are delivered to you with unlimited calls and text messages for an easy to budget price per user. You don’t contract to the network directly and therefore should you wish to change network with dbfb, you can do so with no termination fees & minimal fuss.

Our wholesale agreement and in-house billing platform enable dbfb to create totally unique and bespoke tariffs for our customers.  The demand for 3G, 4G and soon to be 5G services is at an all-time high. Our plans range from 250Mb to unlimited individual allowances, or if you have lots of mobile phones, you could benefit from a shared plan or pay-as-you-use data.

Want to know more about simplifying your mobile estate?

Be brave, we’re confident we can deliver, contact us at discover@dbfb.co.uk