For many organizations, the office phone system falls into the same category as the copier: nobody gets excited about it, but everyone notices when it breaks. The challenge is that many organizations are still using phone systems designed for a different era. They work, mostly. People know how to use them. And nobody is eager to replace them.

Until they start causing headaches.

As more organizations adopt Microsoft Teams for meetings, chat, collaboration, and file sharing, a common question comes up: Do we really need a separate phone system anymore?

The answer depends on your needs, but for many organizations – including ours — Teams Phone has become a surprisingly practical replacement for traditional business phone systems.

What Is Teams Phone?

Teams Phone turns Microsoft Teams into your organization’s phone system. Employees can make and receive external phone calls directly from Teams on their computer, mobile phone, tablet, or desk phone. Calls, voicemail, chat, meetings, and collaboration all live within the same platform.

Instead of managing a separate phone system alongside Microsoft 365, everything operates from a single environment. That simplicity is one of its biggest advantages.

Where Traditional Phone Systems Still Shine

To be fair, older phone systems are not necessarily bad. Many organizations have reliable systems that have served them well for years. Dedicated desk phones are familiar. Receptionists know the workflows. Existing call queues and extensions may already be configured exactly how staff like them.

For organizations with highly specialized call center requirements, complex contact center workflows, or significant investments in existing infrastructure, replacing a phone system may not make immediate sense. If your current system works perfectly and nobody is frustrated by it, there may not be an urgent reason to change.

But that’s often not the reality.

The Frustrations We Hear Most Often

When organizations start exploring Teams Phone, it’s usually because they’re running into one or more of these issues:

• Maintaining aging phone hardware
• Paying for separate phone and collaboration platforms
• Limited support for remote and hybrid workers
• Complicated administration
• Expensive upgrades
• Difficulty adding or removing users
• Multiple vendors responsible for different pieces of the system

None of these problems are catastrophic on their own. But together they create ongoing operational friction.

Where Teams Phone Usually Wins

The biggest advantage of Teams Phone isn’t necessarily the phone functionality itself. It’s that communication becomes part of the same platform people already use throughout the day.

Instead of switching between applications, employees can:

• Call a colleague
• Join a meeting
• Send a chat message
• Check voicemail
• Share files

All from the same interface.

For remote and hybrid teams, this can make a significant difference. Staff no longer have to be sitting at a particular desk to answer their business phone. Your office extension effectively follows you wherever you work.

What About Desk Phones?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that Teams Phone means giving up desk phones entirely. Not true.

Organizations can continue using physical desk phones if they want them. Microsoft-certified Teams phones are available from several manufacturers, allowing users to keep a familiar handset experience while still benefiting from the Teams platform. For some staff, especially receptionists and heavy phone users, that can be an important consideration.

Cost: It’s Not Always as Simple as It Looks

Many people assume Teams Phone is automatically cheaper. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

The actual cost depends on factors such as:

• Existing phone contracts
• Number of users
• Calling plans
• International calling requirements
• Current hardware investments
• Licensing structure

The real savings often come from consolidation. Instead of maintaining separate systems for collaboration, meetings, messaging, and telephony, organizations manage fewer platforms and fewer vendors. That can reduce both direct costs and administrative overhead.

The User Experience Matters

Technology projects often focus on features and pricing. Users care about something much simpler: “Can I easily answer my phone?”

For most employees, Teams Phone feels familiar very quickly because they are already using Teams every day. There is less training, fewer applications to learn, and fewer places to look when trying to communicate with coworkers or clients. That simplicity tends to drive adoption.

At CGNET, we’ve become big fans of Teams Phone because it fits naturally into how we already work. Whether we’re at our desks, working from home, traveling, or meeting with clients, our phone calls, voicemails, chats, and meetings are all available from the same Teams app on any device.

The convenience is hard to overstate. For a team that supports clients across multiple locations and time zones, that flexibility has been a game changer.

So Which One Is Better?

The honest answer is that there isn’t a universal winner. A well-managed traditional phone system can still be a perfectly reasonable solution. But organizations that are already invested in Microsoft 365 often discover that maintaining a separate phone platform creates unnecessary complexity.

Teams Phone isn’t exciting technology. That’s actually part of its appeal. When it works well, it’s just one less system to manage, one less platform to support, and one less thing for employees to think about.

And in IT, sometimes that’s exactly what success looks like.

If you’re already using Microsoft 365 and Teams, it may be worth evaluating whether your phone system is still delivering enough value to justify the cost and complexity. At CGNET, we help organizations assess their current communications environment, compare options, and determine whether Teams Phone makes sense for their needs. Reach out if you’d like to have a discussion about your current phone system.