With corporate Internet Protocol (IP) networks increasingly the norm, there has never been a better time for companies to tap the power of IP to increase productivity and capture market share.

IP enables businesses and government agencies to converge voice and data into a streamlined network environment, delivering both cost benefits and capabilities that can help companies transform their business operations.

Verizon Business, operator of a well-connected Internet network and a player in the commercial Internet space, offers the following tips to help enterprises make the most of their public and private IP connections to conduct better business:

Make Telework seamless – Establishing secure connections between an IP network, a VPN (virtual private network) and a public IP network can be a great strategy to extend the reach of an organisation's private IP network to employees on the move. By using an IP VPN, employees can turn work from something that's done in a given physical location into an activity that can happen anywhere, using the Internet to securely connect anytime to an organisation's corporate resources.

Create a culture of collaboration – Make every IP endpoint matter by providing workers with advanced collaboration tools, including Web conferencing and high-definition video conferencing, to enhance productivity, trim travel budgets and reduce a company's carbon footprint.

Become an e-tailer, even if you're not a traditional retailer – In today's global economy, businesses can open an electronic storefront as an additional sales channel that is always open for their customers. Internet e-tailing can help companies be more responsive to their customers – both for when and how they want to conduct business. This strategy often contributes directly to an organisation's bottom line as well - both in revenue gains and cost efficiencies.

Consider home-based customer service – Businesses are increasingly seeing clear benefits from allowing customer contact agents to work beyond the four walls of a designated contact centre. To effectively implement this new model, organisations are making the most of their VoIP infrastructure to create virtual contact centre communications platforms. Customer contact agents can conduct business from any location, requiring only a PC, a high-speed Internet connection and a phone. As a result, companies have new opportunities to reduce facilities costs while also creating a dispersed workforce that can be easily and quickly adjusted, as needed, to respond to business events. A flexible VoIP platform also provides business continuity benefits, as well as a healthy work/ life balance to attract high-quality professionals - wherever they may be physically located.

Turn social networking into professional networking 2.0 – Social networking, blogging, video file sharing, webinars and wikis are trends that have seen explosive growth in recent years. By using an open Intranet, organisations can use these media internally to improve collaboration and generate innovative ideas. Avoid endless meetings and tap into 'on-demand' ideas that can be further developed by employees at all levels across an organisation.

Don't let distance be a barrier to training - Capitalise on a growing trend among universities to extend their halls of learning to students beyond the campus, by using distance learning to train employees on new corporate initiatives. Video and Web  conferencing - applications that rely on public and private IP networks for transport - enable an organisation to efficiently reach employees across the globe and speed up the time it takes to reach the market.

Secure Your Data -- In today's EoIP, or Everything over IP world, security is the key for every business. It's not just about securing your network – whether it's public or private IP – it's about securing your data no matter where it flows.

Back it up to stay two steps ahead – In the event of a natural disaster, fire or other unforeseen business disruption, the Internet can serve as a critical business continuity solution. Private IP and public IP network services, bridged by secure gateway services, deliver critical resiliency and diverse infrastructure and routing, along with services that provide data replication and mirroring.