As we settle into the new year, the Unified Communications and Collaboration markets are one of the most buoyant sectors on the planet.
Although that revelation may be up there with the grass being green and the sky being blue, the point still stands that there is great opportunity in providing UC&C solutions as the dust from the pandemic continues to settle.
But while it’s obvious that businesses will need to have some form of communications and collaboration strategy moving forward, what is less clear is how providers should approach businesses.
Since March 2020, the UK government alone has ordered businesses to work from home or return to the office six times, which could have had an effect on the solutions businesses take at the time.
That confusion can also be an obstacle for resellers, as when restrictions and the processes that businesses implement change, so do their needs, as Steve Rowley, VanillaIP Channel Development Manager details.
“Our partners have to do deep analysis on their customers’ needs, right down to the user level, identify their needs and then build a bespoke proposition that is just for that customer.
“But building those propositions comes with a lot of complications for the customer to understand when you present the proposal to them. It can be a nightmare, which is probably why most people don’t do it that way. They approach the marketplace with a range of three or four options and hope the customer likes one of them.
Flexibility
Rowley, who joined VanillaIP last year after being in the channel business for many years, said that one of the draws to the UC&C provider was the Uboss solution that he described as “flexible”.
Speaking to UC Today, he said that the ability to add and remove features as and when they are required is a key to the Uboss proposition, that removes the complication for both the reseller and their customers.
“In Uboss, we can take something that is inherently complicated, and make it quite straight forward and easy for the customer to understand by breaking up the solution,” said Rowley. “We allow our partners to offer a minimum term deal so that, if a reseller proposes a solution but their customer is hesitant to sign a long term deal, they can agree a minimum spend over three years, for example.
“Therefore, at the outset, resellers can put together a solution which has got remote working, call recording and a handful of other elements that are all sold on a 30 day term. That allows customers to add or take away elements, which gives them the confidence that their solution over three years will always reflect their needs.
Focus for 2022
With so much attention on the UC&C market comes more businesses jostling for their slice of the pie. In many markets such competition would have fired the starting pistol for a race to the bottom on price but Rowley said that, in his experience, providing the right solution is worth the added expenditure to the customers.
“It’s possible that there will be a race to the bottom as voice and UC has become commoditized,” said Rowley, “essentially what we’re selling is a ringing telephone via softphone or a hardphone.
“We don’t want to get involved in a commodity, in 2022 we are focused on providing solutions and enabling our partners to match the appropriate technology to their customers, because there’s a lot of businesses who are still using the knee jerk solutions they adopted on the 23rd of March 2020 just to keep the lights on.
“Now the opportunity is to go back to those customers, look at what worked and what hasn’t, what they need to keep, what they need to change, and introduce the appropriate technologies they need to take them into the future.”
For more information, visit VanillaIP.
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