UCaaS 101: Building a Unified Communications as a Service Practice

Transcription

1 Communications as a Service Practice Theresa Caragol, Contributor, Channel Futures Brian Gilman, Vice President, Product Marketing, Vonage KEY TAKEAWAYS Five key forces are impacting the channel into Successful collaboration correlates with innovation, profitability, and revenue growth. As applications move to the cloud, the market opportunity for UCaaS grows. Businesses are focusing on improving internal communications. in partnership with Companies must address customer communication needs, not just internal needs. UC-driven intelligent interactions create better business outcomes. UC is more than just a phone system; it s a holistic view of communications.

2 OVERVIEW Unified communications (UC) is often looked at by companies as a replacement for aging phone systems. But it s more than that. UC offers a holistic communications model that integrates voice, video, messaging, and even social medial channels in a way that improves business outcomes. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) enables solution and service providers to offer a cloud-based UC solution to customers that are interested in taking advantage of the benefits of this omni-channel offering without the overhead of implementing and maintaining the solution on premises. CONTEXT Theresa Caragol and Brian Gilman discussed how UC solutions can help businesses thrive in an environment that requires collaboration internal to the business as well as with the customer. KEY TAKEAWAYS Five key forces are impacting the channel into UC solution providers, managed service providers, and IT consultants need to understand the key forces at play in the market heading into Five Key Forces Affecting the UC Channel Force Power has shifted to the end user Factors and impact Incremental investment must be justified Conversations must center around business outcomes End users require successful outcomes Harness the technology-enabled business opportunities Convergence 5 enterprise platforms will rise: IT, audiovisual (AV), automatic identification and data capture (AIDC), copier, physical security Telephony silos will converge: contact center, UC, video rooms Artificial intelligence (AI) will embed across all functions Plug and play integrations Vertizontal solutions Vertizontal solutions combine vertical expertise with horizontal scale Solution providers will become more specialized in client operations or competencies Help wanted Shortages in high-tech experienced labor will push new tech delivery Solution providers will adopt technology to boost operations efficiency Solution providers will have a seat at the table Mutual trust Creates a new level of loyalty Solution providers will build critical dependencies to deliver new generation of solutions and advance business maturity Unified communications is a great enabler as you build out your service offerings and think about your plans for Theresa Caragol Successful collaboration correlates with innovation, profitability, and revenue growth. UC enables collaboration across the business. Collaboration, when done well, can be tied directly to increased rates of innovation, improved profitability, and revenue growth. PAGE 2

3 Collaborative tools are also expected within the business, especially with millennials comprising 50% of the workforce by This generation is collaborative by nature, and will require the organizations they work in and interact with to use collaborative techniques and processes. Globalization also requires collaborative tools. For example, video as a service allows team members around the world to interact visually and build deep levels of trust without requiring costly and time-consuming travel on a regular basis. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) also published ISO 44001, which sets science-based standards for collaborative business relationship management systems. This is helping drive collaboration efforts in businesses. As applications move to the cloud, the market opportunity for UCaaS grows. Businesses are moving more and more applications from on-premise locations to the cloud. Many of the applications including business productivity, collaboration, virtual desktop, voice over IP (VoIP), help desk, and call center are included in and ideal for UCaaS. Application Locations: CompTIA s Trends in Cloud Computing Application Cloud On-premise 51% 47% Web presence 46% 39% Business productivity 45% 46% Collaboration 39% 36% Customer relationship 37% 33% management (CRM) Analytics/business intelligence (BI) 35% 40% Financial management 32% 60% VoIP 31% 41% Virtual desktop 30% 38% Human resources (HR) 29% 45% management Help desk 29% 40% Expense management 29% 41% Enterprise resource planning (ERP) 26% 34% Call center 23% 39% Businesses are focusing on improving internal communications. When companies begin to look at UC, most are focused mainly on improving internal communications as they grow as an organization and their employees become both more mobile and global. Their three main focal points around internal communication are: Mobility: Enabling communications on any device for a virtual workforce. Collaboration: Using audio, video, and web collaboration tools to empower teamwork, especially as the millennials who use FaceTime and instant messaging become a significant part of the workforce. Integration that connects business-critical apps to improve workforce productivity. Most companies have not considered in depth how a UC platform can make them more productive. Companies must address customer communication needs, not just internal needs. Productivity improvements go beyond internal communication needs. Organizations need to address customer communication needs and think about how their own customers want to communicate, when they want communication, and where they want it. End users typically have two types of interactions with a business that may require different methods of communication. Transactional activities are things like appointment reminders, checking account balances, and package tracking. These can often be handled with simple self-service applications or text messages. Moments of truth require a personal touch and flawless communications. These are the interactions that build a brand or lead a customer to look for a better provider. PAGE 3

4 UC-driven intelligent interactions create better business outcomes. UC platforms produce better business outcomes, creating intelligent interactions that exceed customer expectations while improving the employee experience. Vonage is focused on helping enterprises create a customer focus through every interaction, building loyalty and brand devotion that fuels better business outcomes. Think through how your unified communications platform can deliver that better employee experience, making them more intelligent to solve problems for the end users as well as within the walls of their own network. Brian Gilman The employee experience also plays a role in the customer experience; the happier employees are, the more likely they are to drive a better customer experience. UC platforms improve the employee experience by providing the employee-to-employee communications necessary for collaboration, as well as the employee-to-customer communications for superior engagement. Solutions are integrated, contextual carried from one form of communication to the next seamlessly and in the channels and on the devices the employees want to or need to use. UC is more than just a phone system; it s a holistic view of communications. Solutions and service providers can help businesses see how UC is more than just a phone system. It offers a holistic view of communications, allowing employees to interact with one another and with customers across numerous channels, solving problems and driving better business outcomes. UCaaS enables collaboration across the organization, driving increased innovation, improved profitability, and revenue growth. PAGE 4

5 BIOGRAPHIES Theresa Caragol Contributor, Channel Futures Theresa Caragol is founder and principal consultant of Theresa Caragol Consulting, LLC, and Achieve Unite a strategic advisory firm that provides business acceleration services to global enterprises including partner and channel development, go-to-market planning, M&A channel integration and executive learning forums. She has more than 20 years experience in building and managing multi-million dollar indirect channel teams and strategic alliance business and programs from inception to sales success. Prior to founding TCC, Theresa held senior executive roles at Extreme Networks, Ciena, and Nortel. Brian Gilman Vice President, Product Marketing, Vonage Brian Gilman is the VP of Product Marketing at Vonage. In this role, Brian is responsible for the go-to-market vision and strategy for the Vonage Business portfolio. Spending more than a decade building solutions-based marketing functions, Brian has a proven record of success in developing and implementing strategic B2B marketing plans and engaging in high-touch sales activities within the communications and collaboration markets. Prior to his tenure at Vonage, Brian has held leadership positions with leading telecom, contact center, and collaboration providers, including Avaya, Dimension Data, Polycom and Vidyo. In addition to his marketing experience, Brian has also produced more than 1,000 pages of telecom research that has been highlighted by the US Internet Council, Business 2.0, and Exploration and Production- Oil and Gas Review. Brian holds a BA in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Informa. All rights reserved. PAGE 5