How to Sell: Convergence - Part 5 - Unified messaging

Unified messaging has experienced disappointing take-up, but opportunities remain for the channel. In the fifth part of How to Sell: Convergence, Guy Matthews explains how resellers can join the party.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, it used to be said, had all the attributes of a successful leader except followers. Backers of unified messaging (UM) will know how he felt.

On the face of it, bringing together multiple messaging streams and delivering them wherever they are wanted should be an end-user no-brainer, even in these difficult days of 'ROI or die'.

UM is all about replacing outdated and inefficient legacy technology with something simple and inexpensive. Unlike many legacy replacements, it doesn't necessarily involve wasting vast amounts of existing investment.

Also on the plus side, it is based mainly around technology, in the form of IP, that clearly has a future, as well as enough of a past to be sure that it works. So why isn't UM a whole lot easier to sell?

One problem, according to Mark Reynolds, managing director of UM vendor Topcall, is that UM is not, in its own right, a huge opportunity.

"Going to an existing customer with a purely UM angle is definitely the hard way to approach the market," he said.

"The real opportunity is the broader issue of the convergence of voice and data. Lots of companies are trying to do this at the moment, many driven by the relocation of their offices."

Soft benefits
The trouble with UM on its own, Reynolds explained, is that it is a bit of a 'nice to have'; in other words, it sounds good, but no one is going to lose their job by not buying it. Nor does it promise startling advantages.

"It does offer benefits," said Reynolds, "but they are mostly fairly soft, such as minor productivity gains."

Lots of people have shied away from UM, not for want of evident benefits but from lack of understanding, stated Jeff Brainard, senior technology consultant at messaging infrastructure firm Mirapoint.

"UM technology has failed to become as mainstream as predicted because many potential customers are still not clear on whether UM is 'real', or even what it actually is," he said. "UM uptake will not be significant until users' misconceptions about the technology are dispelled."

For many companies, deploying UM technology is a huge challenge, requiring custom integration, multiple points of vendor contact and a mixture of data, telephony and wireless expertise.

"Although this in itself is not bad news for resellers. Clearly there is a lot of value to be added by systems integrators with expertise in this area," added Brainard.

Whatever its virtues, UM doesn't exactly walk off the shelf on its own. Mario DiMascio, voice sales director at 3Com, said: "No one will ever come to you and say, 'I want to buy UM.' It's something you need to go out and sell."

So what does it take? "You need a lot more skill than you would just selling a telephony solution. UM is about more than selling a product," warned DiMascio.

"Some of the companies we work with know a lot about the IP marketplace, but to succeed in UM you need to know about applications as well.

"Some UM packages are supposedly 'off the shelf', but in reality all need bespoke work and a degree of integration."

Thinking big
But DiMascio believes that the UM market is set to take off quickly. "What will drive it is that it's a great way for a small company to look like a bigger company. This helps it touch many markets," he explained.

Resellers which decide to have a stab at it will find the basic products a lot easier to work with than their reputation might suggests, according to Neil May, managing director of Post CTI, a distributor of Intel's Netstructure computer telephony boards.

"There are a lot of UM products out there that are channel-ready, suitable for resellers and system integrators to sell out of the box, and it's all a lot easier to set up than it was," he said.

"There is still an element of bespoke work for the reseller to add value. We offer UM on an open systems basis, which demands a degree of integration. This way, the user isn't tied to a proprietary product range."

But not every reseller will be able to jump on the bandwagon just like that, according to John Wood, commercial manager at C3, a UM vendor actively looking for channel partners for its product.

"UM is a specialist solution sell, not suitable for every reseller but very attractive for convergence specialists and for resellers working in vertical or horizontal markets where the technology is particularly relevant," he explained. "For example, specialists in sales force, help-desk or flexible-worker systems."

Nigel Jones, business development manager at Alcatel, agreed that, despite its slow take-off, UM is a reasonably mature market.

"UM products have been around for some time from many vendors. Early offerings tended to be from specialist small start-up vendors rather than mainstream large telecom vendors. They were PC-based, on Windows, and had limited availability and resilience," he said.

Jones claimed that things are now changing, as larger vendors such as Alcatel offer UM with seamless integration to telephony platforms offering both IP and time-division multiplexed telephony.

This, in Jones's opinion, helps to integrate UM as part of an overall enterprise infrastructure.

"IP lends itself quite nicely to UM because by its nature the protocol supports remote workers, which is the UM target sector," he said. "With the number of remote workers growing, this is an obvious opportunity for resellers."

Bad timing
After large UM market growth was predicted about five years ago, actual sales have been somewhat disappointing. The single biggest reason for this, according to Jones, is the current level of IT budgets.

"Short-term infrastructure cost savings have taken priority over productivity improvement and mobilising the workforce. However, these issues are becoming increasingly important for many firms," he explained.

So if UM is about to make a reappearance on corporate wish lists, what will be driving demand at desktop level?

Kieren Moore, business development manager for unified communications systems at Avaya, commented: "Users will benefit from using a UM system because it allows them to access and manage their messages from one infrastructure using any device.

"For example, when out of the office, voice, email and fax messages can be accessed and dealt with via a mobile phone or PDA. This enables location-independent working, and has a positive impact on customer service."

Moore added that customer retention and satisfaction can be boosted if requests are responded to in a timely manner, and claimed that UM gives employees the chance to be more responsive because messages can be accessed from anywhere.

UM's productivity benefits are clear and quantifiable, according to Moore. "Typically, employees can gain 20 to 30 minutes of added productivity per day," he said.

"In sectors where employees are billed out by the hour, UM saves time by filtering email, voice and fax messages from a single source frees up time for billable work.

"Also, in terms of administering the system, by using UM with the appropriate foundation software, organisations can have a single point of administration and directory addressing mechanism for their messaging infrastructure, reducing the admin burden and enhancing return on investment.

"Companies can realise an average saving of 70 per cent a year by having a single point of administration for the messaging infrastructure and a single message storage point."

Enterprise opportunities
Steven Forrest, senior consultant at Dimension Data, claimed that the argument is equally compelling at enterprise level.

"The evolution of enterprises' IP-centric infrastructures, and in particular the adoption of voice over IP, means the future looks bright for unified messaging," he explained.

"With the convergence of voice and data across one network, the barriers to unifying the different communications are immediately lowered.

"The fact that UM operates in a converged voice and data network environment strengthens the business case for a converged network.

"The problem at the moment is that people are wary and yet to be convinced about what benefits convergence can bring to their business."

One long-standing objection from data resellers considering UM and convergence is that (from their viewpoint) the market seems suited to voice resellers more than it is to them.

John Pateman, sales manager of the networks and telecoms division at Compusys, suggested that things look as bad, if not worse, from the voice side.

"Voice resellers generally view UM as voicemail with extras, and they have trouble with the groupware interface," he said.

"One of their issues is training their engineers to Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer level for Exchange integration, because this means they will have to increase their salaries or lose them to MCSE-paid jobs. And this is when they have just paid £5,000 to train them."

Black magic
Pateman indicated that data resellers have real trouble understanding the 'black art' of voice protocols.

"When you come from a background where the industry strives for open architecture standards, to move forward into voice/data convergence is totally alien," he stated.

But Mark Hollingsworth, managing director of Tobit Software, believes it is worth the struggle.

"Resellers can use UM to differentiate themselves from their competitors, who are more than likely selling email-only systems," he said.

"The biggest hurdle to the growth of the market is the unwillingness of many resellers to look beyond Microsoft Exchange."

Hollingsworth added that Tobit's particular focus is on the SME market, which he defines as companies with between five and 25 users on the network.

"SMEs often have more flexibility than the corporates over which products they can use, so it's this space we encourage our resellers to target," he explained. "There are millions of firms of this size in the UK."

Teddy Theanne, UK country manager at QuesCom, also sees UM as an essentially SME-flavoured affair.

"The key benefits of installing UM are increased productivity and responsiveness," he explained.

"Obviously, these benefits are important to all businesses, but SMEs will benefit most. This is because SMEs generally operate in a highly competitive market, where a missed call or voice message can result in missing a new business lead or failing to retain an existing customer."

Questionable proposition
However, Paul Tollan, managing director of Aspect Communications, argues that there are some reasons for the slow take-up of UM that make it a dubious proposition for resellers now and in the future.

"There is enormous value in email, fax and voice mail," he said. "What is questionable is the value in providing access to all these through a single user interface.

"If the benefits that can be derived from UM outweigh the disadvantages, the business case is clear. To date, however, the disadvantages, such as cost and the network congestion and integration issues caused by UM, have frequently outweighed the advantages."

Tollan claimed that this situation will be changed by the introduction of IP-based systems where voice and data services co-exist on a single server and are carried by a single network.

In an IP world, according to Tollan, UM is simple because there is little or no integration required. It will be an accepted part of moving to IP, not an extra.

"For this reason, UM is unlikely ever to become a significant reseller opportunity," he said. "I believe resellers are better off learning the nuances of the telephony, internet and email world in readiness for IP voice/data convergence rather than learning how to build UM solutions in a traditional telephony world."

UM is a potential growth area just out of reach of many resellers. Not only are there historic reasons why it has so far failed to unite, but there are some fundamental reasons why resellers need to be wary of it when, indeed if, it ever does.

Where the opportunities knock
Resellers with an eye on unified messaging (UM) will want to know where they should focus their efforts. Are there particular verticals in which UM is just waiting to explode? Or is it more of a horizontal thing, best suited to, say, SMEs?

Mark Reynolds, managing director of UM vendor Topcall, admitted that it is a hard one to call. "You can't really draw lines and say that UM is more of a corporate thing than an SME thing, or vice versa," he said.

"If you want to look at it in terms of vertical markets, it's really industries with a big remote workforce that will gain the most: remote engineering, community nursing, that kind of thing."

Kieren Moore, business development manager for unified communications systems at Avaya, added: "The benefits of UM can be realised across the board for all organisations, especially those with a highly mobile workforce. But verticals such as the legal, finance and construction sectors can gain significant benefit."

Of the legal sector, Moore said: "Email applications and collaboration platforms within a UM system means that all messages can be put in one message inbox to maintain up-to-date knowledge across a large team working on a case.

"In addition, the data storage aspects of the system allow for storage and archiving of sensitive communication over voice mail, removing the need for all such communication to be in written format."

And of the construction sector, Moore said: "This sector typically contains a disparate workforce, with employees on the road and working at several different sites. Such a workforce demands timely access to information and messages wherever they are."

How to Sell: Convergence - Part 1 - Answering the call

How to Sell: Convergence - Part 2 - Clear and simple

How To Sell: Convergence - Part 3 - Mix and match

How to Sell: Convergence - Part 4 - Cutting the cord

CONTACTS:

Avaya (0800) 698 3619
www.avaya.co.uk

C3 (01223) 427 700
www.c3ltd.co.uk

Dimension Data (020) 7651 7000
www.didata.com

Mirapoint (01442) 416 535
www.mirapoint.com

Quescom (00 33) 4 97 23 48 48
www.quescom.com

Tobit (07740) 486 681
www.uk.tobit.com