Keeping UC resellers afloat in a sea of change
As an increasing number of businesses demand a more flexible IT and comms infrastructure, BroadSoft's Mike Wilkinson looks into how this impacts UC resellers
Earlier this year, BroadSoft unveiled a partnership with UC provider Wavenet, and during our conversations it said that a growing number of its customers are demanding a more flexible IT and communications infrastructure that can securely support applications and devices in any location.
This is a trend that is increasing across the sector. The number of its customers operating in more than one office is growing year-on-year and, today, many businesses similar to Wavenet’s customers, are finding that traditional PBX telephony systems can no longer support their business models.
We see this business case as a constant across our global workforces. Businesses now require the flexibility to move anywhere and be anywhere in order to stay nimble and compete.
To meet this challenge, communications infrastructure must be flexible enough to ensure productive and efficient workforces. More businesses are now seeing the benefits of cloud UC as the solution to this.
As a result, traditional business models are beginning to change as the levels of cloud adoption continue to rise.
But what does this mean for the reseller and how can they stay afloat in this sea of change?
The key issues resellers face in this shift from on-premise to hosted is compensation timing, account control and the ability to sell supplementary services. Traditionally, the reseller model has been structured on selling the software to a business and making an up-front revenue there and then.
Whereas resellers are now faced with issue of trading this more instant payment off for long-term annuity revenue that could stretch as long as eight years – the average shelf life of a cloud account.
This is the polar opposite to what resellers have been used to but businesses are increasingly attracted the benefits of cloud-based UC offers - such as reduced infrastructure and not having to invest in new hardware.
Resellers, then, need to ensure they have the right skills and the right people in place so that they can sell supplementary services such as the on-going support that businesses demand in order to address this issue.
Cloud providers are also now changing their competitive models to narrow the gap between themselves and the on-premise resellers. And it is the end-user demand for hosted services driving this model. Larger organisations, alongside SMEs, have started to see the benefits of cloud-based infrastructure in considerable numbers for many reasons, among them: flexibility, reduced capex and service updates without disruption.
As their legacy infrastructure gradually comes offline, businesses are seeking faster, scalable solutions, and the cloud presents this opportunity. But we have to make sure what we’re developing is focused on the right business use cases.
As a marketer, I have a real issue with firms using clichés like lower TCO in a throw-away manner. Instead, resellers need to gain an in-depth understanding of the end users’ requirements and business processes to work out exactly what their customer is trying to achieve.
Demonstrating to the customer the value of cloud-based UC as it relates to the productivity and efficiency of a specific business need will consequently lead to a faster adoption of cloud. Cloud is fast becoming the present – as well as a big part of the future.
By switching their focus from short-term sales hits to long term-gains and stronger relationships, resellers will form stronger partnerships with their customers, enhancing their reputations – ultimately growing their revenue across the board.
Mike Wilkinson is vice president of Market Offers at BroadSoft
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