It has been a year of significant milestones for Munich-based cloud PBX provider NFON AG.
In November the pan-European company announced that they had surpassed 500,000 seats. Earlier in the year they opened an R&D center in Lisbon as part of their plan to double down on expanding their technology stack and improving their product offering.
Among all of these achievements and new processes, in December NFON AG brought on Dr. Klaus von Rottkay to help them build from their success and direct the company as it continues to grow.
Dr. von Rottkay recently caught up with UC Today to discuss the state of cloud telephony, the need for market education, and some of his thoughts on how NFON AG is planning its next steps for the year ahead.
The Power of Market Education — Changing Minds Through Positive Experiences
With a background in technical physics and consulting for McKinsey, Dr. von Rottkay may not fit the typical profile for a cloud telephony CEO, if such a profile is really out there.
However, he tells UC Today that he has been in the Unified Communications and SaaS space since 2009 when he came on board with Microsoft to help lead their sales in Denmark before returning to his native Germany.
Spending time in Denmark during those early days of the cloud gave him the opportunity to learn more about how the Danes were adopting emerging technologies.
“They were close by but had a much different attitude towards adopting technology,” he says, noting how Denmark was more open to cloud technology at that time than the more conservative German market.
When he returned to Germany, he was able to apply many of the lessons learned in the Northern European markets. Specifically, he notes that bringing UC and cloud technologies to Germany required placing an emphasis on security and the need to educate his local market on the benefits of cloud services.
“You have to take data security concerns seriously,” he says, explaining that, “Market participants will think long and hard despite the benefits.
However, he notes that as more organisations move to the cloud, and are gaining more by doing so, the rest of the market has responded positively in their effort to remain competitive.
“There’s a lot of education to be done,” admits Dr. von Rottkay. But by bringing examples of how cloud technology has succeeded in other countries, like his time in Denmark, he has seen a marked increase in adoption.
“When I started back in 2009, nobody was using SaaS,” he says. “A lot has changed in a decade. When I left Microsoft, 2/3s of our customers were using cloud.”
With this experience in helping to shift market openness to adopting new technologies, he hopes to see a similar shift to cloud telephony.
“It is not just white-collar and call centers that are recognising the opportunity of cloud telephony,” he tells UC Today. “More traditional businesses, from factories to retail are realising that going to the cloud saves you money and gives you flexibility.”
No more on site maintenance, it’s easier to move around services, and no change for the end user. The market sees how it makes it easier for the administration of communication across the entire organisation and is responding positively.”
Next Steps for NFON
After a year of uncertainty in the market due to the pandemic, Dr. von Rottkay says that there’s now a feeling that businesses are ready to get back on track.
Unsurprisingly, growth is at the core of his focus for the coming year in both technology and on the sales front.
These plans include increasing NFON’s marketing through their channel partners.
He says that he is also committed to a massive investment in growing the product. “We need to improve the product to make it more competitive for the next two to three years,” he says, explaining that his goal is to add more intelligence on top of the service.
In order to reach this goal, they will need to invest in people who can grow that tech.
For starters, their intention is to hire 30 people for R&D in Lisbon, but Dr. von Rottkay notes that’s not enough for what they have in store. To get there, they will look to increase hires at their other existing R&D centers in Europe.
But that’s not set in stone, as he remarks that he’s open to partnering with other companies in potential acquisitions or mergers.
Developing a Theory of the Case
Having only come on board in October, Dr. von Rottkay makes the point that he’s very much at the beginning of his time with NFON and is working on developing his ideas for the company.
“I’m still very much doing my research,” he says, noting that it has been a challenge to join the company during the pandemic when face-to-face meetings with his team have not been a real possibility.
However, during his short time, he has begun to formulate a theory that the next stage of evolution for the cloud telephony and UC products will not be front and center for the public to see.
“I believe that much of the innovation is going to move towards the backend,” he tells UC Today.
“People might not see it on their interfaces, but they are very much going to feel improvement in the overall experience, and that will make the real difference as we move forward”
