Alongside UC, the collaboration industry certainly rose to the challenge of the global health crisis. As the world shifted overnight to working from home, being able to communicate and work together with remote colleagues suddenly became essential, and many individuals and organisations grabbed the nearest solution they could get their hands on to download — with surprisingly few high-profile disasters.
But we transition from lockdown into a long-term strategy for hybrid working, lessons have been learned, and information security decision-makers are keen to provide relevant and comprehensive tools to their teams rather than off-the-shelf solutions. Once size rarely fits all perfectly, and when applications don’t quite fit with the work to be done then shadow IT with all its inherent risks is an inevitability.
A perfect fit
A trusted and tailored collaboration solution will provide the sustainable underpinning to an effective work-from-anywhere policy, and to achieve this, PGi GlobalMeet is now being delivered exclusively through partnerships with local carriers — businesses which understand their markets, have established brand equity, and who are facing demand for video and other functionality now regarded as the baseline expectation.
This unique go-to-market strategy is repositioning PGi as a non-competitive partner to carriers, who can design the exact product they need via a completely private-labelled provision.
As Gahn Lane, VP Global Strategic Channels and Alliances, explained, “they can brand it themselves, add their colours and logos, and build it directly into their menu bars for native access. We provide them with enterprise-class security, and deliver it across the cloud — using their data centre of choice. They know best how to package it, and go to market where they are. PGi’s focus is to allow them to differentiate themselves, and do it profitably.”
Trusted partnership
This is a powerful attraction for carriers, who have recently found themselves competing with the likes of Microsoft Teams direct routing, moving into their territory as a call provider. There are plenty of customers who have had a decades-long relationship with their local carrier which they trust and rely on, and voice still supports a fundamental part of their communications strategy.
When the trusted carrier can provide them with the additional collaboration tools which everyone has come to rely on during lockdown, everyone is happy, and a real partnership can develop.
This works, because it’s a genuine win-win. As Tom Maurath, Senior VP Global Channel Partners, explained:
“Sometimes people say they have a partner channel, but you know there’s only a small group of us that really understand the sell-through model. The difference is, our reps are dedicated to their partners, so their compensation is aligned with their partners”
This makes the PGi private label model feel closer to account management than sales, because “they’re not selling direct, they’re not selling to other partners. They’re dedicated to that partner. So, when our reps wake up every day, they’re thinking about how do I make my carrier partner more successful — because that’s how they succeed.” Maurath concluded.
