Mitel is one of the biggest unified communications and collaboration (UCC) vendors in the world today, powering more than 2 billion connections per day. Among leaders in the UC environment, Mitel is constantly innovating and growing to deliver new solutions to its customers.
As part of our Strategic Insights Series for 2018, we spoke to Todd Abbott, the EVP of global sales and services at Mitel. He shared with us some very useful information about how the company has responded to the changes of 2017, how it's preparing its partners for the future, and what it predicts will be leading the way for businesses in 2018.
What Lessons has Mitel Learned in 2017?
2017 has been a time of disruption and change for many of the big players in the UC market, and Mitel has been no exception. I wanted to know what "takeaways" Todd had established this year, and what Mitel has learned to go into the future.
"I think we're going to look at 2017 as the final beginning of consolidation in the UC space. UC has been one of the slowest technology segments to consolidate, and companies around the world are beginning to invest in strategies that bring various technologies together. The UC players that haven't been able to invest in collaboration portfolios are the ones that are losing their installed base. I think the ability of some brands to invest in R&D for their collaboration networks is what's driving consolidation in the space. Businesses need the profitability of being a top player in the market to fund the R&D needed to meet the market’s demands for collaboration."
What Were the Challenges for Mitel in 2017?
Mitel has made some significant movements in 2017 as part of its overall UC strategy. For instance, the recent acquisition of ShoreTel sparked a lot of conversation in the industry. I asked Todd what he considered to be the biggest challenges the business has faced this year.
"I don't think the integrations were very challenging. They were obviously a lot of work, but when you acquire a company that's very aligned and very similar in culture, the whole thing becomes much easier. When you consider the fact that some 90% of acquisitions fail in the world today, many of those failures are caused by problems with culture. For us, Mitel and ShoreTel were very similar, so they were a lot easier to connect."
For Mitel, the biggest challenge for 2017 has been the incredibly fast move to the cloud.
"It's happening in some markets faster than we expected. While we've been prepared for this challenge, it's very complex for channel partners, and it's about figuring out how to manage an on-premises business while helping customers and resellers make the shift into the cloud."
What Challenges and Opportunities Do You See in 2018?
Obviously, 2017 has presented its fair share of challenges and opportunities for Mitel and vendors like them, but I was interested to learn what Todd considered to be the biggest factors in the year ahead.
"I think the challenges we all faced in 2017 will just pick up pace in 2018. There are new people approaching the marketplace all the time, particularly on the cloud side of things. There's a lot of money going into channel partner consolidation just to enable them to build the capital structure they need to become a player in the cloud space."
As the cloud continues to become more significant, Mitel believes that 2018 will welcome a lot of new entrants to the game, with consolidation taking place much faster than what we have experienced in the on-premises environment.
