Bolt lost his claim to the ‘triple triple’ post Olympics. This was because a team mate tested
positive for drugs in the 4 x 100M – for me however, he will always be the guy who raised the roof!
So why do hosted telephony platforms continue to draw a crowd for Telecoms Resellers and Service Providers?
‘Partnership’ remains in all walks of life critical and with telephony relationships as many will know, it tends to be quite emotive because these essential services still underpin most organisations’ connections to the outside world. As such, selecting the right technology and partnerships to maintain your service cannot be understated. Your credibility when you go to market, help in isolating and working through installations struggles will go a long way and really help resonate the quality of your brand. I might not have lived through losing a medal however, having moved from one vendor’s technology to another, my quality of life did change for the better and it was all about partner selection!
Parking up who you select for the moment, here are 10 compelling reasons why hosted telephony works so well for service providers and why it is such a great addition to any service portfolio;
1. ‘Proven model’ – far from being bleeding edge this is a proven way of working for businesses with some platform vendors having been successfully supporting the market for around 20 years.
2. ‘Growing’ – Hosted telephony remains the fasted growing VoIP sector according to recent Cevall research whilst the rate of SIP trunking uptake slows.
3. ‘Win and protect more’ – manage the handsets well and you will win customers over and keep them – automatically collecting and protecting associated revenues and margins along the way.
4. ‘It sticky’ – whilst many companies chop and change the software they use, hosted phone systems don’t tend to get disrupted very often – resulting in long term contracts and loyalty.
5. ‘Land and expand’ service – as long as you can cover off the key phone system features already in use and add in a few that many are looking for, it tends to be an attractive offering that expands to include handsets and headsets as part of a service package.
6. ‘Cloud’ – This service moves you towards being more of a cloud business where predictable revenues and company valuations are higher than more traditional system sales.
7. ‘Cost’ – Investing in a phone system when technology is changing so fast is a risky proposition for customers and so taking a SaaS solution like this works for them, protects budgets and smooths the way for a sale.
8. ‘Margin’ – sharing always saves money and with keen migration options available in the market to migrate from on-site offerings, the ROI tends to be very fast.
9. ‘Freedom’ – with all of the leading VoIP handsets available through most leading vendors, you can still use Cisco phones, Snom, Yealink, Polycom, Gigaset, Panasonic etc whilst clearly some of the proprietary models and featured handsets will fall away. Additionally, you can support organisations from 2 to tens of thousands of users with effectively integrated services.
10. ‘Simpler support’ – supporting a secure, resilient and well-designed system is simpler and less risky than many isolated phone systems, meaning your support costs are minimised and whilst a running a cloud might sound like a daunting prospect, with the right technology and vendor behind you, it can be ‘just what you do as part of a team.’
There are probably other reasons that could go on this list however as a thought for the day, I am sure this is a good start and after many years of supplying UK businesses with cloud PBX services, this remains one of the areas of business where I remain convinced that all resellers and providers can add value.
Justin Hamilton-Martin
www.TheLinkConsultancy.com
Centile.com UK Representatives
About Centile
Centile Telecom Applications is a French SAS initially founded in 1998 in Sophia Antipolis, France, Europe’s largest technology park. Centile counts over 80 services provider customers. Centile is management owned and also an MVC Capital portfolio company. MVC is a NYSE listed investment company.
Centile Telecom Applications is the European leading developer of unified communications and fixed-mobile convergence platforms for operators and integrators, targeting the enterprise market with value-added user-focused communications services.
Centile core convergent platform “Istra” empowers Service Providers and Mobile Operators to deliver advanced PBX and Unified Communications features to enterprises of any size, transparently, via any network and on any terminal including plain old GSM phones
Leveraging one of the earliest and most intensive R&D efforts in SIP Technology and Multi-Tenant Multi-Tier enterprise service delivery, Centile provides a robust and proven platform with cutting edge roadmap and innovation that Mobile Network Operators and Service Providers can rely upon to deliver an outstanding enterprise customer experience.
See Centile in the UC Today Directory: https://directory.uctoday.com/ascot/supplier/centile-uk
Image Source: https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2008/08/bolt-no-showboa.html
Credit: Kay Nietfeld / EPA
