Since its launch in 2012, Pragma has been discovering new and improved ways to differentiate themselves in the UC market. As the only distributor of Ericsson-LG products, Pragma empowers and delights their partners as they bring their iPECS Unified Communications technology into the UK marketplace.
Committed to developing strong and mutually-successful relationships with their partners, Pragma has developed a strategy that allows them to cut out the complications and noise that often exists in the Comms industry, to ensure a strong future for their resellers. We spoke to Will Morey, the Sales and Marketing Director for Pragma, to find out more about the channel opportunity that this unique company provides.
Why Choose Pragma? What is the Channel Partner Opportunity?
Over the years, Pragma has carefully cultivated a reputation for excellent relationships with partners. Will told me that today’s resellers need to make sure that they have the right selection of technology to properly serve their customers, and Pragma’s position as the Ericsson-LG distributor makes them highly desirable for this purpose.
“We have a solution that’s available on-cloud, on-premises, and more. We have virtualisation support, multi-tenanted cloud, and hybrid deployment options.”
For nervous customers making the move to cloud as part of their digital transformation (DX) strategy, Pragma can offer an on-premises PBX that works as a survivable gateway. This means that if the connection to the cloud is broken, the handsets automatically reattach to the PBX and dial out with analogue technology; one of the key reasons businesses are choosing hybrid cloud UC.
“I think it comes back to Ericsson-LG’s proposition – they’re always thinking about investment protection for the end user.”
What Are the Unique Selling Points for Pragma?
Perhaps the most obvious USP for Pragma is the fact that resellers can simply walk up to an end-user and let them know that they can have their system however they want it, with the same feature set and user experience. That means that they get complete feature parity between the cupboard and cloud solution.
Pragma makes it incredibly easy to move between on-premises and cloud solutions too. “This is the investment protection piece. You literally just change the IP address that the handset points to, from the PBX to the cloud platform. Then you can make the secondary IP address point back to the PBX to provide backup for the cloud.”
There are few vendors that can offer complete feature parity to their resellers like Ericsson-LG. The cloud solution is completely multi-tenanted and packed with features that make it easier to personalise everything for the end user.
What Do Channel Partners Love about Ericsson-LG?
I was keen to learn more about the value that the iPECS Unified Communications could bring to a channel partner’s proposition.
“In the last five years, we’ve been repositioning ourselves, so that our channel and end users understand that we can help them address micro businesses through to large enterprises with on-premises, cloud or hybrid technology. We’ve also been displacing cloud-only vendors by allowing people to have everything they need from the same vendor.”
In a world where differentiation is crucial, Pragma also uses their own proprietary handsets, and their own proprietary signalling too. This means that the experience someone gets with an on-premises strategy is the same as the experience they get on the cloud.
“For a channel partner, it’s great to walk into a room and have that differentiation. The ability to offer feature parity is something that no other vendor can really achieve.”
How Else Do You Differentiate Yourself?
Although Pragma’s product proposition is strong, they also think it’s important to establish the fact that the Pragma proposition is strong too. The company prides itself on going much further than many of the other distributors in the marketplace, with sales support, technological engagement, and more.
“We don’t take a new reseller on lightly, and when we do, we put a great deal of time and resources into making sure each partner has what it takes to be successful. The feedback we get is that people are just blown away by the value we add to a business. They see it as having another department in their business.”
Pragma like to ensure that the businesses they work with never miss a beat when someone moves from one vendor to Ericsson-LG. In other words, it’s about making sure that everything continues as it did before – but even better. Will noted that one of the most common things resellers worry about when bringing a new reseller on board, is making sure that risk is kept to a minimum when an engineer installs a new system for the first time.
“We send our engineers to the site with their engineers and hold their hand through the process to make sure that the first few deals go well.”
Pragma deliver confidence, great customer experience (CX), and a pragmatic channel experience.
