iPECS Cloud, the WebRTC-based UC&C solution developed by Ericsson-LG Enterprise and delivered to the UK market by Pragma, has recently crossed the 100K subscriber threshold and scooped some major awards.
Being a 100% channel-based business makes Pragma stand out quite noticeably in the usual landscape of cloud service providers, making this milestone even more exciting and significant.
I spoke with Will Morey, CEO and Co-Founder of Pragma Group, about this important achievement, market shifts, and future plans.
What’s Changed
Pragma has been working as a service provider since 2016, when it first launched the iPECS cloud product, and has witnessed quite a few market shifts.
“I think what’s particularly interesting is the rate of growth we’ve seen, particularly in the last 12 months,” Morey notes.
“If we look at recent analyst statistics, we see the market has grown about 17% during that period, but if we look at our growth rate for iPECS, it was about 38%. So, we’re growing twice as fast as the market is growing. That’s what took us to 100,000 users this year.”
The stronger-than-ever focus on CX following the pandemic has played a major part in that significant growth rate, according to Morey.
“Businesses now want and need deep insight into customer experience, but no less important, they want the ability to address it directly, and the transition to the cloud enables that.”
For iPECS specifically, it’s the accompanying Analytics application that provides end users with access to actionable CX insights and allows them to control the customer journey directly.
Another significant trend worth mentioning is the portion of growth stemming from mid-market businesses.
“Historically, we see a focus on the smaller end of the market, the SME market. But now we’re starting to see a significant amount of growth coming from the mid-market, which I strongly believe is a result of our channel-only strategy,” Morey shares.
“The 100k milestone makes us probably one of the largest channel-only service providers in the market with that level of subscribers,” he explains.
“To me, that reinforces the fact that Channel is such a strong way of taking these products to market, since it enables our resellers to truly tailor experiences around the requirements of SMB and mid-market businesses.”
Both Local and Global
The fast pace of innovation and R&D required to keep up with the UCaaS market at its current state makes it extremely challenging for smaller vendors in the cloud service provider space to compete with their larger counterparts.
“You have to be able to deliver a truly compelling WebRTC proposition, along with a strong CX proposition, an incredibly secure environment, and a meaningful endpoint discussion with customers”, Morey notes.
For Pragma, that’s possibly one of their greatest strengths in delivering the iPECS Cloud solution. The agility coming from being a local service provider with a reseller-centric proposition, combined with having two big brands like Ericsson and LG in charge of R&D, makes for an ideal combination.
“Ultimately, when you’re buying cloud, you’re not just buying today’s proposition -you’re buying into a long-term relationship where your service provider will consistently be innovating and delivering new features over a long period,” Morey says.
“That’s why we find that collaboration with our partners is key to our success. By working so closely with our partners,we can innovate and develop propositions that deliver what end users need and what our partner community wants.”
Last week, Pragma was recognized as the UCaaS vendor of the year at the Comms National Awards, where they were up against big names like 8×8, RingCentral, and Gamma – providing yet another indication of the success of their formula.
Ahed Alkhatib, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing for Ericsson-LG Enterprise, comments:
“This strategic partnership is a winning combination for both Pragma and Ericsson-LG Enterprise, and we are delighted with the success Pragma has achieved in the UK market with iPECS Cloud.”
“Having crossed the 100,000-user threshold, we’re now aiming for 200,000”, Morey concludes.
