Don’t you just love getting something for free?
You feel like a winner: even if the thing that you get you don’t actually need.
A long time later, when it turns out that the freebie now punches about a million times above its weight, the feeling is even sweeter.
That’s Microsoft Teams to a T.
When it debuted, it was an obscure little oddity sitting – for those who subscribed – un-used in the dark recesses of the mighty O365 commercial package.
Hardly anyone knew what it did. Even fewer actually used it.
Eventually, the big corporates got to grips.
IT leads preached about slicker internal workforce collaboration and CEO blogs suggested strongly that, given the significant investment he/she had signed off on for all this brilliant new tech, folks should at least give it a look.
Fast forward to today and OMG..!
Thanks to COVID – plus a general, albeit slower pre-pandemic transition towards more flexible ways of working – Teams has a virtual (pardon the pun) monopolisation of the video conferencing market.
So, what’s a channel partner to do about that?
Where’s the value add? Where’s the commoditisation? Where’s the opportunity?
Answer? Integration.
“Many businesses now rely on the functionality of Teams – adding it into a wider, all-encompassing cloud-based telephony solution is the next step,” says Paul Gibbs, Sales Director at UK-based hosted telephony provider, MyPhones.
“Teams is brilliant at video but there has always been a voice gap. To make and take calls, organisations have to pay an additional Teams licence fee. That’s why we have integrated it neatly into our proposition and that’s why I believe there is a significant opportunity for our partners.”
According to Gibbs, deployment/adoption offers further scope too – and MyPhones partners in particular are well-supported in that regard via its online academy offering.
“It’s about helping resellers understand the various flavours of Teams so they can support their customers’ journey,” he says.
“We also help them navigate and manage the administrative tools. Sufficient volumes of end user organisations don’t know how to easily configure the back end so there is opportunity there too.
“Our approach encourages the speaking of a common language which all areas of a business can understand. Those who run IT have always found it difficult to communicate effectively with those who run telephony. Integrating both presents huge potential for positive organisational change.
“We’ve listened to users and we’ve responded. Our solution provides fully-integrated, feature-rich telephony; not just a Teams licence. There’s no clunky separation between telephony and video; and it enables Teams to interact with all of an organisation’s contacts, distribution lists and hunt groups.
“We’ve enriched the end user experience without taking any of the stand-alone Teams functionality away and we’ve wrapped it all up into a flexible, scalable and competitive proposition. I believe that’s a strong message for any reseller to leverage.”
It’s a message which – in the context of the hybrid workplace – resonates on all fronts: even down to recruitment.
“Remote working is here for good in one form or another,” says Gibbs. “Young people in particular want so much more flexibility in their role so organisations must be able to deploy the tools and the platforms to support that model going forward.
“There’s much to consider, particularly for those organisations who have yet to even make the move to the cloud. I’m passionate about ensuring our resellers are equipped and ready to capitalise.”
All that transformational potential linked to a freebie application which, just a few short years ago, people considered superfluous?
Only the tech sector could produce that kind of opportunity… now watch the channel convert it.
To learn more about MyPhones’ Teams integration solution, visit MyPhones.
