NFON AG, a leading cloud communications provider in Europe, has had a fantastic year of growth over 2019. The company has moved into new markets, embraced a new integration with the world’s leading collaboration solution, Microsoft Teams, and more. Like many other businesses in the competitive communication landscape, NFON is now looking forward towards new opportunities in 2020 and the years ahead.
To learn more about what NFON has achieved recently, as well as what the company plans on doing next, we caught up with the Managing Director of NFON UK, Myles Leach.
Tell Us About NFON’s Plan for Success?
Myles took the reins as Managing Director for NFON UK in 2017. When he joined the company initially in 2014, it only had a small number of employees. Now, there are around 50 employees in the UK team alone. “There’s been a huge amount of dramatic growth, not just in the UK, but across the group.”
The plan for NFON moving forward, according to Leach, is the domination of the European market. Although customers have asked whether NFON would consider moving into other landscapes going forward, the business is heavily focused on Europe. “We want to become the number one player in the EU market.”
Myles told me that one of the core values of NFON is the fact that the company has been cloud-focused from day one. That, combined with the fact that the company owns its product roadmap, means that it can flexibly adapt to the needs of different companies and markets.
How Did NFON Grow in 2019?
In 2019, NFON saw a lot of areas of growth, including the move into two new countries, Italy and France. Additionally, the business is continuing to expand in double-digits, seeing on the 9 months figures 2019. “There were three strong quarters in 2019, following the IPO in 2018, so our shareholders are very happy.”
Although the first nine month 2019 were a tough for the UK in general, NFON has seen plenty of opportunities for development, including the launch of Cloudya, and the arrival of the mobile and desktop apps. Like other solutions from NFON, these apps are the company’s own development, built with unique technology. Leach also noted that the partner success for NFON has continued to strengthen over the last year. NFON has built its partner estate not just in the traditional telecoms space, but in the IT and AV environment too.
“Another major point for us from 2019 has been the arrival of the Teams integration. This has been a particularly big thing in the UK, as it has helped us to attract a lot of new businesses and partners”
How Has the Microsoft Teams Integration Opened New Doors?
The Microsoft Teams integration has been a huge step forward and a differentiating factor for NFON. According to Myles, Microsoft integration has opened up new opportunities for partners to come and join the NFON ranks.
“The Teams story has delivered a new impetus for us in dealing with different kinds of partners, as everyone seems to want a piece of the Teams pie.”
There are a lot of partners in the marketplace that are very serious about Teams and bringing Microsoft Teams solutions to customers that already rely on the Microsoft portfolio. However, there are also plenty of customers and partners out there that don’t want to depend exclusively on Teams too. That’s why NFON thinks that it’s important to integrate with Teams, but also develop its own applications too.
“One of our core strengths is the fact that we’re flexible and interoperable. We can work well with other companies, but we still have the ability to develop our own stuff. This means that we can talk to all kinds of partners and end-users. I think integrations with other tools and business platforms such as Microsoft Teams.”
Where Are the Big Growth Opportunities in 2020?
Leach told me that one thing he had noticed over 2019 was an influx of M&A decisions, acquisitions, and consolidations by other players in the international market. He believes that this will continue heading into 2020, particularly because the UK market is so saturated and cluttered. Additionally, in 2020 the industry will continue to be questioned in the UK about Brexit, and what it’s going to mean to people accessing services across the UK.
“At this time, we don’t know for sure what Brexit is going to look like. However, it’s unlikely to have a huge impact on any of the services that we offer. The major changes may be in determining where information and call recordings are stored. However, whatever the issues may be, we’ll be able to get over them.”
Additionally, NFON UK plans to continue strengthening both the partner base and the central business in 2020. While there’s no single strategy for communications that fits everyone, NFON believes that its flexible offerings, as well as it’s integrations with market leaders like Microsoft Teams will make it a more compelling solution for many people.
“The first nine months of 2018 were successful. We now have around 50 employees in the UK, and the launch of our Manchester Office has been a huge success,”
“We’ll continue to invest in our personnel, our platform, and our partner environment in 2020.”
