The cloud communication market is hotting up. As small business success stories reach enterprises and the communication market matures in terms of security and functionality, a cloud phone system becomes more and more appealing to businesses. The addition of Unified Comms features like instant messaging, presence and video conferencing has furthered the appetite for businesses of all sizes to consume cloud communications.
This increase in customer uptake and adoption means more resellers and managed service providers are adding a cloud communications arm to their product portfolio. In turn, that means the demand for a wholesale cloud communications platform is reaching its peak. This post covers a selection of leading whole cloud communication providers and digs into the product offerings that you should expect to utilise when selecting a platform for resale.
Gamma
Gamma was featured in my best platforms for small businesses feature last week. This is no coincidence but more testament to the scalability of the Gamma portfolio. Building on their BroadSoft core – BroadSoft serves 25 of the top 30 providers worldwide – Gamma provides access for resellers to bolt on value add services like Dubber call recording, Mondago integration and Akixi call reporting software.
Like when small businesses require some but not all innovations within the Gamma portfolio, resellers can opt to package their own solution ready to market. If your target market is heavily focused on call recording – like companies that need to adhere to PCI Compliance or MiFID II – then you can purchase these without having to buy an integration license if this never makes it into your customers’ requirements list. Gamma also provides SIP, mobile, data and cloud backup services, as well as partnering with Serenova and Cirrus for contact centre deployments so is often viewed as a go-to for multiple products when expanding your portfolio.
Avaya Public Cloud
Avaya’s UCaaS platform provides services delivered in a subscription model to allow resellers to always provide the latest software and instantly roll out upgrades to partners. For resellers whose customers have frequently changing requirements and a focus on cost control, Avaya’s Public Cloud offering slots in quite well.
With platform packages tailored to small and medium business, contact centre users or collaboration-heavy knowledge workers, all resellers can benefit from Avaya’s global presence. Their global phone system experience – both on-premises where they excelled for so many years, and cloud – reaches 111,000 customers in more than 170 countries.
The Avaya ecosystem also boasts a rich set of APIs and SDKs for resellers and end users to leverage. Most recently, Avaya announced their Slack integration – another display that Avaya continues to innovate in the cloud communications world.
Cisco BroadCloud
Cisco bolstered their cloud communications play when acquiring BroadSoft last year. As perhaps the most household name in the Unified Comms industry, Cisco identified a gap in their portfolio. Combining the Cisco Webex brand with the power of BroadSoft’s BroadCloud market share, Cisco BroadCloud is a force to be reckoned with in the wholesale cloud market.
Cisco BroadCloud provides a carrier-grade cloud service to enable resellers a faster time to market. Cisco is going through a phase of migrating their existing on-premises customers that have end of life Cisco equipment. The BroadCloud play is perfect for a simple migration path. The BroadCloud platform enables partners to reduce operational cost, improve productivity and increase revenue, all while migrating to the cloud. As you are helping your existing Cisco base keep up with modern innovations, you can also be increasing your profit margins and time to effectiveness – a product manager’s dream!
NTA
NTA provides a white label hosted telephony platform called Hosted Virtual Network Operator (HVNO). The platform is described by NTA as one of the most feature-powerful, margin-driven products you could have in your armoury today and has just won Best Hosted Platform at the 2018 The Comms National Awards.
Looking for differentiation in a wholesale cloud communications provider is vital. Whilst NTA provide standard functionality like call recording, interactive voice response and complex routing, the NTA platform also offers enhanced features usually associated with a contact centre platform. Out of the box, resellers can offer 7 different types of wallboards, call recording transfer facilities and an automated dialler instance.
NTA offers two types of platform model. The reseller version includes an integrated billing system whereas the dealer model leaves everything other than the selling to NTA. A simple way to earn commission without the billing and account management.
TelcoSwitch
TelcoSwitch’s CallSwitch platform comes in two varieties to suit your market. CallSwitch Business is the complete hosted platform where resellers can consume every feature available and package as they wish. CallSwitch Business includes functionality like mobile paring, hot desking and CRM integration as standard.
CallSwitch Lite provides a scaled down version of the hosted platform. This enables VARs and service providers to target less mature markets and provide functionality that is genuinely required rather than flooding smaller businesses with too much functionality, at an undesirable cost. When clients are ready to scale up and start taking more cloud functionality, you have the option to bolt on additional services like auto attendant, conference rooms and call recording.
TelcoSwitch also provides a contact centre platform – CallSwitch Contact Centre – for resellers looking to expand into both UCaaS and CCaaS markets.
Whether shopping for a new or additional wholesale cloud communications platform for your portfolio, these vendors offer simple to setup and feature rich platforms. Of course, there are more out there and these haven’t been covered in absolute detail.
Telstra TCC
Telstra Collaboration with Cisco (TCC) is integrated with Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS), Jabber, Cisco Webex Teams and Webex Hybrid Services, Cisco Webex Meetings and Webex Cloud Connected Audio-Service Provider (CCA-SP). The platform incorporates telephony, conferencing, collaboration tools and contact centre offered to resellers via Telstra’s own hosted infrastructure.
Telstra’s global infrastructure spans across Asia, the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa all with 99.99% availability. Businesses can benefit from reaching further afield without investing in resource to travel or setup a local presence. Telstra manages deployment, management, support and security so all is the reseller is left to do is sell the services and design the solution.
Frost and Sullivan awarded Telstra the 2018 – Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards – UC-as-a-Service Total Solution Provider of the Year, bolstering their reputation for servicing clients in the APAC region – often struggled to cover with typical cloud communications vendors.
thevoicefactory
thevoicefactory runs a BroadSoft platform featuring best of breed core functionality as well as best in class peripheral services like Tollring analytics and Polycom conferencing devices. Combining these applications and devices to make a powerful stock solution, thevoicefactory specialises in empowering resellers with vertically focused solutions and were recently awarded Best Enterprise Vertical Market Solution at the Comms National Awards 2018.
Operating a 99.999% up-time hosted telephony carrier grade solution, thevoicefactory enables resellers to market a resilient solution into industries like automotive, legal and charity and non-profit organisations without the capital expenditure in developing a platform for each niche area.
thevoicefactory’s largest area of expertise is in the hospitality sector. Their largest customer of note is JW Marriott Hotels. thevoicefactory believe that by having a tailor-made solution, they’ve been able to create a fully hosted offering perfect for the hospitality industry. The tailored solution approach, coupled with thevoicefactory’s international presence – access to 72 countries worldwide and local breakout in 21 of those countries – sets a high standard in vertically focused wholesale cloud communications.
NFON
NFON has two UCaaS options in their portfolio. They can provide both a Skype for Business UCaaS style offering and their Nconnect Voice platform. The Skype for Business play takes the traditional Microsoft functionality and bolts on various cloud telephony features. But, the Nconnect Voice platform offers a complete wholesale cloud communications product for resellers looking to plug the gap between hybrid deployment and full cloud commitments.
NFON markets their platform as “The smart interface between your old telephone system and the cloud”. For customers that aren’t ready to make the leap to cloud communications, NFON acts as the ideal middle ground. When existing assets are still functional, the decision to move to cloud solutions is often delayed. However, this usually means businesses pay the price by not receiving new functionality. Nconnect Voice enables you to connect a legacy PBX to the cloud. End customers benefit from cost efficiencies of sweating their existing PBX whilst utilising new cloud functionality.
If you’d like to know more about any of the vendors featured in this article, please reach out in the comments or on social media.
