Ireland-based UCaaS provider Blueface has gone into overdrive, launching a new platform into seven operating markets while revving up its channel proposition and setting out big ambitions to become a global top ten player in cloud communications. We got the story from Group CEO Alan Foy.
Foy offers a vision of Blueface at the vanguard of a UCaaS-led march across territories far and wide. His key to unlocking international business is an in-house designed and built UCaaS platform being rolled out in Ireland, the UK, the US, Italy, France, Germany and Spain. "All elements of the platform were developed in-house to reflect the demands of the market, and the entire value chain of activities are controlled by Blueface end-to-end," said Foy. "To become a top ten global provider we need to operate in more markets, more verticals and build strong partnerships."
The clout exhibited by Blueface in UCaaS driven growth is as much about ambition as technological innovation. "With our new territory launches we are building a global SaaS business model that can deliver growth and scale in a managed way," added Foy. "We intend to build large direct customer bases and partner relationships in these markets in order to scale the business significantly over the next few years.
"Globally, there is a significant uptake of UCaaS in enterprises and companies moving from on-premise solutions to cloud-based delivery models. The cloud model goes well beyond prior online delivery approaches by combining the efficient use of shared resources, simplified solution packaging, self-service provisioning, with elastic and granular scaling."
Blueface is a challenger brand with a challenger mentality. As such, it constantly seeks new ways to optimise the value chain of communications activity and add value to its customers. "This drives the development of our business model, which is to focus on the efficient delivery of service, removing waste and empowering the user as much possible," commented Foy. "Our entire platform is designed around achieving the aim of offering scale and delivering a better customer experience."
Blueface employs almost 50 people in Dublin, London and Rome. It serves circa 20,000 customers, all business clients with a good mix of SMEs and enterprises. The firm is set to grow top line revenue by 35 per cent this year and has been ranked in the Deloitte Fast 50 of Ireland's fastest growing technology companies over the last five years.
The Blueface story is not akin to yarns of 'born in the cloud' upstarts with no legacy in their short wake. It is a narrative laden with experience, both in technology and business. In the early days Foy pursued a business degree and a strategy research degree at the University of Dublin, Trinity College. He then joined Ireland's leading independent investment firm, NCB Stockbrokers, and worked in corporate finance, investment banking, wealth management and equity research.
"During my time at the firm I met many companies in the IT, communications and telco landscape and developed a keen interest in the IT services sector," explained Foy. "I left NCB to establish or join a technology start-up that I could both invest in and work with. In 2010, I joined Blueface and conducted a management buy-in to the business with the backing of Lord Iveagh of the Guinness family."
Blueface was founded by Aaron Clauson and Feargal Brady in 2004 as a VoIP player that initially serviced the residential market. Six years later Blueface decided to target small to medium sized businesses that needed VoIP services as its platform was bristling with a range of business grade offerings including call conferencing, follow me functionality, SMS marketing tools, global numbers etc. Since then, Blueface has successfully pivoted entirely from residential to business customers and is now 100 per cent business or carrier focused.
"We have increasingly focused on large enterprise customers across multiple sites and jurisdictions," commented Foy. "We are experiencing real growth in this segment in addition to our SME and corporate business. Also, large carriers and mobile operators have opted to take a white labelled managed service from Blueface whereby we deliver our platform as an end-to-end branded experience for a third party. This has been successfully deployed through a white label or full service API approach. We expect to see more international customers and white label opportunities in the months and years ahead."
Foy noted that integration with other business applications and SaaS based products is vital for voice communications and there will more adoption of cloud communications as integrations and delivery models evolve over time. "These cloud-based models are changing everything, and tomorrow's competitor will look entirely different to the traditional contenders we see today," he added. "But resellers are well placed to service the customer. As cloud communications platforms evolve and adapt, there is an important role for these partners to develop new approaches to serving the end customer as part of a total solution sale and managed service." •