Comms Dealer

A Comms Vision double act featuring Gamma and software giant Microsoft would have been unthinkable not so long ago but their new alliance serves as a stark reminder that the industry is evolving at speed and predicting the future shape of the comms landscape is no exact science.

But despite market uncertainty Gamma's CEO Bob Falconer tips the future role of Microsoft Lync as a dead cert. "Lync is in the IT ecosystem and we can't ignore it," he told delegates in keynote address. "We need to fit into the Lync world created by Microsoft, it's growing rapidly and will have an impact on us all."

Microsoft is already entrenched in the comms market and a Gamma wrap of SIP, network services and professional services adds up to a significant channel opportunity, noted Falconer.

Also on stage was Neil Laver, Microsoft's Voice Sales Director for EMEA, who reinforced the message that Microsoft is not competing with established voice players but rather adapting to the market. "Lync plays an important role in our wider strategy around data, mobility, cloud and social enterprise," he said. "We need to adapt and be flexible.

"Our vision for Lync is to play a key role in the new world of work and communications. It's about federation and connecting people in new ways via IM and Presence, audio, web conferencing and enterprise voice, working anywhere and bringing a connected experience that's easy to manage and deploy in the cloud, while working across many platforms and devices. The opportunity for partners is colossal, and resellers are best placed to monetise Lync as they understand the market."

Laver also noted 61 per cent growth in the number of Lync hosters, a figure that's certain to raise the quizzing eyebrows of sceptics who believe that market hype around Lync prevails over reality.

Indeed, Falconer deftly dealt with the question of hype and market evolution, and speaking with real conviction he reassured delegates that the rise and promise of Lync is most certainly not another 'false dawn' that will disappoint.

"There has been much hype in the market around convergence, but the universal truth is that we under estimate the longer-term impact of new technologies," he said. "Beware of falling asleep after so many false dawns, because the real dawn is coming and shining bright."

Sales guru Gary May, founder of Salesology, urged delegates to cosy up to their customers with random acts of 'love' or risk losing out to more seductive rivals.

"Are you selling to your customers or seducing them?" he asked. "Competitors are seducing your customers away from you every day. To combat these unwanted advances start to seduce your prospects and clients with unsolicited acts of kindness.

"For example, offer a mid-term reconfiguration refresh or a comms audit. This will prompt the customer to want to do something reciprocal by way of exchange for your close attention and help stave off rivals."

The crux of his argument is that customer relationships should not be transactional, they should be linear and evolve through time. And only those resellers who refresh customer relationships by maintaining the heavy levels of attention weighted onto them during the early deal-doing stage will protect and ring fence their customer base from aggressive rivals.

STL MD Brendon Cross underlined the threat posed by new comms delivery mechanisms during a Comms Vision panel debate when he revealed details of two long-term customers who were lost to a hosted voice provider.

"There are more people in the market prepared to eat our lunch," he stated. " We lost customers to IT companies offering hosted voice. This was a surprise to us."

Big Data is touted as a sizeable market opportunity for those operating in the comms sector, but shouldn't we put our own house in order first? Tony Parish, Founder of G3 Communications believes so, citing the great advantages that could be leveraged if vendor partners decide to deploy Big Data tactics that will help them get to the bottom of their resellers' support needs.

In a Comms Vision Convention panel debate, Parish said: "Our suppliers should be using Big Data. Some vendors do not listen to their partners or end customers. If they don't get into Big Data and learn about what partners and customers are doing they will lose out. We have already diversified our product portfolio because some vendor partners just aren't listening to us."

Market intervention by small chaotic companies with digital natives at the helm are bringing heightened levels of creativity and energy into our newly Christened Age of Engagement, according to Sally Fuller, Director of Strategic Propositions for Platinum sponsor Kcom.

But despite the highly connected 'Born in the Cloud' armada there remains opportunities for everyone providing they align their businesses with emerging engagement trends, says Fuller.

"The siloed top-down structure is outdated, we are now in an era of transparency," she stated in a keynote address to delegates. "The issue is about how we engage with people differently in the emerging digital world.

"We are also moving into a new 'Age of the Customer' within a connected economy, while a converging Age of the Machine is advancing the idea of self-service. Technology such as this, and Big Data, is driving us into a new era."

Greater levels of engagement facilitated by cloud-based apps will play a key role in the workplace, believes Fuller, who cited the positive impact of schemes such as 'crowd sourced performance reviews' whereby workers are scored openly by colleagues for good deeds done, gaining recognition across a virtualised feedback platform. Such engagement and collaboration practices foster recognition which in turn promotes a higher level of performance across teams within an organisation as it gets more engaged.

Another area of interest cited by Fuller, again based on cloud apps, is Sentiment Analysis. This points to a set of conditions under which cloud apps monitor whether workers are happy or sad enabling companies to react accordingly and adhere to a policy that says 'happy people create happy customers'. "Such transparency and trust has a big impact on a brand," added Fuller.

Kcom has developed a platform that meets the requirement for new levels of engagement between partners and customers and its popularity is remarkable, already making its influence felt as the company's fastest ever growing product. "We can't get it to market quick enough," enthused Fuller. "The Age of Engagement is a big opportunity that we can all embrace."

Comms Vision welcomed high flying collaboration tsar Jacob Morgan who flew across the Atlantic to enlighten, enthuse and motivate delegates with a strategy guide that illustrates how organisations can make collaboration work most effectively.

Morgan, who is a Principal at Chess Media Group, has written a book called 'The Collaborative Organisation' and in it he advances the notion that collaboration in practice must adhere to 12 key principles to be effective. Underpinning these pillars of collaboration are surging trends that are quickly defining the future look of the workplace.

"The workplace is evolving," he stated. "There is a shift away from hierarchies in favour of flattened structures. There are movements towards flexible working. Information is no longer hoarded, it's open access. And leadership is becoming synonymous with engagement, empowerment and inspiration. Leaders follow from the front in a true collaborative environment."

Another big determining factor, cloud technology, has liberated employees from the constraints of email. According to Morgan, younger workers are choosing a technology that works best for them and organisations are helpless to stem the tide.

"Email was once a primary communication tool, now it's secondary," added Morgan. "Email has become a problem, it's not effective nor efficient. However, collaboration platforms provide a solution."

In Morgan's collaborative world the outdated corporate modus operandi is being dismantled and rebuilt in a way that creates an environment that enables employees to manoeuvre within the organisation and shape their own career path because they are more able to share information and ideas by being more connected and engaged.

"Siloed and fragmented companies will be a thing of the past, unable to compete with organisations that offer true collaborative capabilities," said Morgan.

He also noted an urgent need to redefine the traditional meaning of the term 'work' and its associated synonyms. In making his point, Morgan also made hay in ridiculing old definitions with connotations of drudgery, production, stress, sweat, toil and task, all forming a somewhat negative foundation upon which to build an organisation.

"Organisations have been created within the confines of such definitions," said Morgan. "Is it any wonder we hear complaints that 'work sucks'? Today's organisations are rethinking what these terms mean and are moving away from legacy ways of doing things that were established in the past by people who may well be long gone.

"Enterprise movements away from traditional structures are creating a big gap. Millennials will form the majority of the workforce in 2015, and by 2025 they will account for 75 per cent. The majority of these people grew up with mobiles, collaboration and Facebook, and 58 per cent of them are likely to be promoted to managerial positions with many becoming future buyers. Vendors are looking too much at current buyers and need to look further into the future."

In the midst of such sweeping changes the only concrete knowledge we have is that tomorrow brings uncertainty, pointed out Morgan, who also stated that organisations which approach the future in an engaged and connected way will be best prepared to survive compared to their disengaged and disconnected counterparts.

Advancing his argument further, disciples of Morgan's 12 principles of collaboration will be aligned neatly with the trends that are shaping tomorrow's working environment, he believes.

Morgan's 12 principles:

1. Individual versus corporate value: In essence, making life easier and better for workers is a collaboration prerequisite.

2. Strategy before technology: An obvious idea, bit not always the case. All too often businesses spend money on the tool and then try to find a problem.

3. Listen to the voice of employees: Higher levels of engagement are strongly related to improvements in innovation. For example, 59 per cent of workers say their job brings out their most creative ideas against just three per cent of disengaged employees. A culture of collaboration sparks ideas, innovation and new products.

4. Learn to get out of the way: Empower and support workers, do not dictate to them. Employees thrive in a visible open environment.

5. Lead by example: It's not just about saying you support collaboration, it's about showing commitment. Workers need to see their managers use the same technology that they use.

6. Integrate into workflows: The collaboration platform needs to be the front door to the enterprise and be an integral part of how people work.

7: Create a supportive environment: Integrate and pull together more onto the collaboration platform to underpin and enhance what workers do.

8. Think long-term: Be clear about what you want your organisation to look like.

9. Persistence: There will be challenges, but collaboration isn't an option, it's the only way.

10. Adapt and evolve: Technology will change and challenges will emerge alongside new behaviours, so processes do need to change.

11. Collaboration also benefits the customer: Employees can respond faster to customer issues and be more accurate.

12. Collaboration makes the world a better place: It's easier to get work done, enables flexible environments and empowers workers to be more fulfilled and engaged.

Despite long-held industry hopes pinned on the potential of UC, the technology remains stuck in a PBX upgrade time trap, claimed Comms Vision Content Director John Chapman on day two of the conference.

"Two thirds of UC deployments are used by just 50 per cent of the user base," he said. "Most deployments are used only for telephony, with 50 per cent of users claiming that a lack of UC training is preventing them from taking advantage of what UC has to offer."

According to Chapman, there is a big need for UC to be properly integrated into business processes for it to work as intended.

"UC has not delivered on the promise," he added. "Businesses demand UC and many employees are using Lync, Skype and Google to bypass installed systems and gain the productivity and agility they crave. This random approach to business comms is a missed opportunity for resellers."

To remedy the situation a hefty dose of collaboration is required, prescribed Chapman. "The collaboration piece is not working," he added. "The industry has failed to deliver UCC and we will see a strong push from workers who want to get things done.

"Generation X and Y are now in the workplace, side-stepping UC and opting to use what works  best for them. The channel needs to reclaim this lost market opportunity."

M2M market watcher John Howes, Technical Director at Beecham Research, spoke with conviction on the impact of connected devices and their market potential. He first started evaluating the M2M opportunity, surprisingly, in 2001, so he knows his onions and Comms Vision delegates were highly attentive when he urged them to do 'something big and different' around M2M technology.

"M2M has introduced a new networked product business model with added value," he said. "There are many applications for M2M, and adding networking to devices customers gain better levels of support."

He cited a case where a MRI scanner manufacturer provides its product as a service, rather than a product, with M2M enabling scanners to be billed on a per use basis.

Taking things further, Howes pointed to advances made in wearable technology whereby the individual is wired up for a connected lifestyle. This too is a significant opportunity, noted Howes.

Innovations in Machine to Machine connectivity are exhilarating. Even better, the upsides are without boundaries and the business benefits for resellers too good to turn down, according to Richard Appleton, Sales Director at Arkessa, a firm with enviable expertise in devising and deploying global M2M solutions.

A significant piece in this scenario is the work done by resellers on the ground. This is where big wins are made and companies such as Arkessa are enabling resellers to assert their role in innovative ways based on M2M service provision 'made simple', claimed Appleton.

"The term M2M can be confusing," he said. "But in reality this can be an uncomplicated market that resellers can address via white labelled M2M service provision."

A general consensus on M2M market growth has brought into sharp focus the channel's ability to capitalise on this rich seam of opportunity and companies such as Arkessa have leveraged their expertise and know-how to create a M2M platform that removes all of the complexity.

Examples of M2M in action - such as capturing meter data and feeding the information through a network into the corporate environment for analysis - have already become simplistic and hackneyed, according to Appleton, because they do not tell the full story.

"The real world is more complex," he explained. "A M2M solution could involve multiple devices over multiple networks and involve multiple recipients of data for differing purposes. All devices, including legacy, need managing - these are just some of the issues to consider.

"But Arkessa has developed a platform designed to empower resellers as virtual M2M providers, creating a new source of revenue based on selling a service rather than a product.

"M2M is often misconceived - don't be deterred - resellers can serve customers in a broader way. For UC providers it's easy to extend into M2M and focus on high ARPU areas.

"M2M is not constrained to machines talking to machines, it's not about low ARPU connections and charging for bytes of data. This market is evolving at pace, and creative thinking, channels and partners will be critical to success."

Arkessa was formed in 2009 and currently boasts 400,000-plus connections.

The dour economy still does not fail to disappoint but a bright spot allows the channel to share in a surprise growth opportunity, explained UK business economist Andrew Sentance CBE, Senior Economic Adviser to PwC.

In a bid to motivate an understanding of where we are in the financial crisis Sentance advanced the concept of a New Normal economy developing, truncated by a structural break from the conditions that supported growth prior to the recession. These determining factors were, in the main, easy money, cheap imports and confidence in the policy regime - a mixture that nurtured sustained growth, but importantly these elements no longer apply.

Mid-way through this period of unprecedented transition, the economy has now dislocated from old structures and is reforming amid global growth, albeit uneven growth with the rise of Asia and other emerging markets changing the dynamics and pattern of the global economy.

Compared to these boisterous economies, the UK is in the slow lane with disappointing growth of 1.3 per cent. This, noted Sentance, is sluggish but by no means representative of a lurch back into recession.

Employment has held-up well with 1.5 million jobs created in the private sector since 2010, and the services sector is now the main UK employer driving the economic recovery, turning on their head predictions that manufacturing would lead the march out of recession.

Significantly for the comms channel, Professional Services has proved to be one of the strongest UK sectors where despite a subdued growth environment there are opportunities in emerging trends such as the cloud, noted Sentance.

Combine this with growth predictions of just under 1.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent this year and next, and a picture of optimism emerges, illustrated by Internet sales volumes in the retail sector which have climbed 150 per cent since 2008.

Sentance expects stronger growth between 2015 and 2020. "There are opportunities in the New Normal economy through innovating and exploiting new technologies," he stated. "Customers are more demanding and responsive to solutions that make them more flexible and adaptable."