Unify's accelerating channel-centric journey is on track and building a powerful head of steam, according to Barry Tuffs, VP Channel Sales UK&I.
Fuelled by his strategic leadership and professional experience Tuffs's bid to drive Unify towards greater channel-centricity is gathering momentum. He was appointed to the role of UK&I channel chief in January, and as the new man at the centre of the vendor's partner growth campaign he brings 25-plus years telecoms experience in direct and indirect sales and management, joining from Avaya where he held a number of positions including Director of the UK&I channel team. He also played a lead role in introducing the iConnect Programme which steered Avaya into the mid-market sector. Prior jobs include stints at Cable&Wireless, Telewest and Nortel. Tuffs also spent three and a half years running his own business, Wire Solutions which traded as a BT Local Business. Not bad for someone who 'stumbled' into the comms industry.
Now Tuffs has hurled himself into the task of realising Unify's channel-centric vision sooner rather than later. "This is the core of our growth strategy, as well as moving up the market segmentation ladder and increasing partner capacity," he stated. "This involves the whole organisation - from sales to developing tools, processes and streamlining education. To match our growth, evolution has to be rapid. This means we must grow our partner community. During the last year we have on-boarded 69 partners but we need more to take advantage of the opportunity in the mid-market as well as the general move to cloud."
Unify's (the vendor is now known as the Atos brand for comms software and services following its acquisition in November 2015) strong heritage attracted Tuffs to the company while its portfolio and strategic direction 'suited him to the ground'. "This was everything I was looking for in a role," he explained. "I now see five main priorities for myself - creating a balanced partner landscape, accelerating partners' move to cloud, monetising the legacy Unify base, defining and implementing a channel-centric model for the UK go-to-market and driving a sales-led approach to the channel. With the last point, the main challenge is the shift from direct to channel as a business model, but the others are simply about execution and getting trust from the partners."
Tuffs is aiming to show true leadership and inspire the people around him with actions as well as words. "The only way to do this is to do and show, not tell," he added. "I invest time in our people, coach them every day and ensure I recognise great behaviour. It is important to promote a tight-knit atmosphere and interact with people in a personal, one-to-one manner. Your direction and strategy should also be clear to those working for you, but you must be able to break it down into achievable, bite size objectives. When I joined Unify I needed to set the direction and stop bad behaviour. This meant I had to be specific on the short-term actions I required. In any organisation there will always be some resistance to change. But the majority of the time this arises from a lack of understanding and can be resolved by talking to individuals."
To facilitate rapid growth there is a need for clearly defined processes, which Tuffs has already put in place. His current challenge is putting together a transparent set of 'Rules of Engagement' for both Unify and its partners. "While we are making great progress with this, ensuring that it reflects all sides can be a time-consuming process," he commented. "This is crucial because changes in the voice vendor market mean that it is a hugely exciting and important time for growth for us. The market is fluid with partners looking for a way to consolidate portfolios and become more cost-efficient."
In the lead up to the current inter-company developments introduced by Tuffs there have been three main changes in the Unify business over the past two-three years. The first is its move to a global channel-centric model that has led to over 55 per cent of Unify's revenue coming from the channel. Secondly, there has been the transition from hardware to software. This takes time to develop as finding the appropriate licensing models and tools to support a pay-as-you-go model can be difficult for a traditional vendor. Finally, a big change has been the move from a direct sales force to a high touch model. This is fundamentally different and new behaviours are required of sales teams and partners to meet end user needs.
"The customer, depending on the market sector, will demand that their IT or comms providers have the capability to provide services and support to all areas of their business," added Tuffs. "This should be achieved through a flexible and secure opex model. The partner community will need to decide on their core competency offering while building a value added proposition for customers. The traditional PBX VAR will be less important to the customer as the IT, data and storage channels evolve to adopt UC and voice-centric skills. Niche VARs will always have a place because they are seen as experts in their field."
One of Tuffs's top priorities is to increase market share in SMEs. Alongside this, he wants to move further into mid-market and low-end enterprises, all while focusing on Unify's key public sector verticals. "We also want to leverage Atos' sales and services line of business to increase penetration into its managed accounts," explained Tuffs. "This will be done through increasing channel capacity and capability, transforming into a high touch sales team, adopting a sales led approach with our partners and focusing on business outcomes. Finally, we want to take advantage of the Unify portfolio, including Circuit which is a differentiator."
In terms of his background, Tuffs is firmly routed in the channel having run channel programmes for vendors, worked for a channel partner and also owned one. "This has given me an insight into the market from all angles, allowing me to understand what is required to drive growth and loyalty," he stated. "We have got the vision, now it is a question of execution. In three years time Unify will have a balanced and motivated channel delivering over 75 per cent of Unify's UK revenue. Having presented our strategy and roadmaps to our local partners in May 2016's UK Partner Forum, I am more confident than ever that we will achieve this. The partners we currently have are excited and energised and this excitement will carry to new relationships. We have laid the groundwork, but it is a strong and motivated partner network that will be the true vehicle to growth."•