The market for hosted telephony is no longer new or emerging and early doubts about its success have become a non-argument, but large numbers of resellers are yet to go hosted. Here, we canvassed the views of some key channel suppliers who urge all resellers to join the hosted telephony rolling campaign convoy.
The principle reason to sell hosted VoIP is because it's inextricably linked to the growing influence of the cloud in general. "The chances are that a reseller's clients or prospects will already have some IT services in the cloud, or will be considering moving to the cloud," said Adam Crisp (pictured), Managing Director for Firstcom. "Resellers need to offer hosted voice to keep up and stay ahead of the curve."
As well as keeping up with tech trends a hosted VoIP solution enables resellers to address demand for mobile communications. "We have seen a huge shift in personal communications, and the younger workforce expects to communicate inside the office in the same way as they do outside," added Crisp. "Gone are the days when being away from the desk means being disconnected from voice or data."
The business case for selling hosted telephony is plain and simple, noted Crisp, citing ease of adoption, installation, management and configuration as key market drivers. Nor is that all. Seasoned comms and IT resellers already own the skills needed to enter this market. "Adding hosted to their portfolio gives them the opportunity to increase revenues by doing what they already do," added Crisp.
When pitching hosted VoIP to a prospect resellers should focus on the way modern communications can drive a business forward. "Unified communications and convergence is much more than a PBX in the cloud," noted Crisp. "It's about bringing the client's daily communications together and enhancing productivity."
One of the most obvious benefits of cloud-based VoIP is that users are not bound by geography. Many businesses have a mobile workforce and function as multi-site organisations, so it makes sense for them to adopt a cloud-based system that seamlessly connects remote and home workers. "Today's always-on culture and constantly connected world means that businesses need to be available and responsive wherever, whenever," commented Crisp. "Businesses that do not adopt technology to facilitate this will inevitably miss out to the competition. Inherent flexibility and agility is a driving factor. Today's agile workforce demands a system that adapts to their needs and eases the pain of scaling up or down."
A key point of interest noted by MyPhones.com Managing Director Dr Stuart Marsden (pictured left)is the growing number of hosted telephony providers in the market, creating more choice and an environment where resellers can more readily sell to sub-resellers. Alternative options have also emerged such as Skype for Business. Furthermore, prices for hosted are starting to come down and that trend is certain to continue given the increased competition in the market, he believes.
Against this backdrop, early adopters are now coming to the end of their first contracts. "They've gained knowledge and experience and aren't afraid to switch to different systems and new providers," commented Marsden. "While telephony features are important, price is clearly a key factor. Therefore MyPhones.com's policy has always been to be competitively priced with a simple pricing structure."
Staying true to its policy, MyPhones.com's prices have not increased since the launch of Altos and according to Marsden there are no plans to change the pricing strategy despite ongoing investment in new features to improve the customer experience. In fact, things can only get better, he says. "The improvement in connectivity and broadband speeds hasn't just improved the quality and reliability of calls via hosted telephony platforms, it is also making integration with other services easier and more successful," he added.
"Through the Altos hosted telephony platform end users can do far more than just make and receive phone calls, pick up their voicemails and twin their office and mobile phone. They can also make and receive video calls, access their internal contacts directory, personal contacts directory and corporate contacts directory wherever they have access to a computer and Internet connection, as an example."
Developments like video calling, video conferencing and presence features all provide additional ways for businesses to communicate with staff and customers. And because social media plays a role in everyone's personal communications now, it's not surprising that businesses would be interested in ways to bring these into the workplace. "Hosted telephony systems can help to make these accessible to businesses of all shapes and sizes, not just large corporations," stated Marsden.
He said that MyPhones.com's Altos product is especially popular because it is fast, easy and cheap to deploy, and it's more flexible than traditional PBX systems. Resellers can easily upgrade, downscale and even change a system completely whenever they need to. "More people are considering or using cloud-based services in their personal life," said Marsden. "Hosted telephony isn't as niche as it used to be, and with improvements in security and broadband speeds delivering better quality and reliability there's less resistance to the adoption of cloud-based business services.
"It's safe and easy to dip your toe into the pool of modern cloud-based services. Hosted telephony integrates well with other services and it's a good way to explore different communication systems and how they can be combined to improve engagement with staff, customers and stakeholders."
BT's strategy to move customers off ISDN services in 2025 is a significant hosted market opportunity. And as connectivity becomes more readily available and commercially more attractive to consumers, it is only natural that hosted telephony sales will continue to increase, observes Sean Blackmore, Hosted Sales Specialist at Gamma, who has witnessed strong uptake of Gamma's Horizon platform.
Like other hosted solutions Horizon helps resellers move from a capex to an opex-based model, removing the need for up-front costs and maintenance, and ensuring the customer only has one monthly cost for the service. "This enables resellers to shift the focus of sales conversations from price to features and benefits," added Blackmore. "We are rivalling traditional PBX manufacturers for functionality and the platform is updated on a regular basis. Features like 'one number anywhere' integrate fixed and mobile capabilities so that end users never miss a call, enabling more productive and flexible working."
Horizon is based on the Broadsoft call controller platform that provides a range of fixed and mobile telephony capabilities via a portal. Channel partners can configure Horizon through the portal in real-time. And within 24 hours the chosen handsets will be delivered, fully pre-configured and ready to go.
With this proposition Gamma targets the sub-500 seat market. "At one time the hosted product set was attractive to customers with multiple sites and a low number of users per site, but we are now seeing large single site offices taking hosted as a result of the commercials available, the appeal of an opex model and access to a rich feature set," said Blackmore.
Nimans has witnessed strong take up of its own GS-hosted proposition that allows resellers to move into hosted in a 'choice way'. They can maintain their upfront margin model or opt for a monthly income. Selling hosted is simply a de facto case of giving customers what they want, reckons Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans. "One of the biggest reasons resellers should be selling hosted is because their customers are demanding it," he stated. "So there is a danger of being left behind if customer requirements are not met. Resellers need to grasp the nettle because hosted is no longer in the early adoption phase. Its reliable and established technology with high potential."
New conversations with customers should be about what they want and need, along with the business benefits, pointed out Burn. But he believes that such conversations are all too often digressing into discussions about delivery and how hosted solutions enter a building. "It should always be about business benefits," he emphasised. "Applications is where resellers should be focusing, particularly the mix of on-premises and off-premise products. For example, door entry and call recording can still be on-site alongside a hosted telephony platform. Hosted is not an all or nothing conversation. Businesses can have their cake and eat it."•