Technology Reseller - v28

technologyreseller.co.uk IP TELEPHONY 39 However, they still hold a minority position overall, with around 75-80% of the installed base of phone systems in the UK still being on-premise, and it must be acknowledged that there are still resellers who make a decent living selling PBX. At what point, then, are existing PBX customers ripe for being changed out for a new hosted telephony system? For users with existing on-premise PBX systems there are many answers to this question. First, most PBX customers will have purchased their systems on five or seven year lease agreements that are very difficult to get out of mid-term without financial penalties. Knowing when these lease agreements are due to terminate is an advantage held by the incumbent provider who, three to six months prior to the expiry date, can start talking to the user about a new phone system, whether that is another in-house PBX or a hosted telephony system. For third party telecoms resellers the only way to find out when the time is right for such a conversation is by the hard slog of prospecting. For third party IT resellers, especially those that are already providing some form of data service, it’s a simple process of asking the next time they make a sales call. And herein lies a major issue for incumbent suppliers of PBX systems: they have an established base of telephony customers that are open to attack from a far wider range of resellers than they have hitherto been exposed to. The challenge for the persistent on-premise PBX supplier is to sell their clients a hosted solution before someone else provides an alternative hosted system. Second, the world will have changed since the customer took out their original lease and the likelihood is that their needs will have evolved too, with businesses throughout the world undertaking digital transformations to mitigate against digital disruption and loss of market share. This could be a compelling reason to change to a new IP-based solution providing the tools needed to secure their future business prospects (e.g. unified communications as a service). No matter the lease termination payment penalties, business survival is more important. END of ISDN This year marks the final point at which further orders for ISDN can be placed ahead of the planned switch-off of the service and the move to IP voice. Some PBX systems cannot be upgraded to IP- based solutions or cannot be without great complexity and/or expense. The switch off-of ISDN in 2025 is a brick wall that these companies will butt up against and the clock is ticking. In these instances, sales people will have to double down on the huge operational advantages that a hosted solution could provide these companies. can set up shop in a new location – or work from home– and get back to business almost as if nothing happened. 4 Scalability – systems can be expanded as needed and contracted when demand falls, and you only pay for what you have. 5 Integration with applications such as Unified Communications as a Service, remote branch and homeworking are simple. Common to both deployment types was the fact that no solution was perfect in the sense that it had all the applications on board that a company needed or might need downstream. Additional solutions are available for both, but massive growth in the use of the cloud has given users of hosted telephony a wide array of Software as a Solution applications to choose from, whilst developments for PBXs have all but dried up. One area where companies switching to hosted telephony did struggle initially was in the remuneration of their salesforce. Shifting from a CAPEX to an OPEX model meant no more up-front cash with which to pay large sales commissions to employees who still needed to pay their mortgages. Financial services firms quickly found a way around the problem and today sales people who have built up a base of customers that make payments per month are doing rather well! When to Switch Today, most systems sold by resellers are based on cloud or hosted models. Common to both deployment types was the fact that no solution was perfect in the sense that it had all the applications on board that a company needed or might need downstream Enzo Viscito, Managing Director at channel provider Inclarity, says complaining about change is like complaining that rocks are hard. For organisations to succeed in a constantly changing world, they need to be able to change and adapt and this requires business agility – essentially the ability to respond rapidly to changes in the internal and external environment without losing momentum or vision. Scalable Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, such as hosted or cloud-based telephony and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), can help organisations improve agility through collaboration and mobility. Sweeping away the old legacy management ethos of working in departmental solos and switching to a unified communications (UC) strategy brings significant and immediate business benefits. Firstly, by integrating a wide range of applications, duplication of effort can be marginalised. This reduces cost, improves productivity and increases employee engagement as staff have the right tools for the job. Secondly, because the UCaaS solution is supplied as a service from the cloud, all the data can be analysed and reported upon to produce far more accurate insights into what your customers like, dislike and what they like next. This enables organisations to be more agile in getting new products and services to market, whilst at the same time improving customer retention rates. Business agility can be enhanced further by changing out expensive-to-maintain, legacy PBX systems for solutions that are hosted or deployed from the cloud. Not only are Voice over IP-based solutions always up to date in terms of features, but, because they are supplied via the cloud, users only pay for the services they consume. Adding in mobile devices integrated with VoIP telephony solutions extends mobility and collaboration beyond the corporate office to remote sites or home offices that can be set up in minutes and hours instead of days and weeks. Voila! Business Agility