MARKET REPORT
www.comms-dealer.com NEW CONFIDENCE PUSHES M
VoIP thrives on certainty
Growing confidence in IP telephony is casting a long shadow over the conventional PBX. As a strategic enabler of revenue generation and cost savings, IP voice solutions are breathing life into an otherwise slow moving market.
E
nd users are more aware of IP telephony and gaining in
confidence to migrate away from the traditional communications environment, reshaping the telecoms market. The most powerful driving force behind pure IP voice solutions from vendors such as Cisco is increased confidence among channel partners in providing a whole solution for data and voice requirements. Andy Brocklehurst, UK Partner Sales Manager, Cisco, said: “Smaller businesses are rapidly becoming aware of what else they can run across their IP investment. Two great examples are video-based collaboration and IP CCTV for security, both of which are growing exponentially.”
Analysts such as MZA report that the migration from TDM to IP is faster in the sub-100 user segment than any other. “Analysts predict that by 2015, 36 per cent of the market will have made that transition compared to 16 per cent last year,” noted
Brocklehurst. “This is the result of intensive top-down marketing efforts focused on the right products, combined with growing bottom-up awareness and acceptance of consumer and micro-business focused solutions such as Skype and Google Voice. Businesses are increasingly aware of the network as the platform on which to build their businesses on, and see voice, video, messaging, conferencing and social software as a natural extension of that.”
Professionalism Increasing customer confidence derives from having competent, professional advisors and integrators that understand their business and can match solutions to needs. “This is where the channel is having the greatest impact, in its ability to address the whole picture with a service-oriented business model and not just focus on a telephony feature set sale,” added Brocklehurst.
It’s not all about the telephony aspect, agrees Phil Speed, Business Development Manager at
Cisco distributor Comstor. “It’s a complete voice, LAN, mobility, security and connectivity solution in a single platform, providing an architecture for future growth and expansion in the customer’s business. Our most effective SMB partners demonstrate time and time again that selling against a checklist of telephony features is not the issue, otherwise all they are providing is dialtone by another means. That’s not the way to create business value or long-term customer relationships.”
When IP telephony is viewed as an important component application in a converged business it can provide an entry point to a customer, or a platform for the next stage of growth for a reseller. “Resellers need to decide whether they are in the PBX sales business or the communications service business, because this is where it is heading,” added Speed.
“Putting it simply, our Comstor Fundamentals program will help resellers not just to answer this question but to develop
and execute a business model that gets them where they need to go. We know it works because innovative partners such as NIU Solutions are achieving with us.”
First step
Phil Clark, Business Development Manager, NIU Solutions, commented: “IP telephony provides customers with that all- important first step on the ladder towards an integrated ICT architecture. Most solutions available today enable far more than voice functionality, and in many cases the implementation of IP telephony triggers a long-term strategy to converge voice, data and business applications.
“For example, NIU Solutions has one of the largest Cisco Call Manager implementations in the UK. This unified communications platform enables us to engage customers in more than just a voice pitch which, in turn, equals a far greater return on their investment and opens broader sales opportunities for our business.”
The drivers for pure IP are business needs such as multi-site operations and home teleworkers, observes Mike Ballantine, Business Development Manager, Aastra Telecom (UK). “Where these conditions exist customers are responsive to pure IP solutions,” he said. “Customers also want to leverage investment in their own network infrastructure by using a converged network architecture for both voice and data. As ever, customers are not so much concerned about how a solution is delivered, their focus is reliable cost- effective performance.”
IP telephony is the future for voice delivery but at the moment the market is in a transition phase. “There are always early adopters who will find the cost benefits of a pure IP solution compelling,” added Ballantine. “But most customers are interested in ends not means. It is the resellers’ role to educate their customers on the best solution to meet their business needs. Selling the right solution for the customer’s
90 COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2010
www.comms-dealer.com
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