Many observers believe that success for dealers in the post-pandemic era all comes down to diversification. It didn’t take COVID-19 to make that notion clear, but the world’s most unwanted guest certainly drove that notion home.
In the case of unified communications, it’s all about the packaging for both the dealer/reseller and the client. Competence in this discipline is but a partnership or acquisition away for dealers, who can also go down the road of constructing a phones platform. Customers, on the other hand, benefit from the cost certainty of having their UC needs bundled into the desirable monthly payment—ideally, as part of an overall managed IT program.
We kick off this month’s State of the Industry report on unified communications with an overview of the commitment necessary for dealers/resellers to earn their stripes among clients. We’ll also include a thought or two on the investment considerations from the end-user side.
Kirk Studebaker, president of Coordinated Business Systems in Burnsville, Minnesota—which entered the UC business 10 years ago—views the foray as an investment of people and time. An effective platform cannot be executed without a deft UC team that possesses an understanding of the market and product to a degree that can yield the desired customer experience.
Selling phone systems isn’t the problem, he notes. It’s being able to deliver on promises while requiring a level of responsiveness that indicates an appreciation for urgency.
“Our channel knows how to sell. We can go get deals,” Studebaker said. “Those who go get the deals that they can’t fulfill will destroy valuable customer relationships and wish they never started. This isn’t the copier business. Wait four hours to respond to a customer with a phone system that’s down and see how that works out.”
One of the underpinnings of success in any product discipline, including unified communications, is having a roster of subject-matter experts, and in the case of Fraser Advanced Information Systems, that goes well beyond copiers. Melissa Confalone, vice president of sales for Fraser, that base of expertise is vital to the dealer’s ability to showcase its value proposition.
“Investing in the right people and building on this successful program allows our sales force to focus on their core business,” Confalone said. “It also provides customers and potential customers with an expert focused specifically on the technology they are interested in.”
Looking at the investment from an end-user’s point of view, dealers may have a distinct advantage over sources such as Ingram Micro and Amazon Web Services, notes Roland Tolan, COO/partner for United Office Technologies Group (UOTG) of Irvine, California. When those product suppliers sell servers and hardware, he said, they don’t offer a financing arm and it falls upon the customer to produce an investment that can number in the tens of thousands of dollars. UOTG, meanwhile, can bundle the hardware in a predictable monthly payment without creating an upfront investment hardship for the client.
“I spoke to many CFOs before partnering with All Covered, and the biggest pain point I found with them, regardless of their size, is they’re never able to set a budget for their IT department,” Tolan said. “One month they may need switches, maybe firewalls the next month and servers the month after. With us offering the full bundle of services, including VoIP, now we can break that down into a simple monthly payment for the next five years. Clients need that budgetary certainty.”
Tolan adds that clients get a better price on hardware as well, since All Covered can offer a better price point than a CDW or Ingram Micro. “(All Covered) has a lot of buying power and they give us a pretty good cost,” he said.
