Making the Unified Communications Connection
Solution providers have the opportunity to improve productivity and simplify operations for their customers with unified communications, the integration of wireless and voice systems that automatically connects callers and recipients and helps them eliminate phone tag and email overload.
Unified communications can consist of Voice over IP (VoIP), wireless WANs, or dual-mode voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) phones instead of traditional cell phones and presence technologies. As its name implies, unified communications eliminates the need for multiple devices, enabling users to replace their pagers, BlackBerrys, and cell phones with one phone. It also eliminates the frustration of missed calls, since devices know where to route them.
“You layer on top of [VoIP] the ability to know if a colleague is available just by looking at your PC, or move an instant message chat to a telephone call,” says John Mason, vice president of global channels and operations at Nokia Enterprise Solutions in Irving, Texas.
Unified communications delivers on VoIP’s promise, adds Paul Weber, vice president of sales, North America, at Interactive Intelligence, an Indianapolis-based provider of business communications software and services for contact center automation and enterprise IP telephony solutions. “If I’m a businessperson running a sales group, I don’t care if I’m talking over Voice over IP or a cell line,” he says. “There’s a huge open market for it now. Across the company, people are looking at their existing equipment and want to IP-enable it.”
By doing so, organizations can tap the growing number of applications available for unified communications, says Weber, such as messaging, business phones, call routing, and call recording. And, as the prices of unified communications-related technologies from both leading and start-ups have fallen, solutions are becoming increasingly attractive to SMBs. “More businesses are multilocation,” says Mason. “The productivity and efficiency of one person in a 20-person office is very, very critical.”
“It is one hot, huge area of opportunity for VARs,” says Joe Berard, technical solutions engineer at distributor Ingram Micro, based in Santa Ana, Calif. “No matter which vertical market they serve, there’s a way for solution providers to integrate voice into the solution. Enhancing communication—taking voice connectivity with you everywhere you go—is something everyone can use.”
A number of vendors and distributors are helping VARs add complementary unified communications solutions to their portfolios. Ingram Micro, for example, held a number of boot camps over the past year, and plans to continue the program in 2008, says Berard.
For its part, D&H Distributing Co. wants to help its partners add new technologies such as unified communications in a way that makes sense for their businesses, says Dan Schwab, vice president of marketing at the Harrisburg, Pa.-based distributor. “One of the biggest problems for our solution providers is finding enough time to go out and cultivate new business,” says Schwab. “To help them … we must find solutions they can sell to their existing customers for recurring revenue.”
Vendors are also making efforts to educate their partners. Cisco, for example, offers a Master in Unified Communications program, designed to recognize partners that are expert in these solutions, says Surinder Brar, Cisco’s senior director for worldwide channel strategies and programs at Cisco Systems Inc., in San Jose, Calif. As do other vendors, Cisco also offers an ROI-determination tool that partners can use to help customers understand the return on investment they can anticipate.
Solution providers that answer the call for unified communications by taking advantage of distributor and vendor programs, rebates, and sales support can expect calls from their SMB customers eager to take advantage of the technology and its promises.—Alison Diana
