Four Ways Mid-Market Firms Can Find Their Ideal Unified Communications Client

Companies today have to continually improve business efficiency and processes in order to stay competitive. In addition, they also need to process applications and services closely aligned with developing business requirements. Unified communications as a Service (UCaaS) can substantially help them transform their enterprises to accomplish these goals.

So what's stopping these companies from deploying UCaaS? They may have significant investments in existing on-premises equipment, or believe they have the skills and resources to deploy IP communications solutions themselves. They may have had poor experiences with hosted UC solutions, which are clouding their judgments about the efficacy of deploying UC in their enterprises. In most cases, they are thinking only in terms of cost savings.

There is a lot of foundational work that needs to be done to understand organizational challenges before the first soft phone hits a desktop. And that's where channel partners offering UC solutions can be very attractive to mid-market companies.

A UC solution for each company is going to be different based on several factors: what the company does, what types of clients it serves, the kinds of partners it works with, the structure of its supply chain, and even the different ways in which its employees work.

That's why channel partners need to be wary of proposing cookie-cutter solutions - UC should align with client business goals to make those organizations better at their businesses. Here are four ways that mid-market firms can find their perfect UC client:

Take a Deep Dive into your Prospect's Business

Understanding the hard and soft implications of a transition to UC are critical, which is why channel partners need to get an enterprise-wide view of the unique challenges of each client.

Too often, companies make the move to UC in a siloed approach - just involving the network or telco teams. The key for a successful UC implementation is to involve all functional areas of business, such as finance, HR, manufacturing, customer service, and remote sites and workers to discuss how UC tools can positively impact their operations and processes. Insights on the technology issues also should be solicited from the software, application and IT desktop teams.

Don't Default to Rip-and-Replace

Another mistake in migrating to Unified Communications is taking a rip-and-replace approach - believing you must remove all of your old hard phones, softphones, software, etc. and replace them with new technology in order to deliver an optimal UCaaS deployment. This is not necessarily true; at least some of the existing equipment may still hold business value when coupled with the right UCaaS investments.

Channel partners should help clients establish roadmaps that enable enterprises to reach their UC goals. Doing so will help UC service providers determine if infrastructure needs to be replaced entirely, or if it is a sound business investment to integrate existing technologies.

Get the Network Right

The first part of that roadmap should be to get the network right. The best way to achieve this is to evaluate the effectiveness of using a fully managed infrastructure that can provide the type of application performance, flexibility and resiliency required in today's business environment. A managed application-aware network such as this should offer a flexible delivery model that uses multiple Tier 1 carriers to ensure wider geographic coverage.

There should also be a comprehensive set of network interfaces available through that service to suit a mid-market company's business needs while providing full visibility into the network performance - from the router and switch to the network core. A managed network approach should be able to provide intelligent application-based routing, sophisticated management and control, and the best network performance possible through MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching).

Get Better at Business

Everyone's ultimate goal is to get better at business. However, only after the network is set should the channel partner then start working with the client on the company's core voice services, and then work with it to prioritize and implement the other UC applications and services that best match its business goals.

Any mid-market company that wants to get better at its business is a good candidate for UC. Channel partners can help these types of companies get better by first understanding their businesses and how they use communications today, and then demonstrate how they can help improve core competencies such as customer service, employee productivity and business applications.

By following this process, channel partners can ensure that their mid-market customers' UC approaches best align with business needs - not only today, but well into the future.

James Whitemore is Executive Vice President of West IP Communications, a provider of cloud-based communications for enterprise and mid-market companies.