UCC Market Landscape - Capella Telecommunications · 2016. 11. 9. · Technologies and Global...
Transcript of UCC Market Landscape - Capella Telecommunications · 2016. 11. 9. · Technologies and Global...
In January 2016, BCC Research released its
report “Unified Communication and Collaboration:
Technologies and Global Markets,” which found
that the global market for UCC totaled $26.5
billion in 2015 and is expected to reach nearly
$62 billion in 2020, demonstrating a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.5%. The study
also found that hybrid deployments are the
fastest-growing segment in the global UCC
market, totaling $1.8 billion in 2015 and expected
to reach $6.2 billion by 2020, representing a
CAGR of 28%.
Much of this growth, according to various
analysts’ reports, can be attributed to the rising
use of UCC-as-a-service (UCCaaS) applications,
cloud-based videoconferencing, the push for
mobile UCC apps and UCC monitoring that
enables IT staff to view ongoing issues with voice
or video traffic in real time, to name just a few.
However, despite this continued market growth,
companies still face many challenges when it
comes to selecting the right UCC solution for
their business. More often than not, they end up
having to compromise just to get a solution that’s
somewhat workable in their environment, and
there are a number of reasons why.
For starters, many vendors offer tightly integrated,
yet proprietary, UCC solutions or loosely affiliated
components that are integrated in name only.
Next, most UCC solutions are either from a
vendor that has been around for a while and is
stuck with an outdated core software platform or
from a start-up that may or may not be around
next week. Finally, a majority of the UCC solutions
currently available are either extremely capable,
yet impossible to manage without budgeting for
expensive engineering resources, or they’re easy
to use but very lean on feature sets.
Given these limitations, selecting a UCC
vendor can become an arduous process. This
doesn’t have to be the case, though, if channel
partners arm themselves with the right
information regarding their customers’ needs
and requirements.
UCC Market Landscape: Compromise Is Everywhere
The use of UCC technologies by both SMBs and enterprise organizations is driving incredible growth. Analysts are now predicting that the market could double in the next five years.
Also, channel partners should be aware that nearly every UCC vendor will fall into one of two categories:
a closed, proprietary system that provides all of the components the customer will be using or a
software solution that’s installed on another vendor’s hardware and relies on yet another vendor’s
endpoints and gateways to create a complete solution.
Furthermore, most UCC vendors are either part of the “hosted-only” or “premises-only” camp, and
channel partners need to keep an eye out for premises-only solutions masquerading as hosted
solutions. In reality, these are just vendor solutions that are hosted in partners’ data centers. There
are also the “cloud-only” solutions, but often these don’t provide the added security available with
on-premises UCC solutions, nor do they offer the choice of transitioning away from the monthly
subscription-based model.
Best Practices for Selecting a UCC Vendor Partner
There are several key steps that channel partners should take when helping their customers select a UCC vendor partner.
STEP 1 Identify functionality requirements. Channel partners should look at a number of areas including presence awareness, mobility, CRM integration, remote workers, instant messaging, voicemail, email, faxing, contact center, paging, etc., to determine which functionalities are most critical and should be prioritized when recommending a UCC solution to their customers.
STEP 2 Take inventory of company and device types. This is a key step that should not be overlooked by channel partners, as most vendors don’t support all functionalities on all device types. For example, if the customer is 100% vested in Windows PCs, smartphones and tablets and relies on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, then Microsoft Lync is a good place to start. However, if the customer (like most) uses both Mac and PC desktops, a combination of Android tablets and iPads, a variety of installed apps and web-based cloud apps, plus a mixture of smartphones, then the company will require a solution that supports a wide range of devices and operating systems.
STEP 3 Determine if cloud, on-premises or hybrid best fits the customer. In some cases, the customer may not know which solution is best or believes that their needs will change in the future. As such, it’s important that channel partners take the customer’s evolving requirements into consideration when recommending a solution.
STEP 4 Create a spreadsheet of vendors that fit criteria. Channel partners should always invite a variety of vendors to present their solutions, as this will provide the customer with a better sense of their offerings and key capabilities.
For example, Teo is 100% open standards-based
and can integrate with most SIP-compliant
technologies. Also, because Teo develops the core
software that’s tightly integrated with their purpose-
built hardware, as well as all endpoint desk phones
and softphones, its UCC solution is a truly complete
system. This provides customers with the peace of
mind that comes from knowing that everything will
work together as intended to by design, yet will still
be able to integrate with other technologies to
provide increased functionality.
Finally, the Teo UCC solution is built from the
ground up for cloud, on-premises and hybrid
deployments. The code base is identical,
regardless of the configuration. The data centers
are its own, and Teo offers companies the ability
to move from cloud to premises, premises to
cloud, premises to hybrid or cloud to hybrid, and
back again with zero interruption to the user base.
Teo Technologies Solutions OverviewTeo Technologies designs, manufactures and
supports the most comprehensive business
communications technology portfolio available
today. Its range of solutions includes the Teo
UCC Suite, call center system, contact center
and Teo Analytics.
Teo UCCTeo UCC features seamless integration of
presence, instant messaging, voice, video, mobility
and collaboration tools in a single suite. The suite
integrates with existing systems, installs in minutes
and doesn’t break the budget. Customers can
choose to buy the technology, subscribe to cloud
services or create a hybrid deployment.
Call Center SystemThe call center system offers all the capabilities of
a fully operational call center, including:
• Agent logging
• Supervisor barge, monitor, whisper
• Group summary reports allowing access to
commonly requested call activity information
• Scheduled reports
• Call recordings set for all, inbound, outbound,
on demand or on a per-agent basis
Contact CenterThe contact center is a full multimedia customer
interaction suite that provides organizations
with the ability to optimize all of their channel
communication flows seamlessly within a
singular platform. This allows for superior
customer service and sales capabilities without
cost-prohibitive integration and implementation
costs. Voice, chat, fax, email, WebRTC and
social communications can all be routed using
the same routing rules and agent awareness
for optimum performance.
AnalyticsAnalytics empowers organizations to go beyond
digging through data and into a world where
answers are available on any web-enabled
device in real time. Businesses can extract,
review and analyze key data sets to determine
efficiency, sales and support metrics.
What Sets Teo Technologies Apart?
Teo Technologies is a proven industry leader with more than 40 years of experience in developing communications technologies.
What makes Teo different is its ability to simplify the supply chain so that channel partners and their customers are able to effectively rely on a single vendor for all their communications needs.
Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital, which is
headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has
satellite offices in Virginia, Maryland and West
Virginia, is the nation’s largest Girl Scouts
council. As such, it was critical that the
organization put an effective communications
system in place to ensure that staff could remain
in close contact with volunteers.
Careful about every penny spent, the council
needed to identify a phone system that could be
installed and maintained for at least 10 years,
with little or no fluctuation in cost or performance.
This led the council to engage initially with two
separate vendors for its phone and unified
communications needs.
This setup met the council’s baseline needs for
multiple years, but success was contingent on a
stable price point. Unfortunately, several years into
the relationship, the council hit a snag when they
were notified that their phone system had reached
end of life and they would no longer receive
support or protection against service errors.
The council needed to find a new solution that
was highly effective and could be implemented at
an affordable price point. In addition, they
wanted to work with a vendor that could
guarantee competitive rates—not just in the near
term, but seven years down the road. They were
also in a hurry, as within a month their existing
phone system would no longer be supported.
The council reviewed solutions from its current
vendors, but those were ultimately passed over
in favor of the Teo Technologies UCC solution,
which came highly recommended by one of the
council’s managed services providers.
Not only was Teo able to provide the desired
performance at an affordable price point, it also
offered the ability to deploy the UCC services in
a timely fashion.
Additionally, Teo successfully addressed a
number of other lingering issues caused by
the two disparate platforms that had affected
performance and impeded day-to-day
communications between branch offices. For
example, with Teo, the council staff could quickly
and easily direct calls to their volunteers without
forcing the caller to hang up and dial another
number. And, with a staff of 15 employees at
various locations (including satellite offices) who
took turns running the council’s main phone line,
uniting the council’s two main phone lines within
the single Teo UCC platform made it easier for
the council to transfer calls to anyone within the
organization, regardless of their location.
With Teo Technologies, the Girl Scouts of
Nation’s Capital were able to condense both their
phone and data needs into a single delivery
channel. Teo also provided the council with an
unparalleled level of reporting capabilities that
help to quantify the value that Teo is providing.
This included giving the council access to a wide
range of metrics such as the number of calls per
hour/day/month, the length of those calls and
where they originated.
Case Study:
Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital Leverage Teo Technologies to Improve Communications Between Staff and Volunteer