Here’s a newsflash: End users are starting to see the productivity benefits of unified communications. Here’s a bigger newsflash: They’re also wondering where the folks are who can sell it to them.
The converged channel partner has been a character in the telecom play for quite some time. It’s the rarified partner that has the IT chops of a VAR and the network services expertise of an agent. It’s the trusted adviser that can do it all that’s needed -- from installing the boxes to troubleshooting the LAN to integrating circuits. This character is more and more in demand on the stage as IP convergence continues to take over the networking rooms of enterprises and the telecom budgets of SMBs.
Perhaps the biggest driver right now for the converged partner is the ramping up in demand for unified communications — defined as integrated voice, video, data, presence, chat and mobility, all accessible from a desktop client that allows “click-to-x” access to each application. Increasingly, these capabilities extend outside the enterprise to partners and customers, as there becomes more and more interoperability between systems.
The interest is high; In-Stat and Wainhouse Research expect the worldwide market for unified communications to reach a whopping $24.2 billion in revenue by 2012. The compound annual growth rate over this period is estimated at 24.9 percent — and that’s a big pie from which a channel partner can snag a slice.
Unified communications is in fashion; it’s true, but it’s not just the breathless prognostications of analysts contributing to the buzz. “On the hosted side especially we’ve had great dialogs with distributors,” said Sita Lowman, leader of converged core solutions at Nortel Networks. “A lot of them are still getting their arms around that VoIP for SMBs idea, but UC brings them a fantastic tool to expand the base for that because it’s no longer just about saving toll costs — this is about improving the operating profile of the end-user customer, which is a story they are willing to listen to.”
It helps that it turns out the benefits of unified communications actually are being realized. UCStrategies.com, a market research and information site, conducted a unified communications end-user productivity study to see whether the people who actually use the systems — those that do the click-to-calling, as it were — felt unified communications helped them be more productive. The responses were overwhelmingly positive in favor of bolstered efficiency. While few respondents could quantify it, citing unified communications as saving them between 20 minutes to an hour of work daily, the benefits were nonetheless undisputed amongst those surveyed.
Channel Not Ready to Sell Unified Communications
So far, so good. The problem, according to a survey by COMMfusion LLC and Sierra Summit Group, is that the majority of the channel isn’t ready to give the people what they want. “The products are available and waiting to be put in the hands of the end user,” said analyst Pam Avila at Sierra. “The end-user is already prepared to acquire some of the UC tools and reap the business benefits. But the majority of the channel is not ready to sell.”
