Prepping the Channel for UC Opportunities

By Jim Hamilton

Forty-nine percent of respondents to a recent survey from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) said that their expenditures on unified communications (UC) technologies will grow relatively faster than their overall IT budget during the coming year. Meanwhile, 31 percent of companies in the IT channel with a UC practice expect significant growth in their practice over the next 12 months.

To provide some perspective on the overall UC market, Forrester projects that by 2015, the worldwide UC market will stand at around $14.5 billion. To help the industry deal with this exponential growth, CompTIA is offering a number of programs.

For solution providers who are just launching a UC practice, CompTIA offers a 10-week guide, which leads them through a series of steps to get the UC part of their business up and running by sharing best practices from industry experts, while leaving room for their own value-added elements. There is also a Quick Start Guide that walks solution providers through the requirements for getting a UC practice off the ground.

CompTIA will be presenting its UC Foundations training in a six-hour workshop from 9 a.m. to noon and 2:45-5:30 on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, at Hyatt McCormick Place in Chicago. Attendees will receive the Quick Start Guide and the 10-week Guide.  addition, CompTIA has contributed to Channel Partners’ recent digital issue, Uncovering UC Sales Secrets, which covers:

• The primary characteristics of a good UC prospect
• Top vertical markets and applications for UC sales
• Questions to ask to uncover opportunities to recommend UC
• When to recommend premises or hosted solutions
• Top challenges to UC sales and ways to overcome them

Companies developing the UC market can network with each other and create industrywide initiatives through CompTIA’s new UC community.

In addition to market research and member programs, CompTIA is certifying industry professionals for UC with its Convergence+ (CTP+) exam. CompTIA’s CTP+ certification validates a professional’s level of knowledge and skills to sell and service components of data, voice and multimedia convergence technologies.

UC is considerably more than voice equipment and software; it's a comprehensive solution that addresses a customer's business problems. It's not an easy technology for solution providers to master and deliver, but with the right training and strategies in place, solution providers can get in on this explosive growth opportunity.

Jim Hamilton is vice president, member relations, for CompTIA, the nonprofit trade association for the IT information. Hamilton directs day-to-day engagements with the association’s 2,200-plus member companies, which covers the full range of the IT channel, from hardware and software manufacturers to distributors to value added resellers, solution providers and managed services providers. He also is responsible for CompTIA’s 10 member communities, which are the foundation of the association’s initiatives, programs, education and research.