2017 will be known by many as the year of Bitcoin and crazy politics but it was a year of massive M&A. “M&A across the media, information, marketing, software, and tech sectors, reached 1,500 transitions valued at $160 billion total during the first three quarters of 2017, according Jegi’s research,” according to Channele2e.

Data Centers were hot, hot, hot – with a bunch of transactions and consolidation. Equinix buying Verizon/Terremark; Cyxtera buying Centurylink; and many other mergers and acquisitions.

This year was when the channel finally woke up to Cloud. This was probably prompted by buyers clamoring for some hard intel on cloud – what it means; what the benefits are; and are there any case studies.

It was also the year of AAS (as a service). AAS reached epic proportions including Hardware-as-a-service, Database-as-a-service and Technology-as-a-service (rolled out by the VAD, Tech Data).

It was the year of data breaches, hacking and especially Ransomware. Companies took advantage of this by ramping up cyber-security. Cloud backup services also newsjacked the ransomware scare to let customers know that daily or hourly backups of data can be good insurance. This at a time when cloud backup is consolidating due to far too many vendors and too little revenue for the enormous CAPEX to get started.

5G, Skype, Slack, SD-WAN, the FCC, Net Neutrality and blockchain were all popular topics.

It will be more of the same in 2018. Lots of M&A especially in cloud, fiber and managed services. (Companies are basically doing acqui-hires by buying an MSP for customer base and talent/skills).

We will hear more of the same: 5G, SD-WAN and blackchain. Not certain we will hear much about NN, Slack (unless they get bought) and Skype (which is morphing into MS Team).

To be the Trusted Advisor you have to be familiar with a lot of stuff but that doesn’t mean that you have to be an expert. You just have to be familiar enough to know the name of the vendor that can provide that service.

I do have to agree with some of this: “the imminent death of the PBX is the perfect forcing event to help you drive your customers away from on-prem PBX’s into cloud-based communications like UCaaS.” It takes a Trigger Event like a dead PBX to make a prospect move forward with a sale. However, there is no saying that the prospect wil choose to go cloud, especially if that PBX lasted 8-10 years!

Airespring launched a Cloud Key System. This plays into the tried and true telecom sales approach: Replace what they have but save them some money. It is this very problem that the RLECs face today: revenue decline because after 22 years of saving money, revenue can’t go up.

The Key System replacement will be an easier sale. No Change involved. That makes the sales process easier. (It will get bogged down with the phone/handset component though).

Cloud services has always been about flexibility, productivity and business process improvement. However, to get BPI something has to change. But selling Change is difficult.

I see a lot of innovation in the web conferencing space with Amazon Chime and now Amazon Alexa. Voice Assistants might take the pain out of conference calls.

A company called Voxeet added 3D sound to their conference service.

Seth Godin says just make better tacos. It is that simple.

That means the service delivery, customer care, user adoption and training will become a requirement in order for UCaaS to grow like predicted. Sales will need to be trained and re-trained in selling Change. These aspects will need vast improvement in order for UCaaS to grow.

Companies will need a Customer Evangelist or a very strong Product Manager (like TPX did).

Next, providers will need to use Big Data. Who are our customers? What Verticlas do we hit? How can we integrate better for them? What Friction can we remove?

I’m not the only voice for vertical integration. With 2000+ providers all shouting the same thing, with roughly the same feature set and willing to drop their pants on price to book ANY revenue at all, how will anyone compete in that pool?

Answer: by pivoting to get out of that pool.

You will need to do SOMETHING to stand out.

If not, CPaaS will win. It will win on price, simplicity and service delivery. CPaaS – whether that is Twilio, Nexmo (Vonage), Restcomm, Slingr or any of the other platforms – can sell online and deliver the DIDs and Dial-tone almost automatically. UCaaS is a lot of post-sale design.

When I look back on Grasshopper (now part of Citrix) or any other auto-attendant in the cloud, it was a simple concept for small business that was easy to buy, easy to set up and easy to sell. UCaaS is none of that.

There is a reason that most UCaaS Providers like Evolve IP and Fuze have had success in the mid-market sector (of what I consider 250-1000 employees). There is a reason that 8×8 and Vonage have championed their channel to chase mid-market and enterprise: these sales are BIG which moves the needle; these companies have IT staff that can help with deployment; and these companies are used to software projects failing.

In the SMB space of 100 and less, it is a lot of work in deployment, support, etc. It is a smaller revenue win. The costs almost outweigh the win. But why? Because the product is hard to figure out, etc. etc.

Simplify. Clarify. Position. Integrate. Go Vertical. Those are the keys to the game.

According to TechTarget, “Many on-premises systems are still out there, according to a Nemertes Research study on unified communications and collaboration. More than 700 companies participated in the study, and 47% of them still use on-premises platforms for their telephony and UC needs.”

The article goes on to state that “Just 28% have fully migrated to a pure-cloud UCaaS product in which telephony and unified communications services are provided via a multi-tenant, shared service on a subscription basis.”

Larger enterprise (2500+ employees) operate depreciated PBX systems, while Cisco and Microsoft have been pushing them to adopt Spark and Teams. In many respects, Cisco and Microsoft will win a majority of the market share.

I see a couple of problems with this kind of thinking: “CenturyLink may be motivated to help its business customers save money by migrating to IP-based voice service, but the telco is finding that businesses see efficiency and usability for their employees as the key drivers,” in a Fierce article.

Why are we still banging the “Save Money” drum? Especially from a telco that got crushed due to saving money?

“CenturyLink conducted a survey with 250 IT decision-makers that looked at hosted VoIP as well as the challenges, benefits and drivers of using or considering a hosted VoIP solution….While service cost and security are key considerations in migrating to managed VoIP, 60% of the survey respondents said they’re likely to evaluate new hosted VoIP solutions in the next year to be more efficient and innovative. Concerns about cost/ROI and security/visibility in the network each garnered response rates of almost 25%.”

We have market research (at least 10years of it) and ignore it all to sell what we want/have the way we want/have. Definition of Insanity.

Innovation may be what drives some customers.

Amazon’s Alexa for Business is one big innovation. And as I mentioned it takes the tech out of the way of the small business user. THAT is what should have happened years ago. Instead we fight over which phone type and who is paying for the handset and install.

And who was a collaborator with AWS? RingCentral. How wasn’t it Vonage Business, the Amazon Chime partner?

“These integrations with Amazon® Alexa enable the use of voice commands to join meetings, send text messages, listen to voicemails, and make calls in an easy and intuitive way. RingCentral Meetings™ for Alexa for Business reduces the friction of starting and managing online meetings or conference calls simply by using voice commands.”

Another interesting move comes from Craig Walker at DIALPAD. “Dialpad has announced the release of a new service, intended to help small businesses and remote workers by eliminating their monthly phone bills. This new release, Dialpad Free, extends the company’s missions statement from “Kill the Desk Phone” to “Kill the Phone Bill,” by offering a free business phone system without a trial period.” [UCStrategies] [Note: It is only available to G Suite users in the Bay area currently.]

And a final new look is the Cloud Key System that AireSpring rolled out. This is what telecom can sell: Replacement service with a cost saving. Wheel House!

Hosted VoIP and UC Players are going to have to re-think their product offerings in 2018. They will need to get Creative to combat the consumerization of comms.

Here are two lessons from this holiday season.

One: be grateful, especially for your employees and customers. And tell them!

Two: everyone has a favorite holiday movie, whether it is Die Hard or Elf or a Peanuts classic. The holiday movie is a story that holds memories and feelings. Learn how to tell a memorable story.

Don’t be a Grinch and get caught up in all the technology. That leads to confused salespeople and prospects. And when people are confused, they either don’t buy or choose on price.

SD-WAN, VoIP, UCaaS, CCaaS, IaaS, UTM and all the rest do not mean very much to the marketplace. What they do for the business does!

Tell a better story about the business impact.

Screw the tech! The story of Santa Clause and his elves doesn’t focus on how the elves can pump out all those toys (or how they afford it). Nor is the story about how one guy can deliver to 1 billion households globally in one night.

2018 is around the corner. Start it with a new message, a new story – or at least clarify your old one by taking all the acronyms OUT, removing the tech talk and tell the story about the solution.

“80 percent of IT spending is used for maintenance; only 20 percent on moving the business forward.” [source] Businesses would like their IT department to shift more towards business innovation. To the other 20%. Can you help them with that? That’s a story – without acronyms.