According to Channel Vision magazine, Amazon is bringing the Amazon Echo Show to the office. “The device offers Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, a touchscreen display, and a 5-megapixel camera for video calls. These are just a few of the UC features the Echo Show offers in addition to accessing emails and calendar via voice commands.” It sounds like it is integrated with Amazon Chime.

Now give this device a DID (phone number) with text capability and we are getting closer to a UC Killer. By that I mean a bundle that will sell faster to the SMB market.

If you take a Surface Book Pro 3 (older model) with a touch screen, add Skype + Office365 or G-Suite plus Slack or Hipchat, you would have an interesting product. Give the device a DID for SMS/text and voice calls and you have an Amazon Echo Show knock-off.

Notice that none of this is about selling a phone?

Notice that it is about taking the technology out of every day tasks like calling and meetings.

The noise level of hype about UCaaS sales is high. Another analyst report sales it is over 30% growth — yet not one provider has demonstrated that in their numbers!

“Let’s Talk About the Looming Death of the PBX.” Is on-premise dead? It’s pretty inexpensive to install and maintain Asterisk and 3CX. Avaya didn’t close; they went into bankruptcy. Windstream and Frontier are heading that way. Is telecom dead?

Mitel, NEC, Zultys, Star2Star (hybrid) and Fonality round out the PBX guys still kicking. By the way, has Cisco put an end of life on Call Manager? Yeah, no.

If it is so grand, why did BSFT sell? Why are 8×8, RC and Vonage looking to exit?

“It’s time to go all in on UCaaS. Not convinced?” No. I am not. Just like how cloud is a blanket term, so is UCaaS. Hybrid wins. It has been that way forever.

I think CPaaS – defined as SIP Trunking with features – is going to win the game. (I’m not alone either.) Why? The world is being eaten by software. It will be the software that wins. Voice, video, text and other types of features will be add-ons to the software running the business.

UCaaS provider want to be all things to all things. Well, that’s dial-tone. Verticals and full stacks are where the gold is. It isn’t like 8×8, RC and Vonage don’t know that! It’s just they don’t want to abandon the WHOLE market because Wall Street will kill them. When you say that the addressable market is $30B, you can’t take a position that you are going to take a chunk of just $1B. Or at least no one has had the balls to do it yet. They’d rather swim in the same shallow pool with the other 2000 providers. I guess they would get lonely.

Another point: Cloud is about Worldview. Some people feel safe in the cloud; others do not. Some techs worry about job security, so on-premise is there answer to job security. SMB SaaS Survey says that 21 percent said cost was a barrier to implementing a cloud-based solution; and
53 percent said security was an issue.

The TCO on UCaaS is not a cost savings as so many have claimed for so long. At $34 per seat, how is a SIP Trunk not less expensive? Most folks do not need all those features. Voicemail is annoying.

Learn a new system. Learn a new phone. That is Change! No one likes Change!

“UCaaS customers will be with their provider much longer than they kept their PBX.” You think someone still using a Nortel believes that? Or someone with a ten year old key system?

The churn numbers don’t match that. In fact, customer retention is one of the biggest issues facing the industry. The service delivery has holes. User training is needed for user adoption, but it is often over-looked or an expensive add-on. And it happens once, instead of regularly over the course of the contract. Employees churn in other industries besides just telecom, folks.

It isn’t that I don’t like UCaaS. I just think that it too often gets sold on price because of a lack of vertical integration; positioning; and business case impact.

I am tired from all the hype around a garbage can term like UCaaS that doesn’t mean ANYTHING to the buyer.

All too often, we think cloud means jam your box in the data center. That isn’t cloud!!! That is hosted at best and relocated. Let’s replace your PBX by selling you a cloud one is like saying ACT! was replaced by Salesforce.

There are a number of good reasons for a business to choose cloud comms, but using myths to sell it makes you untrustworthy.

And on bigger deals (200+ seats): How low was that seat price? How many seats actually turned up in 120 days? Did the partner get the full commission and spiff or did he just get based on a percentage of the deal?

There are companies re-vamping their channel; others are starting their change (Hello, Office Depot!); and some are scratching their head wondering about their channel program.

Over the years, companies looked at the Cisco and Microsoft channel programs as ideal. Unfortunately, they didn’t understand the underlying elements of those channels.

The underpinning was the training and certifications. THAT was what won.

The other element was focus. There was a theme to the program, like small business software or LAN/WAN hardware.

Today, the focus is gone. The program catalog of services is bursting to overflow.

The training is gone too. I don’t mean there aren’t a ton of webinars. I mean the training is missing. To go beyond the basics requires training in the product, its uses, its buyers and how to sell it. [There is also the user training that is needed for adoption and customer retention. That too is missing.]

In the UC space, providers look at the channel programs of both 8×8 and RingCentral. Because they are public, there is more detail. Yet it goes beyond the single point of: “New MRR sold to midmarket/enterprise customers and by channel sales teams accounted for 60% of total MRR booked in the quarter.”

There were elements (or ingredients) that had to be baked into the program for success. Here are a few:

• This was a 5 year pay-off. It was not a short term gamble. Long term and expensive.
• They had a goal. They were aiming for the mid-market from there sales in the VSB segment.
• They had Focus. It is a limited product set.
• They invested – in talent, in the Channel and in marketing.
• They stayed the course. Again it wasn’t short term gain.
• They knew how to sell from years of direct sales.
• They built a program. 8×8’s first channel program was crap. RC was an affiliate marketer. That changed to SPIFFs, MDF, recurring commissions, national accounts and implementation.
• They flushed out a more complete product. RC went from auto attendant in the cloud to a complete UC suite. 8×8 has integrations into many practice management software systems, like Allstate. They both made acquisitions – like Glip and Sameroom – to add functionality.

Training is lacking in both programs but the other ingredients have been fully baked in.

If you are re-vamping our channel or launching a new channel, what elements do you have? What elements are lacking?

If you need help, RAD-INFO has helped quite a few providers with their channel program.

Many folks think I am a pessimist. Actually I am a realist. My annoyance is with the status quo. The industry is filled with providers that just follow the other guy. Likely due to there not being a leader coupled with no service provider has it all figured out.

In addition, not everyone is building a Business to Last. Some are building to sell; some are just coasting; a few are building for the future.

I think providers should fail more. I mean, try more stuff; see what sticks. The organizations just aren’t built for it. They talk about innovation, but really mean open API or a new feature.

Disruption is coming. At the network layer, revenue from MPLS and fat pipes will be cannibalized by broadband and SD-WAN boxes. Amazon is in the conferencing and cloud contact center space. Facebook has Workplace.

It is very likely another Slack comes along and displaces a bunch of service revenues soon.

While most providers plod along doing the same thing they were doing 5+ years ago.

CPaaS is likely to replace SIP Trunks, if it is done right and deployed smart.

Mobile UC is just one slick mobile app away taking market share. (It should have been Bria by Counterpath but it hasn’t yet.)

If you want some help re-thinking your business, call me. I promise I am not annoyed, so much as disappointed that this industry has so much promise and most ideas are M and A.

Jim Collins, who wrote Good to Great and Built to Last, presented at Ingram’s event in 2015. [The notes are on channele2e]

Do we have the right people on the bus and in the right seats?

Got Empirical Creativity?: Where should we place our really big bets? You don’t need to be the most innovative. Instead, innovate in a different way. It’s about the ability to scale innovations.

What’s your BHAG?

Culture beats Strategy.

What should be on your “stop doing” list?