Note from the editor: We are excited to have our first post from Stephen Corrigan, former Sales Director for 3CX and newest member of the Bicom Systems team. Below he shares his experiences in the industry and what inspired him to leave 3CX and come to Bicom Systems.
The telecommunications industry has seen some dramatic changes over the decades – from Centrex to digital Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX) – most recently in the early 2000s with the advent of software based IP PBX systems such as Asterisk for Linux and 3CX on Microsoft Windows, providing much needed convergence and integration between the IT and Telecommunications worlds.
But the market has moved on once again, from these earlier, predominantly on premise, systems, which are seeing declining sales, to a subscriber based services model, where multiple communications channels: voice, video, messaging (chat), collaboration, screen sharing, file transfer etc., are delivered over the internet directly to your customer’s employees.
This is a fundamental change, a change that many of the existing incumbent manufacturers just cannot deliver upon.
The Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market is estimated to grow to over $96 billion annually, with the North American subscriber base set to grow dramatically from 11.6 million today to over 27 million subscribers by 2023, that is a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of between 25-30%.
So, with the changing landscape you are being asked yet again to make decisions and changes to your business, your model, your infrastructure, your services and reevaluate your current technology business partners. Are they delivering for you?
If your technology partners are only providing PBX software, like 3CX and many others, then they are emphatically not and are not producing for you!
In today’s market, you need to offer your existing and new customers not only improved core services, but also the ability to engage with you in the manner that they are now accustomed to and provide more self-service capabilities.
Our relationship with technology has changed. Just look at our own personal lives and see how we interact with technology today. We are all consumers of technology and are willing to pay monthly subscriptions for what we want and desire, whether that be entertainment with Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, or our cell phone contracts so we can keep up with the newest handsets as soon as they are released; we do our shopping 24/7 from the convenience of our home, as we do our banking. We also want control over our subscription based services, adding or changing our subscriptions, engaging with our service providers using an online portal 24/7 – We want that convenience and simplicity.
Businesses are no different. No longer do businesses wish to make a purchasing decision and invest in technology with a minimum of a 5-year lifecycle, being stuck with that decision. Just like us personally, businesses are consumers of technologies, subscribing to the services that their business needs to operate such as Microsoft Office 365, SalesForce.com (and other ERP/CRM systems) and of course Telephony and Unified Communications. And for very good reasons – it’s simple, it fits within their budgetary constraints, there are no equipment costs, no maintenance costs, no system management costs, and no vendor lock-in, just simplicity and convenience.
In today’s changing market it is no longer sufficient to sell and install PBX equipment on the customer premise. Buyers do not want that and they are voting with their wallets. You need to provide businesses more – flexibility, simplicity, and convenience.
In addition to providing core Unified Communications functions, you need to offer your customers methods of engaging with you on the basis that they want. You need to offer them comprehensive online services where they can sign up for your service, creating an online portal from where they can order additional products and services from you, upgrade their existing service plans, view and pay their bills, automate the billing process, automate the credit card or PayPal payment process, customer care functions where your customers can raise and track trouble tickets. In three words – flexibility, simplicity, and convenience.
And finally, delivering the service over the Internet requires some additional skills and technologies, from infrastructure to server and network virtualization so that you can deliver robust, fault tolerant, redundant services 24/7 to your customers with 99.999% uptime.
If your current technology partner cannot provide you these additional functional layers over and above a PBX, it is time to reevaluate.
So what can you do about this today? Well, you have several options open: (1) do nothing, business as usual, (2) invest the necessary cash in building out your own technologies and infrastructure to deliver these services, (3) work with existing service providers as an agent on a commission basis, but that is not very satisfying and does not create value in your business, or (4) do something different – engage with Bicom Systems.
Bicom Systems provides all the necessary pieces for the ITSP jigsaw. With Bicom Systems and our private white label UCaaS platform you can build:
- YOUR Business by leveraging our infrastructure, investment, technologies people and expertise to tap into the booming UCaaS market.
- YOUR Brand by marketing and delivering UCaaS services in your own unique brand on a local, regional, national, or even international basis. Creating value in your business.
- YOUR Way, you set pricing and service plans, you do it all your way, you’re in total control.
Only by changing can you survive and prosper in this market. Bicom Systems can help you make the change and get you there.
Learn more by visiting www.bicomsystems.com or by contacting me directly at sc@bicomsystems.com.