The key to software-first unified communications

Introduction

In a communications market full of choice, traditional phone systems are increasingly inadequate in delivering on evolving customer needs. Unified communications are core to the IT landscape, and increasingly as a ‘software-first’ solution. With 80% of enterprises planning to migrate their communications to the cloud by 2025 (IDC) along with the pending PSTN switch-off, we have the perfect storm for vendors, distributors and resellers to deliver on that customer need.

Infrastructure considerations

Transitioning to a streamlined, software-first solution creates new opportunities for providers who can expand their portfolio and offerings to suit a larger variety of customer markets. Value-add avenues of communication such as messaging & chat, file sharing, and video-conferencing not only increases customer perceived value, but is becoming more and more expected of UCaaS solutions.

Flexibility of the underlying tech stack is a key building block to a software-first approach. For example, public cloud, as opposed to traditional local data-centres lead to a number of benefits:

Better technical scalability - Public cloud resources can easily be scaled up or down based on demand, eliminating the need for upfront investment. They also allow for automated international deployment, whereas localised options require local data centre presence to be deployed manually in each desired geography.

Resources & threat defence - By leveraging large public cloud providers, vendors can benefit from the highest levels of resource availability and security. Our work with Google enables us to use their load balancing to evenly distribute our network traffic, enabling us to rapidly scale our platform without impacting performance - it’s the very same load balancing that powers every Google Search query. Coupled with the scale of their infrastructure, Google enables us to deliver reduced latency that outperforms geographically local data centres, ensuring customers always enjoy a rapid and fluid experience. By working with Google’s Cloud Services infrastructure we also get to benefit from the world’s best threat defence capabilities alongside other Google Cloud based software companies like Spotify and Snap Inc.

Environmental efficiency - This is particularly important for customers who look for suppliers who align with frameworks that match their own corporate values. Cloud data centres are designed to be energy efficient, typically invest in renewable energy and are proactive in minimising their environmental impact. We deploy our platform in Google Cloud which allows us to have less of an impact on the environment. For example, Google has pledged to meet net-zero emissions by 2030, and its impact and efficiency data is available publicly on their website, so individuals are able to keep track of their planet-conscious efforts such as protecting biodiversity.  In the same vein, eliminating the need for on-premise hardware and cooling systems means a smaller carbon footprint for businesses, which is important as customers become increasingly conscious of their impact on the environment.

True SaaS leading the way 

In our recent industry report, our Head of Product marketing, James Lockhart highlights how the future of UCaaS lies within ‘true SaaS’ solutions. This means creating a self-sustaining platform. For example, at CallSwitch One we publish software updates, improvements and new features instantly once they have completed our quality assurance tests. This means that for end customers everything just looks after itself, just like how your smartphone apps update. Sometimes this might be visible features and new capabilities, and other times it will simply be improvements to the code base, compatibility fixes for new releases of the iOS or Android operating system, security updates, or simply that we’ve found a way to enhance the performance of our software.. These updates are deployed instantly, and there is nothing to install or schedule - meaning end users are not affected, and work can continue as normal.

Code base choices

While both proprietary and open-sourced code bases can offer advantages, vendors with proprietary IP are better set up to gain a competitive edge. 

The challenge with open-source or ‘upcycled’ code bases, such as Cisco’s Broadsoft, is that often it comes with tradeoffs, such as limited control and customisation, integration challenges, and scaling limitations for those vendors whose solutions are built on that underlying platform.

In contrast, vendors with proprietary technology have greater control over their entire technology stack and roadmaps. As Simon Blackwell, our CMO, recently told Comms Dealer: ‘resellers can leap-frog the competition by deploying solutions with a strong ongoing roadmap. A solution that is continuously improving speaks strongly to and instils trust with customers, and with a solution built on proprietary IP you can drive rapid innovation in ways others simply cannot’.

These vendors are also able to respond to changes in the landscape with agility that align with customer feedback and emerging technologies. For example, our resellers can directly feedback with feature requests and enhancement ideas to our CallSwitch One product team. Since we own our own code base, these requests are able to be reviewed immediately and potentially incorporated into our product development roadmap. Open source solutions, on the other hand, face heavy limitations when modifying the core code base and implementing new features, which hinders their ability to adapt as quickly to user preferences and demands, as well as market changes and trends.

Integrations

Seamless integrations between your communications platform and other software you use in your business can really drive value. Customers can enjoy enhanced efficiency by using solutions that talk to one another, and for resellers this is a great way to enhance customer stickiness:

Out-of-the-box solutions - CallSwitch One integrates with a growing list of the most popular software used globally, such as Salesforce and HubSpot CRM systems. These solutions are used by hundreds of thousands of businesses globally, so offering an integration between a software based VoIP solution and a software CRM is a common requirement for many businesses seeking interoperability between the solutions they use. This is a great value driver for resellers who deploy these solutions to end customers, as the customer gets to leverage more value from these products by having them work together. There are two parts to a great integration:

1. Achieving the highest level of features from the integration itself - so ‘popping’ a CRM record when a customer calls in, the capability to add ‘wrap up notes’ at the end of a call that goes directly into the CRM record, links to any call recordings, logging of the call itself in the CRM record, and more.

2. Making the integration simple for the end customer - rather than having a clunky login and authentication process or some ‘middleware’ that enables the phone system to talk to the CRM, real power comes from what we call ‘no code integrations’ where users can log in to the CRM system from inside the phone system once, and then it’s there and available forever.

Bespoke solutions for MSPs - Managed Service Providers cater to a diverse portfolio of clients (trust us, we know!) and therefore the needs of valuable custom markets can be very specific. Global CRM powerhouses like Salesforce are one thing, but niche industry solutions like patient management systems used in healthcare settings such as primary care and dentistry, or hospitality sector ‘guest management’ CRMs are far more nuanced. These can be tricky to integrate with, but if your unified communications platform is built on a proprietary code base (like ours) and has a rich Open-API (like ours) it’s possible to build integrations into these solutions where others cannot, and we’ve had a lot of experience in doing this for some of our partners that serve these niche customers to really give them the competitive advantage.

For resellers providing a range of communications pipelines, there is a huge competetive advantage to be had. As Jay Ball, CEO, Flotek, described in our December round-table: 'the telecoms reseller doesn't get IT, and the IT reseller doesn't get telecoms. So unless you're coming up against another converged company, you are the only one offering that solution'.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the communications industry is constantly evolving, and businesses need to be poised, ready to adapt and scale at pace. By embracing a software-first approach, public-cloud driven and proprietary code-base built, you can create literally anything!

To learn more about how CallSwitch One can support managed service providers of IT and telecommunications, check out our partnership opportunities, or read more of our reseller-focused blogs.