By some measures, they supply and serve 40-50% of businesses’ PBX and UC needs but are having their path to market cut from under them.
The latest development was Microsoft, which acquired technology provider Metaswitch in 2020, effectively shutting down the division providing unified communication capabilities resold by many Communication Service Providers (CSPs). This comes on the heels of Cisco deprecating its BroadSoft product portfolio, another major CSP path to market.
Microsoft’s and Cisco’s message to their CSP customers: resell Teams and Webex, respectively.
While that may make sense for some segments of the market, the CSP has historically been strong in the SMB segment. Teams and Webex may not be the best option for those businesses, many of which value the telephony functions that a traditional phone system offers. These customers need reliable, affordable UCaaS and often CCaaS. And they like to purchase these solutions from the same providers from which they get their other business communications services.
As the CSP begins to look at other vendors, a shopping list begins to emerge. A feature rich white label platform with branding flexibility; a vendor that’s fully committed to partner support with the tools and integrations to match; strong commercials that provide owner’s economics; and finally, a cloud-centric offer that enables the CSP to move away from internally managing a softswitch/feature server platform.
“This is really a once in a generation technology transition that’s taking place,” says Brian Gregory, Director of Product Marketing at global cloud UCaaS and CCaaS provider Intermedia.
“In effect, the CSP needs to transition from premises-based to cloud-based; from simple UC to AI-based UCaaS and CCaaS. Intermedia is ideally positioned to take advantage of this inflection point. CSPs may want to sell Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex to larger enterprise customers where that’s appropriate, but they also want the ability to deliver their own branded, high-quality solution; they want to own the customer relationship; and they want to control the economics as much as possible.
“They obviously also want to provide the network connection and benefit from the recurring revenue associated with doing so. We believe passionately in that channel-first approach and relish working with CSPs that share our desire to capitalise on the opportunity it presents.”
The Intermedia end-to-end offering is a compelling one.
It’s suite of products and solutions comprises everything from basic business phone system functions to a powerful, AI-enabled collaboration and conferencing platform. In addition, there is a contact center solution delivering cutting edge, robust, and reliable omni-channel communication functions. Lastly, there is a seamless Microsoft Teams integration capability, enabling CSPs to easily tap into that growing market.
Its service provider partners benefit from comprehensive product training; pre-sales marketing support; deployment support; automated provisioning; and billing (if required).
“Ninety per cent of our UCaaS/CCaaS business comes through our partners so all of our products and solutions and the way in which we sell and support them is optimized for our partners,” says Gregory.
“We have a team that’s fully committed behind the scenes to making them successful. We have built all of the tools for them to produce a quote, turn that quote into an order, provision or dropship hardware, port numbers, and get a customer up and running fast.
“We’ve taken the successful business practices that we use in the VAR and MSP market into the CSP space. We stand behind our solutions, and the best way to prove that is to provide our service provider partners with as much flexibility as possible.
“CSPs most interested in Intermedia are strong in regional or sector-specific markets and have close and long-term relationships with their customers that often go back 20 or 30 years. They are a trusted advisor; they just need a high-quality product behind them. That’s where we come in. We give them a best-in-class product set they can put their own brand on, with the behind-the-scenes support they need to be successful.
“We’ve also invested heavily in our Microsoft Teams integration capabilities. Traditionally, the CSP has only been able to sell a low ARPU trunking solution like Direct Routing. We give them the option to seamlessly integrate Intermedia’s phone system experience. Now they can offer an enhanced phone system, contact center, and voice connectivity to the Teams user base.”
The Intermedia CSP differentiators are infectious. Headquartered in the US, Intermedia has expanded into the UK and Europe and has a dedicated EMEA sales and support team.
“It’s an exciting time to become a part of the increasingly global Intermedia CSP community,” says Gregory. “We want service providers to be really invested in our solutions and in the way we sell and support them. We have everything they need to be successful.”
To learn more about how Intermedia can help your and your customers’ businesses thrive, click here.
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