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This PowerPoint presentation represents the outline of what my panel was going to discuss at Broadsoft Connections. We were going to make 3 points about Marketing a Profitable UC Bundle: 

1. Does Bundling Work;
2. How do you sell it;
3. What makes a successful bundle

Does Bundling Work? It depends. Are you using a Bundle for Customer Retention or Customer Acquisition? Our panleists included to ILEC's and 1 CLEC competing directly against one panelist.

The big point to make is that if you add one component sold separately between 15-20% of your customer base will uptake that new component (if marketed well). However, if you add it to a bundle, many more folks will take it. Albeit at a less margin, but more overall revenue.

Everyone was in agreement that the only way to sell a UC Bundle was face-to-face. A sales force - direct or indirect - could sell it. The hardware salespeople have a problem transitioning from selling a box to selling the Invisible. But training can fix that.

Upselling an existing bundle customer can work via tele-sales to increase stickiness and ARPU.

What makes a successful bundle? No one is sure yet. The only point that could be made is that it needs to be simple. Small business wants the pain of technology removed from their business life. And Broadsoft's 180+ features, Xtended Apps, and the XML on the phone are an infinite list of possibilities that will confuse the sales team let alone the consumer. Bundles should be created to attack a market segment, niche or vertical.

At Broadsoft Connections this morning, Michael Tessler spoke about it being all about apps and the Customer Experience. (Has he been reading my slides?)

One reason IP Telephony grew (according to Dell'Oro) 7% to $737M in 2Q09 is because IPT lowers the cost of the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and it also lowers the cost of maintenance and support.  

As an industry we have to move away from talking cost savings to a discussion about value to the customer experience. Efficiency, Productivity, Privacy and Security will be key topics coupled with TCO and ROI studies.

The User Experience must be about usefulness, ease of use, reliable and enjoyable. (Something that most folks would not associate with telcos.)

You need to take the technology out of the way of the user. If you can do that, you win.

Another point Nicholas Carr made was that IT and telecom are colliding. A new landscape is coming. 

My thoughts immediately went to GV. Who will be replaced by Google Voice?

• Who is the commodity?  
• Who will add Value to the User Experience?

People will pay for easy and reliable. (Not all of them will, but more than enough will. Remember that Cbeyond only has 50k customers and PAETEC just about 100K). 

Stop selling on price. If you aren't talking TCO or ROI, you are selling telecom, not apps. 

PBX and software companies have had to stop thinking in terms of product and start thinking in terms of Managed Services deployed over the Network. If they are thinking about it as SAAS, should all the Hosted PBX folks be looking at Voice as just another app delivered over the network? Voice is just an app!

 

I am at the Broadsoft Connections event with 775 other folks piled into the Phoenician. Gorgeous hotel set at the foot of the mountains in Phoenix. Staff is nice and the suite is sweet.

I'm speaking tomorrow on a panel with Bell Canada, RoutIT, and KPN. The topic is how to build and market a profitable UC bundle. It's funny because my panel is in the customer retention market (ILEC's) and much of the audience is in the customer acquisition game.

Folks from  PBX-Change, Nuvox, Paetec, Callis, Simple Signal, Telovations, Cypress Communications and Digitel (of Atlanta) are in attendance. Lots of partners too. Polycom is here in force - over 30 people. Cisco, Aastra, Audio Codes, NEXTUSA and ADTRAN are just a few other the partners I met tonight.

Just some rambling thoughts on UC as I prepare for a session at Broadsoft Connections. Comments?

Per an FCC Announcement (below) Telesphere has bought Unity Business Network. I knew that they were in talks and I thought after Telesphere's $15M in funding that they would buy UBN up. This was kind of easy since both are Broadsoft based. Ah, finally some consolidation in the VOIP Provider space.

Released: 08/25/2009. DOMESTIC SECTION 214 APPLICATION FILED FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ASSETS OF UNITY BUSINESS NETWORKS L.L.C. BY TELEPSHERE NETWORKS LTD. (DA No. 09-1875). (Dkt No 09-150 ) STREAMLINED PLEADING CYCLE ESTABLISHED. Comments Due: 09/08/2009. Reply Comments Due: 09/15/2009. WCB . Contact: Tracey Wilson-Parker at (202) 418-1394 or Jodie May at (202) 418-0913.
 
"The FCC is asked to assign Unity BN's domestic interstate common carrier transmission lines to Telesphere. Unity BN, an Arizona limited liability company, is authorized as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in Colorado and Minnesota and also provides inter-state Voice over Internet Protocol and data services in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon. Telesphere, a Washington state corporation, provides interstate services throughout the U.S. .... Pursuant to the terms of the proposed transaction, Telesphere Access, LLC, an Arizona limited liability company and wholly owned subsidiary of Telesphere, will acquire Unity BN's CLEC assets. Telepshere will acquire substantially all of Unity BN's other assets, including any domestic section 214 authority."

Alex Doyle at Broadsoft pointed out a blog post from his company: Why is UC like a Gym Membership.  The analogy is really about PBX systems - hosted versus on-premise. A gym is the hosted scenario and a Bowflex would be the on-premise version. It's the best analogy I have seen used to date. I hope you are going to ITEXPO and Broadsoft Connections, because smart folks will be at both places simplifying things for you.

Tech Data's Senior Product Sales Champion for UC was at the event last night. I spent a few minutes chatting with him about his position, but couldn't really get a definition of UC out of him. Polycom and tele-presence are what he pushes - to me that's not really UC. HD Voice? No we leave that up to Polycom and the vendors. Seems even a tech company has a problem wrapping the head around Unified Communications. (UC doesn't mean the latest gadgets).

XO has some components to build a UC bundle - overlay IVR, Broadsoft SIP Trunking, some straight forward Hosted PBX (with a limited feature set), and Hosted Exchange for the email integration piece.

If the UC Champion thinks UC is tele-presence and video conferencing, what does that say about well defined the term is in the Industry?

I received an invite yesterday from XO to come down to the Tech Data Expo at the Don Cesar Hotel in St. Petersburg FL. ADTRAN shared the booth with XO at this event. Surprisedly, the other two carriers that distribute through Tech Data had assigned booth space, but were absent. 

XO is a good fit for Tech Data. While I think the XO catalog is too large to know well - wireless, hosting, IP, VOIP, transport, collocation and more - the VAR's at Tech Data vary so much in what they do and what would complement their business that the wide selection helps - IF you can get in front of them and remind them throughout the year how they can take advantage of the additional revenue stream. 

For many VAR's the advantage of XO through Tech Data is that there's no contract (especially for those VAR's already under contract with Ma or Pa Bell) and with Tech Data as the "master agency", it isn't likely you need to worry about your residual check.  (And now that XO has converted their debt, it is in a good position going forward, which other debt laden CLEC's can't say).

Many VAR's are already in the PBX space and were asking about SIP. I wasn't sure if they actually grasp the concept of SIP or that they just know enough to be dangerous. The biggest difference between a PRI and a SIP Trunk is Inter-Operability. PRI is a standard with two available configurations that work with almost all the PBX's on the market. SIP Trunk is a spec - a collection of a lot of RFC's that have to work together just right to provide dial-tone. Broadsoft, the softswitch that XO is using, has tested inter-operability on many IP-PBX systems. Not so for other SIP Trunk vendors. So before you sell that SIP Trunk make certain that the IP-PBX model will inter-op with your SIP trunking vendor. It's a mess if it won't work.

What's the perfect VoIP Service?

I have seen so many VoIP Providers, I can't keep track. But that also means that the VoIP providers are not doing a very good job of Messaging, Positioning and Differentiating their offerings.

The only VoIP provider I know that has married Hosted Exchange with Broadsoft is Simple Signal. It makes to me because what is UM (unified messaging) but voicemail to email - everything in one box.

Unison Offers VoIP, E-Mail, IM to SMBs in New York City

Google Voice does it as well. One inbox for Gmail and Google Voice. And GV has some nice features like a transcript of your voicemail; recording calls;

Recently, I read that a company had instituted a who-is-calling-please response into every call before th ephone rings. I love this! No more dumb dialers. No more UNKNOWN or OUT OF AREA on the Caller ID.

Quick rant: I pay Verizon $22.35 for Worksmart which includes Caller ID, but most of the time it is Unknown. WTH? How does it not even known when AT&T calls me? Or almost any other CLEC? Lazy. That's why you are losing customers.

Presence (not to be confused with tele-presence) was supposed to integrate IM/chat, email, mobile and desktop phone. I haven't seen much of that in real world implementation. (I understand why, but I'm just pointing it out).  Skype does a decent job of video, voice or chat - plus recording.

Broadsoft has allowed many ITSP's to hook to SalesForce.com. Why not offer a hosted CRM software that is married to your PBX and email offering? VoIP is just one application.

• HD Voice
• conference-on-demand (web and video)
• call blocking
• Portal as easy as AT&T CallVantage
• call logs that can match up caller ID

Obvously, the usual features are still a must-have, including:

• simultaneous ring
• find-me-follow-me
• 3-way calling
• caller ID
• voicemail
• vm-to-email
• call forwarding
• Do Not Disturb

Chime in. I would love to hear from you:

• what you are doing
• who has the best message
• are you a cutting edge ITSP

UPDATE:
M5 announced that the marriage of the M5 Genband-based Hosted PBX with SalesForce.com and Call Metrics has been a hit.