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“They saw that and soon wanted some-
thing like it for all of their services. They
wanted to be able to monitor their set of
best-of-breed suppliers via a single pane
of glass. We did that, and out of that
came 20/20 Commware, which helps
companies optimize telecom spends.”
Soon after, the company also hired
a CIO to develop and execute technol-
ogy to help BCM’s vision moving for-
ward. That included creating network
management software – VitalView
– which allowed the company to transi-
tion its CLEC business into the man-
aged services provider (MSP) realm.
“By 2014, we had the same owner-
ship across all of these businesses,
but each had different employees and
systems,” Cunningham explained. “We
saw how the industry had changed
to embrace virtual network managed
services, consulting, designing and
deploying, and optimization – which all
happen to be core competencies of
ours. So we decided to roll the com-
panies together into what is today the
single entity known as BCM One.”
Today, looking at strategic initia-
tives for 2017, the company’s theme
is digital transformation, focused on
helping companies build a lifecycle
plan for the technology they need to
support their strategic business goals.
For instance, from a managed ser-
vice perspective, 2017 will see BCM
One have a greater focus on software-
defined wide area networks (SD-WAN).
“When you’re dealing with all of
these broadband providers, it increases
the complexity,” said Cunningham. “The
management of the suppliers becomes
a problem, so we’re building an MSP
practice area around that. We can do
the supplier side, do the NOC services
and work with SD-WAN providers to
integrate their reporting into ours, so
that end users have one single pane of
glass and one company to deal with.”
The company is also building an
intelligent cloud offering via the for-
mer Commware 20/20 group and its
existing Sophia telecom expense opti-
mization tool.
“We can inventory all of the cloud
aspects within a given business and
monitor them, across AWS, Google, Mi-
crosoft – all in a consolidated way,” Cun-
ningham explained. “Then, we allocate
the budget. As cloud use increases and
cloud sprawl happens, we’ll help them
to see if VMs are no longer being used,
for instance, so they can cancel them,
or reuse them. Or maybe we’ll notice
that they’re only using them from 9 am
to 5 pm, so they may want to move to a
different consumption model.”
Microsoft Office 365 migrations
also will continue to be important
to the company. In 2016, BCM One
started a Microsoft practice amid the
opportunity to take premises-based
services and move them to the cloud.
BCM One is gold-certified with Mi-
crosoft, and in July 2016 bought a
company called Cloud Strategies that
enhanced its expertise in large-enter-
prise 365 migrations. The company
already has well more than half a mil-
lion Office 365 seats deployed.
On the channel front, BCM One has
both traditional telecom channel part-
ners, and then VARs and IT specialists.
“Our goal is to help our channel
partners leverage the relationships
they’ve built over the last decade, and
we help fill in whatever gaps they have,
be it back office capabilities, engineer-
ing support or technical skills,” said
Cunningham. “We look at their road-
map and clients, and we help them
build a business plan to effectively
sell and market next-gen services.”
The bottom line? At 25 years old,
BCM One is focused on customized,
tailored, unique solutions for partner and
end-user business requirements, built
around digital transformation. But in real-
ity, it’s simply doing what it’s done best
for the better part of three decades.
“All of this is a natural evolution
for us,” Cunningham said. “We started
off as an off-site telecom department
for businesses – in theory that’s what
MSPs are today. We’ve basically been
doing the same thing since 1992, but
we’re just doing that more effectively
now. I’m really looking forward to see-
ing what 2017 holds.”
o
Growth in
Corporate Value
Time
Invested:
Less Than
One Day
Profit Margins vs.
Agent Commissions
52%
15%
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