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Heading Across the Pond
The rise of IP-based and cloud services makes it easier to
overcome geographical barriers to enable effective communica-
tion and collaboration between employees, partners, suppliers and
clients. VoIP, IP-based video conferencing and unified communi-
cations all bring far-flung stakeholders closer together in a cost-
effective way. And connectivity is needed to fuel that trend.
“The globe is shrinking – and a lot of our customers are set-
ting up facilities and headquarters outside of the U.S.,” said Rich-
ard Murray, president of CarrierSales, a master agency that has
relationships for international services with NTT America and
Pacnet, among others. He added that some industry sectors, such
as multilevel marketing companies and financial services firms, are
especially targeting global growth. But, the opportunity is broader
than just a few verticals, especially when it comes to UC.
Some channel partners are creating a regional presence across
the pond. Looking to tap that opportunity, AVANT, a master
agent and distributor of cloud services, colocation and connectiv-
ity, recently announced that it is expanding operations by opening
a sales office in London to support UK based agents, VARs and
MSPs wanting to offer UC and other advanced services.
“This is an important step in accomplishing our mission to dis-
rupt the legacy master agent / distributor model that we see in the
U.S. today,” said Ian Kieninger, CEO. “Technology has fueled the
rapid globalization of the world’s economy, and until now the chan-
nel model hasn’t kept pace. We intend to export our unique partner
enablement model where it’s needed, starting with the UK.”
AVANT’s London office will serve as an outpost for the compa-
ny to support local channel partners who wish to leverage AVANT’s
tools, training and curated portfolio of service providers. It will also
give AVANT’s U.S.-based partners access to local resources that
can support business opportunities across the UK and Europe.
“We’re not aware of any competitor that has expanded inter-
nationally,” said Kieninger. “This is just another indication that
our DNA is different from other master agents in the space.”
Traditional resellers are looking at the UC and cloud opportu-
nity as well. Tech Data Europe for instance has signed with cloud
enablement provider BitTitan, giving reseller partners and MSPs
access to the company’s automated onboarding solutions for migra-
tions to Microsoft Office 365. Offered by Tech Data since 2013 in
the U.S., Canada and Latin America, BitTitan’s solutions will now
be available globally via the Tech Data Cloud Solutions Store.
“With BitTitan’s solutions, Tech Data’s European resellers and
MSPs can capitalize on the tremendous growth of Microsoft Of-
fice 365 by significantly reducing time to implementation and de-
livering excellent user experiences for their customers, eliminating
the complexities typically experienced when selling, moving and
servicing the cloud,” said Reza Honarmand, vice president of soft-
ware and cloud at Tech Data Europe. “Furthermore, by offering
BitTitan’s solutions through the Tech Data Cloud Solution Store,
resellers and MSPs now have a single transaction source for all of
the elements of cloud enablement.”
“There is so much opportunity beyond basic email and data
migration, and our line of products, in combination with Tech
Data’s sales platform, ensure European resellers and MSPs
have everything they need to tap into that potential,” added
Geeman Yip, CEO and founder of BitTitan. “Our partnership
with Tech Data Europe is just the beginning of what BitTitan
has in store to drive cloud adoption and opportunity for com-
panies throughout the world.”
Channel-friendly vendors are making it easier for partners to
enter the European market as well. For instance, AudioCodes,
which provides converged voice solutions that enable enterprises
and service providers to transition to all-IP voice networks, is plan-
ning to acquire Active Communications Europe, a Microsoft Silver
Partner specializing in UC, to boost its expertise in that arena.
“This agreement with Active Communications Europe places
AudioCodes in a stronger position to serve the growing adop-
tion of Microsoft Skype for Business Online, Office 365 and
Cloud PBX,” said Shabtai Adlersberg, president and CEO of the
company, which has an active channel program. “The technol-
ogy and expertise of Active Communications Europe effectively
complement the AudioCodes One Voice portfolio.”
“Together we are well positioned to help our enterprise
and mid-market customers implement their gradual migration
towards the Microsoft Cloud PBX,” added Nimrode Borovsky,
AudioCodes’ vice president of marketing. “With this acquisi-
tion we will strengthen our unified communications as a service
solution portfolio.”
Keys to Success
The market thirst and the technology may be there, but to
succeed, channel partners should follow some basic best practices.
Linda Rendleman, director for partner business and develop-
ment at Microsoft, said in a recent interview with Microscope UK
that she believes “the opportunities for UC … are vast – both from
a telephony and business transformation perspective.” Partners, she
added, “need to adopt a UC strategy and understand from their
customers what their business transformation strategy is, to help
ride the wave from a sell, deploy and adopt perspective.”
Andy Litherland, vice-president for European channels at
Avaya, added that partners need to keep in mind that employees
expect a greater level of collaboration than they ever have before
and want the flexibility to work across multiple devices from mul-
tiple locations. That said, each UC system design will be unique,
varying by business, and will include anything from integrating
office phones and mobile to a full suite of collaboration tools in-
cluding mobile, video and network connectivity. Understanding
each customer’s unique market environment within their Euro-
pean environment will be important.
If partners adequately understand the key business dynam-
ics of the customer, the specific business processes and interac-
tions (including core business applications), and the ways in
which cost is incurred by the business, they can attack all parts
of the market.
“Unified communications is a rapidly growing area for busi-
nesses and presents opportunities for resellers, with both the mid-
market and large enterprises,” Litherland said. “I see the mid-
market as a particularly strong growth area for the channel, and I
believe this is an area resellers should explore.”
Channel partners “are in the best position to advise their
customers to ensure they get the best UC solution to suit their
business needs,” he added, “and that they fully realize the business
benefits UC presents.”
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January - February 2016
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Channel
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