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F ew if any markets or industry segments have been free of losses or shake- ups in the first half of 2020, but according to U.S. channel partners, unified com- munications sales have been somewhat immune to the im- pacts of the COVID-19 pandem- ic. As a matter of fact, a June 2020 survey of a range of chan- nel partners that participate in UC sales found that a solid ma- jority of those partners believe COVID-19 at least slightly ac- celerated their UC sales. These findings, put out by global finan- cial firm Baird, were relatively consistent among all partners regardless of their providers. Perhaps as might be expected, partners selling Zoom Phone were most likely to have said that sales “greatly accelerated,” with more than half of Zoom partners saying so. Right behind Zoom, however, were Dialpad, for which a full 92 percent of partners witnessed sales acceleration due to the pandemic, and Vonage, for which 71 percent of partners have seen ac- celerated sales. Among the dozen providers represented in the Baird survey, Avaya’s hybrid/on-premises UC solution was the only one in which less than half of channel partners ex- perienced accelerated sales. The next- worst performance came from Avaya’s Cloud Office by RingCentral – 38 percent of those partners saw UC sales decelerate. When comparing sales growth during the past three months of 2020 with the same period in 2019, Baird found a higher percentage of respondents experienced substantial year-over-year growth in 2020, despite government shutdowns and mandates. In June of 2019, a quarter of UC channel partners said they had experience year-over-growth of around 30 percent or more. In June 2020, a third said they have seen such growth. All told, 67 percent of chan- nel partners believe their sales were up during the last quarter compared to 2019. Moving forward, UC chan- nel partners remain optimis- tic. Growth expectations are down slightly from January 2020, but optimism is right in line, if not improved, com- pared to a year ago, show Baird’s findings. In June of 2019, for example, 33 percent of channel partners expected to see sales growth of 30 percent or more during the coming three months. That number jumped to 45 percent in June of 2020. What’s more, 54 percent of partners believe they are increasingly target- ing larger customer with the UC so- lutions they sell, “which is a positive sign for the industry as a whole,” said Baird analysts. In terms of specific UC products and the impact of the pandemic, channel partners were most likely to say that video conferencing and team messaging are “more impor- tant” relative to importance a year ago and in January of 2020. o CORE COMMUNICATIONS UC’s IMMUNITY By Martin Vilaboy Unified communications sales maintain health through pandemic What do you expect your UC sales to be during the next three months? June 2019 June 2020 Up more than 50% YoY 11% 11% Up more than 30% YoY 22% 34% Up slightly 42% 35% Flat YoY 17% 12% Down YoY 8% 8% Source: Baird, June 2020 Percentage of US full-time employees working primarily from home (at least 3 days a week) before COVID-19 and expectation 12 months postpandemic Source: The Conference Board, April 2020 Source: CompTIA How has COVID-19 impacted your UC sales during the past 3 months, based on what you sell? Source: Baird, June 2020 Customers have a great price transparency Less than 10% % Remote workers % of organizations Before COVID-19 Period Expectation one year after COVID-19 10% to less than 20% 20% to less than 40% 40% or more 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Zoom Phone Dialpad GoTo Connect/ Jive Vonage Microsoft Fuze Ring Central Other Hybrid/ on- premises Greatly Decelerated Slightly Decelerated Neutral Slightly Accelerated Greatly Accelerated 80 90 84.4 Source: CompTIA 76% 31% 15% 23% 6% 28% 3% 19% 6% 8% 0% 42% 13% 13% 8% 8% 4% 29% 42% 38% 29% 17% 13% 14% 14% 14% 14% 43% 14% 32% 32% 16% 13% 14% 5% 8% 29% 38% 13% 13% 19% 44% 50% 6% 12% 24% 53% 22 CHANNEL VISION | July - August, 2020