One in a Million: Fusion Delivers Single-Source Cloud Solutions for Business Customers

COVER STORY

One in a Million: Fusion Delivers Single-Source Cloud Solutions for Business Customers

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  April 04, 2016

Several years ago, Fusion reviewed the crowded cloud services landscape and found it filled with providers of all types and sizes offering individual products. But something was clearly missing in the marketplace, says CEO Matt Rosen. That missing something was a cloud company that was focused on understanding customers’ problems, helping them overcome their challenges in migrating to the cloud, and creating value for them once they moved to the cloud.

So Fusion got to work building what is now a full and integrated suite of cloud solutions. Today Fusion is a single source for the cloud, offering every service a company needs to successfully migrate to the cloud, and once it’s made the move, to enjoy its many benefits.

Fusion’s solutions are provided through one contract, invoiced on one bill, and delivered over one advanced cloud services platform over one nationwide network. What’s more, Fusion and all its services are accessible through one live point of contact in one call.

INTERNET TELEPHONY recently interviewed Rosen to learn more about Fusion and to get the specifics on what it brings to the table for business customers.

Tell us about Fusion’s product portfolio.

Fusion’s solutions include cloud communications offerings such as contact center solutions, hosted voice, SIP trunking, and unified communications. We offer cloud connectivity, including dedicated Internet access, managed network services, MPLS, SD-WAN, and unified threat management capabilities. Fusion also has a range of cloud computing offerings that include backup and recovery, private and hybrid cloud, secure file sharing and transfer, storage, and virtual desktop infrastructure.

Who is Fusion’s target customer?

Fusion serves business customers of all sizes. Fusion’s integrated approach and nationwide reach is particularly well suited to larger, multi-location enterprises looking for simple solutions to their complex communications, network, and infrastructure challenges. Fusion’s specialized services are targeted to the rigorous regulatory and compliance demands of multiple verticals, such as health care and legal. 

How many and what kind of customers does Fusion have today?

Fusion has 13,000 business customers dispersed throughout the United States. Recent acquisitions have extended our reach from an original concentration in the Northeast to include the Mid Atlantic, South, Midwest, and West. Fusion has specialized expertise and long-term experience in delivering compliant solutions to the business and financial services, entertainment, health care, industrial, legal, media, non-profit, retail, technology, and transportation verticals.

You mentioned acquisitions. What businesses has Fusion acquired to date? And does Fusion expect to do more acquisitions in the future?

Fusion acquired NBS in October of 2012, the business services unit of Broadvox (News - Alert) in December of 2013, PingTone in October of 2014, Root Axcess in September of 2015, and Fidelity in December of 2015. Fusion fully expects to continue to pursue its aggressive growth strategy through acquisition and continues to evaluate targeted companies in our space. As always, we are committed to maintaining the same standards and selection criteria we have employed for the past three years, and look to acquire companies that can contribute significant value as they help us scale.

What has Fusion’s growth been like to date?

Fusion has reached over 40 percent revenue CAGR while achieving a greater than $17 million increase in adjusted EBITDA since 2012. We have pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy balanced by significant investments in sales, marketing, and service delivery platforms to continue to drive our organic growth as we scale to become the industry’s leading cloud services provider. In the scheme of the entire industry we consider ourselves still a very small business with a very large, powerful and scalable platform capable of supporting our very aggressive growth strategy.  

To grow you also need to win and keep customers in what has become a crowded cloud marketplace. How is Fusion doing that?

More and more, our customers are citing our single-source approach to the cloud as an important reason for their decision to select Fusion. As customers increasingly migrate to the cloud, they look to access its many benefits with a trusted solutions provider that not only integrates all of their cloud solutions seamlessly, but commits to QoS, quick service delivery intervals, and rapid, accurate responses to their inquiries and challenges. As the single point of contact for all of their communications needs, Fusion is recognized for helping advance their success by allowing them to focus on their own core competencies.

How does Fusion stack up against competing options based on price?

Deriving maximum value is a key consideration in most purchase decisions, and Fusion delivers with cost-effective solutions that help improve the bottom line. Fusion has built its infrastructure and network with best-of-breed equipment and a next-generation core, maximizing cost efficiencies that we pass on to our customers. The result is a cost-effective solution that relieves customers of the need to meet the costly infrastructure, staffing, and space requirements demanded in a rapidly changing technology environment.

What are some of the other key concerns customers tell you they have?

Businesses know they need to increase productivity and efficiency across the enterprise by introducing advanced technology, even though they are constrained by budgets and finite resources. They also know they need to protect past investments and future-proof new technologies acquired, and they need to make that happen in a secure and scalable service environment. In short, they need to make their move to the cloud with a stable, flexible and forward-thinking cloud services provider that delivers advanced yet proven, low cost yet high quality, secure and scalable solutions on time and on budget. Our customers tell us that they have found that partner in Fusion.

You mentioned the word secure. What are your customers’ concerns related to security, and how does Fusion address them?

Security is rivaled only by business continuity as an area of maximum concern for our customers, who conduct business in an increasingly threatening environment, with natural and man-made disasters looming on the horizon. Many of our customers have identified our opt-out unified threat management as well as our built-in business continuity solutions as primary reasons to trust us with their communications – their business lifeline. 

Once customers sign on with Fusion, how does the company keep their business?

Our customers and partners tell us that we have earned their confidence and trust through the technical experience and demonstrated expertise of our sales, engineering, operations, and customer support teams. Fusion is committed to service excellence, and that means proactive monitoring and maintenance delivered by our two network operations centers.

Tell us more about Fusion’s network.

Fusion has built a nationwide, next-generation network designed to maximize reliability, performance, and scalability. Our carrier-grade network enables us to deliver QoS guarantees with geographically diverse, fully redundant, and secure connections to the full complement of our cloud services. The Fusion network interconnects 18 points of presence and data centers throughout the United States. Presence in these strategically positioned markets, combined with nationwide carrier interconnects, allow us to provide a better user experience by being closer to our customers. Our U.S.-based NOC (News - Alert) provides 24x7 monitoring to ensure that our network exceeds the reliability and performance objectives provided in our aggressive SLAs. 

Agility is an important theme in both business and networking today. What makes Fusion agile, and how does it help customers be more agile?

Fusion’s cloud services platform has been developed in-house to flexibly and securely customize solutions that meet the unique requirements of customers in key verticals. Unlike other providers who offer one-size-fits-all products, Fusion’s robust, reliable, and secure network, and cloud services platform allow us to listen, understand, and respond with solutions designed to meet all of our customers’ rigorous requirements for communications, connectivity, and computing in the cloud.

Ecosystems have also become a big trend. What is Fusion doing on the ecosystem front, and why do others in the marketplace want to align with your company?

We've always prided ourselves on the strength of our strategic partnerships, which have allowed us to market, distribute, and deliver the advanced applications our customers need to succeed. Of particular importance, for example, are the highly specialized applications that meet the rigorous requirements of our key verticals, such as health care. Partners are attracted by our large and growing loyal customer base, our experience and expertise in vertical markets, our flexibility, and our expanding partner distribution network. We are especially excited about our powerful new contact center solution, which seamlessly integrates business-critical CRM solutions. Expanding the Fusion ecosystem is an important initiative for us in the second quarter – so stay tuned!

Speaking of partners. Does Fusion leverage channel partners for its go-to-market strategy?

Yes. Fusion distributes its products and services through a strong channel distribution network of more than 500 valued partners, augmented by a direct sales organization that focuses on larger enterprises with specialized requirements in key verticals.

What’s next for Fusion, its partners, and its customers?

Fusion continues to find new and better ways to create value for our customers and partners. They can count on our ongoing efforts to build leading edge solutions to solve their problems, whether introducing new technologies to improve productivity and performance; increasing efficiency while lowering costs; extending our reach internationally; or expanding our robust and vibrant ecosystem. Because we believe that growing to scale can significantly advance our ability to meet their needs, customers and partners can look forward to watching Fusion continue to grow through targeted acquisitions, while simultaneously investing the resources, time, and energy in sales, marketing, and support systems required to fuel our organic growth.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi

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