This article originally appeared in the Nov. 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.
The post-PC era is characterized by the consumerization of IT. This is a time where the laptop stays plugged into the wall for the most part, and more nimble devices like smartphones and tablets take on the role of the computer on the go. People, the world over, have eagerly embraced the new paradigm of anywhere, anytime, any device communication, collaboration and digital media consumption. By 2012, mobile users will make up 73 percent of the enterprise workforce, according to Forrester (News - Alert) Research. With so many mobile employees, ubiquitous access to network resources has become business-critical.
It used to be that enabling remote employees for collaborative work required expensive infrastructure purchases and experienced IT staff. Now this infrastructure is available in the cloud. Cloud delivery is supported by the offload of capex for opex, time-to-market efficiency gained, ability of the cloud to scale elastically for peak demand, flexibility to pay as you grow, and high availability of cloud solutions.
A sweet spot, today, is in the SMB segment as it is generally the case that small business spending leads economic recoveries. This past June IDC (News - Alert) projected the nation’s 8 million SMBs would spend $125 billion on advanced technology this year, up from about $120 million in 2010.
VoIP and videoconferencing and UC online collaboration are really the up and comers in the next couple of years, and resellers ought to gear up, learn and be ready to take advantage of these emerging technologies that leverage the cloud. Local partners can sell to and support their customers as trusted advisors, guiding them to cloud services (UC as a service) that make the most sense for their businesses, selling UC&C not as a technology but as a business process enabler. These partners can earn both advisory fees and subscription renewal margins from vendors and professional services fees from customers in such services stack areas as deployment, maintenance, and operational support. Moreover, SMBs have less restrictive technical and procurement requirements, resulting in a faster UCaaS sales cycle.
David Yedwab, a technology marketing industry veteran with more than 25 years experience providing business strategy advice to major tech firms, writes the Thinking It Through column for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
