The cloud is where it’s at, quite literally. Everything from getting medical advice and booking a taxi through to ordering from your favourite restaurant can all be done online thanks to cloud-based services.
It doesn’t really come as a surprise that your customers, the same consumers who do all of the above and more online, are looking for the same levels of convenience and mobility from the business applications they consume. Your ability to deliver a communications solution that works within the environment they operate in today and grow with them into the future will determine your success.
To be really customer-focussed, we need to be able to go against the flow. If you look at any online article or industry publication, you will see that everybody has jumped on the cloud bandwagon, there are many ‘experts’ telling us that the days of on-premise PBXs are numbered, some even go as far as saying that investing in on-premise technology is dead money. Yes, on-premise is on the decline, but it’s far from dead, and that, puts you in a unique position if you’re an Ericsson-LG reseller.
IHS Markit noted in its recent report that a reduction in on-premise PBX licenses drove the global market to decrease by 8% in 2017 from 2016, to $5.7 billion. What many fail to see that despite the decline, the industry is still worth billions and if you are to capitalise on these trends, you must be able to sell a solution that grows with your customers and helps them transition to the cloud at their own pace. Our resellers have been quite successful in doing this, collectively we have sold over 25,000 seats on on-premise systems in 2017 alone, and the numbers have kept growing in 2018 and 2019!
Unified communications, future-proofing and a host of other buzzwords and phrases are regularly thrown around, but the truth is, today’s customers are savvier – they are demanding more flexibility and functionality from their communications infrastructure than ever. The good news? Pragma has got you covered. You are uniquely positioned in the market because you can:
a) Sell an on-premise solution now, and when your customer is ready, retain the handsets and some of the hardware for resilience and move them through to the iPECS Cloud.
b) Sell iPECS cloud today and your customer is set for the next 5 years and beyond.
Your advantage lies in the fact that while Ericsson-LG forges ahead with their cloud offering, continued investment in R&D goes into on-premise technology as there is still a genuine demand in the market place. A great example of this would be their latest output, the new eMG100, a completely redesigned PBX that is expected in early 2020.
While there has been a lot of great news this year, the next 12-18 months will see Ericsson-LG helping their partners reach greater heights. Plans include:
- New releases of cloud and unified software through the final quarter of 2019
- Unified 4.0, delivering a range of new, open, call control APIs
- A brand-new range of IP phones in early 2020
- wUC being available on cloud in early 2020, marking the beginning of a new journey for our UC and collaborative products. wUC is a full webRTC collaborative solution based on a host of new, open call control APIs
- The introduction of next phase of wUC later in 2020, with further enhancement around the collaborative functionality of the solution as well as the new flagship 1080i phone
All these launches will complement our partners’ capabilities in delivering cloud mobile and future proof cloud-based solutions.
In a nutshell, there are many competitors with good solutions, but often, customers have to choose from either cloud or on-premise solutions, not both. By pushing what they’ve currently got on offer, most competitors overlook the actual needs of their customers.
With Ericsson-LG you have the flexibility to sell a solution that works for your customers. Our approach is to sell solutions, not just technology. If on-premise is right for your customer, sell UCP, if Cloud is the right move, then sell iPECS Cloud. The important factor here is that with either technology, Pragma ensures your customers are set for the future.
We have a complete portfolio of solutions, packed with features and functionality, and a strong product roadmap well into 2020, all to ensure that you can stay ahead, differentiate and deliver the solutions your customers need.
Click here to find out how you too can become a reseller of future-proof unified communications solutions with Ericsson-LG and Pragma.
Andy Herring
