UCaaS Q&A with William Rubio

CallTower's, Chief Revenue Officer, William Rubio, discusses the current Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) marketplace.

1.  Are customers' UCaaS needs changing? What are some of the latest trends?

Recently, I read an article that over 60% of companies today are still dealing with legacy and disparate communications equipment/PBX.  It’s expensive to maintain and simply doesn’t fit the needs of their business anymore.  To remain competitive in today’s global marketplace, IT teams are looking to UCaaS business solutions to hit financial and productive goals for a more dynamic and digital workforce. Wainhouse Research states, the Unified Communications market is forecasted to grow to $28 billion by 2020.  This industry is thriving!

Microsoft and Cisco are leading the pack with more than 68% of the market (Wainhouse Research).

Microsoft is holding 51% of that on its own. As powerful as solutions like Microsoft Office 365’s Skype for Business online are, it is not a complete UCaaS solution that delivers on goals without the use of a hosted partner with native Office 365 integration such as CallTower to provide a full turnkey solution.

Today it’s not a choice of when you are going to adopt a Unified Communications solution, it is a question of which UC solution works best for their business.

2.  How do you stand out in an increasingly competitive UC market?

CallTower is in a unique position in the UC Global Market. We are one of a few organizations that can provide a Voice Enabled Microsoft Skype for Business Solution which is native with Office 365.  It does not require any 3^rd party integrations.  If Microsoft is not the answer, CallTower provides a full UC Solution with Cisco Hosted CallManager with Jabber leveraging the best of Cisco in a private cloud environment.

CallTower’s also delivers additional business vital UCaaS features, such as contact center, CRM integration, call recording, SD-WAN, fully supported device and video room solutions and UC analytics in over 70 countries globally.

In January, we introduced our most revolutionary UCaaS solution, Synergy.  Synergy, is a groundbreaking solution that delivers interoperability between Cisco CallManager and Microsoft Skype for Business Unified Communications.  Many companies have invested a significant amount of resources into Cisco hardware and training.  Today, the dynamic workforce within those companies are choosing to go with a Skype for Business solution for UC (IM, Presence/status, video, audio and web conferencing, mobile app, etc.). The biggest issue has been the ability for these two communication systems to work together to maximize unified communications and collaboration within the company as a whole. CallTower is the first to market with this innovative hosted hybrid solution that enables shared directories and cross-platform dialing.

Synergy provides the best of both platforms all supported/managed by CallTower.  Users have one telephone number for all devices regardless if it’s a Cisco phone, the Microsoft Skype of Business Desktop Client for their soft phone or the Skype App for their mobile and additional devices with one voicemail platform.

CallTower’s mission is to enable people to easily connect and get work done regardless of the platform.  Our portfolio is built to achieve that goal.  With our proprietary provisioning tool, CallTower Connect our customers can also easily personalize and control their CallTower Services. 

And most importantly, our dedicated company culture.  Our award-winning implementation and support teams have deployed and supported thousands of users, enabling solutions around the corner and across the globe with 24x7x365 US-based support

3.  Are there particular verticals that offer lucrative opportunities for UCaaS providers? What are some examples?

CallTower has seen success in multiple verticals including the Financial, Engineering / Manufacturing, Education and Legal Verticals.  All industries are a perfect candidate for UCaaS. It’s becoming more of a standard then the exception.  It aids organizations in process efficiencies, security, and response time plus provides a competitive advantage. Please see some of our attached Business Cases:  Lending Tree, Syska Hennessey, Velcro and Northwestern Mutual.

4.  Are there potential pitfalls to watch out for when pursuing UCaaS customers?

I am often asked what type of customers, or who should use hosted voice? The biggest pitfall for Channel Professionals is not being ready to bring a UCaaS solution to your customers.  Your customers are going to make the choice to go to a UCaaS solution over the next few years.  Channel professionals need to align with a partner that can support the needs of their customer base through the entire process: sales enablement, discover/consultation, project and customization management, implementation, training, continuous feature enhancements and long term support. If they are not, someone else will.  Bringing a UCaaS Solution like CallTower at the core focusing on stable, proven and established Microsoft or Cisco platforms is a step in the right direction.  

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