For solution providers with the skills to deduce their clients’ and prospects’ needs, and assemble them into viable projects, the sky’s the limit. Today, business systems’ support goes way beyond the PCs, servers and networks—and extends to a variety of media and mobile computing platforms. Communications tools are crucial elements of the new business infrastructure, including voice, video, IP telephony, conferencing, collaboration, mobility, and social networking.
And while your clients may not be demanding VoIP, UC, mobility or BYOD, these technologies may help them improve their competitiveness and profitability. The driver behind converged solutions’ rapid growth is its benefits to companies and their employees, merging the best of both worlds (although some would argue that point). These technologies create a real business opportunity for solution providers, but present a challenge for those who don’t have the skills to implement them—or understand the various client issues to design and support them.
UC and convergence offer a number of other benefits to the business community, including:
- Improved resource utilization
- Faster notifications and transactions
- Advanced contact processes
- Increased options for client/employee communications
- Improved collaboration
Get a Hand Up in UC
At the end of the day, the convergence formula includes switches, cables, access points, software and a myriad of other equipment and services that channel partners implement every day. The final (and undoubtedly the most important) ingredients come from the solution provider’s personnel: assessment, design and support skills. But like the technology part of the mix, the human expertise factor can be nurtured with instruction and best practices.
That’s the basis behind the CompTIA UC Community: building the basic and advanced educational programs/tools needed to build advanced technology practices. The collaborative group of solution providers, vendor and distribution executives, and industry thought-leaders focuses its energy (and agenda) on issues that most concern the channel. For the UC community, that includes building and updating guides to building an effective practice, designing specific sales processes and best practice education, and developing research to highlight the best potential business opportunities (and demystify the technology for providers).
The next meeting for the UC Community will take place April 12th (9:00am-1:00pm CT) in Chicago during the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM). The session should be a lively and educational one, with a number of initiatives and discussions on the agenda, including Larry Walsh’s presentation Social Enterprise: Decreasing the Signal to Noise Chaos. As president of The 2112 Group and editor-in-chief of Channelnomics, he engages with a number of UC and convergence champions and conducts extensive research on the various business opportunities for solution providers. He’s not only experienced in writing about the IT channel, including former roles as editor of VAR Business and VP and market expert for channels at Ziff Davis, but he truly understands how to best address the issues of greatest concern to VARs and MSPs.
In his presentation, Walsh will show how business communications are changing and the ways solution providers can transform their clients’ operations using unified communications, unified collaboration and unified computing. He’ll also demonstrate how business intelligence, employee and customer relationships, and sales and revenue performance can be increased when the right solutions are implemented. In addition, Walsh will review the evolution of unified communications and social enterprise, and focus on the channel opportunities in this emerging slice of the technology spectrum.
If you’re wondering how convergence would fit in your portfolio or looking for ways to improve or expand a current practice, check out the UC Community’s activities and initiatives. Interested in learning more about the group or how to join? Contact Kate Hunt, the Unified Communications Community Staff Leader, at kate.hunt@comptia.org or register for AMM and indicate your interest in attending the UC meeting.
Brian Sherman is founder of Tech Success Communications, specializing in editorial content and consulting for the IT channel. His previous roles include chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and industry alliances director with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
