Comms dealers have been warned that they risk alienatingpotential customers if their pitches rely too heavily on still undefinedconcepts such as unified communications.
This was among the findings of a reseller report conductedjointly by Illume Consulting and Equinox Business Consulting, a new channel consultancydeveloped by comms veteran Dave Millett, former operations and marketing directorof hosted unified communications provider Inclarity.
Speaking to MicroScope, Millett said resellers needed to bettertarget their sales patter, admitting the UC proposition has struggled to gaintraction in many cases due to both a lack of definition and focus aroundpotential RoI.
“It’s still seen as a catch-all. You still get peoplespecialising in one area saying its UC when it’s actually just a bit of the picture, like presence,” saidMillett.
“Say you get two resellers coming in and talking aboutunified comms, but if one does presence and one VoIP, then to the layman they’retalking about different things,” he added.
The report also covered other topics key to helpingresellers survive the recession, such as broadening their portfolios, anddifferentiating their offerings with effective bundling or services wraps, aswell as keeping an eye on their vendor partners.
Millett urged dealers to be alert to the warning signs oftrouble in vendor-land during the recession, such as a reduction in marketingdevelopment funds or overt internal cost-cutting measures.
“A lot of people in the channel haven’t experienced arecession before and don’t necessarily know how to handle it,” he remarked.
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