Most IT and business leaders are at least topically aware of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), a cloud-based combination of PBX, conferencing, and collaboration tools, focused into a single interface for the lofty goal of allowing any user to communicate via any method from any device, at any location, any time. While UCaaS can provide a more agile and resilient solution than traditional premise-based systems, a large number of businesses have not yet made the jump. If you’re a Mid-Market organization, and you haven’t yet standardized your phone systems across your locations, or if you have a premise-based enterprise solution (often undergirded by an expensive and inflexible MPLS network, or some other form of private networking), or you have a UCaaS solution and don’t believe it’s the right solution (or even that it’s not being properly leveraged in your organization), then you fall into this group, and you’re faced with the significant task of determining if, when, and how you ought to make the change.

If the Comtel Group was already selected to lead you through the assessment of your technology needs, then we would focus on the areas that matter the most to you. Since writings like this are a one-way medium, we instead have to cover quite a bit more ground to make sure we hit all the right topics. We’re going to cover a lot here, and we recognize that not everything we write about in this series will be what matters to you, so we do encourage you to pick and choose from the series as it makes sense to your organization.

If you’re at some point along this line of questioning, then this series will provide incisive clarity in addressing your concerns. When it comes to those key questions (if, when, and how you ought to migrate to a UCaaS solution), many leaders find themselves challenged, worried, and even procrastinating on these decisions.  If this describes you, don’t feel bad. You’re actually quite justified in these concerns!  However, if you’ve been delaying deciding on this topic, we must stress that you can’t avoid this decision forever. In fact, by not making a decision, you are making the decision. As the business world continues to shift toward the cloud, even traditional premise-based system manufacturers are shifting into UCaaS models. No matter how long you stretch it out, you’ll eventually have to consider replacing your system with a cloud-based solution. If you’re going to face this decision eventually, then you’re better off doing it on your terms, in a way that avoids unnecessary pressure.

Large Service Providers try to downplay the significance, but UCaaS evaluations and implementations are often challenging and complex, and for most buyers there can be no sacrifice to the quality of communications. Whether you have an Avaya, ShoreTel, Cisco, Mitel, or other legacy enterprise PBX, all of the same features are still present in today’s UCaaS solution, as is the underlying complexity. Defining and managing all of these features was already a beast, but the additional options from UCaaS introduce even more complications. Call Centers are now multi-channel, adding in email, web chat, and social media. Collaboration now adds functions like screen and document sharing, video conferencing, and even persistent chat to all but the most basic extensions. There’s a lot to address!

To top it off, most of what you read is being pushed out by Solution Providers, from their sales team’s perspective.

This series is written from a buyer’s perspective.

While it’s true that leading UCaaS providers like Ring Central, 8x8, Vonage, and others are amazing at what they do, what they really do is grow their subscriber base and revenue.  Those goals will rarely align with yours.  When considering PBX and UCaaS solutions, your desired outcomes will focus around:

1. R.O.I.
2. A smooth and hassle-free migration
3. Ease of use and administration

With the typical sales agent’s desire to score as high a ticket as possible on every sale, there is immediate and direct opposition to what is perhaps the most fundamental outcome of any purchase: ROI. Sales people are paid by the amount they sell. They aren’t going to spend a lot of time ensuring your configuration is optimized to give you the best return (and often don’t have the technical or business savvy to anyways), especially when that means cutting into their commissions to fund the expertise and training you’re going to want for such a transition.

More so to the issue, the typical Solution Provider’s average technical skill set provides a limited ability to deliver a smooth and hassle-free migration. With the box-checking mentality of a Solution Provider’s provisioning team, it’s practically impossible to get clear answers or consistent results.  This puts a tremendous strain on any migration, and is often the largest source of stress and pain for many businesses.

And if the migration didn’t go well, you can bet that training and ongoing administrative needs are going to also produce underwhelming yields. A problematic migration leaves many loose ends to be discovered over time. The lack of thoughtful planning, incisive design, and disciplined notation translates not only to a higher probability of features being improperly implemented or not even set up at all, but is also likely indicative of incomplete or even non-existent codification in the documentation process. Considering the leadership and responsiveness of repair and administrative teams of large Service Providers are often below the level of the already insufficient provisioning teams, this leaves the onus of understanding your system and how to manage your configuration squarely in your lap.

None of this has to be the case!  You can leverage your power as the buyer to negotiate the funding that provides the expert support you need.

We assert that often, deep and specialized expertise is necessary for complex technologies like UCaaS. We subscribe to the powerful and proprietary strategy to acquire the expertise in a manner that is both strategic and cost-effective, called SmartProcure^TM.

Regardless of what technology you’re evaluating, one of the first decisions you ought to be considering, and the one most often overlooked, is who will represent you in the market.  Many will skip ahead in this article assuming this is marketing fluff. Don’t make that mistake. Many clients have pointed out it is a fiduciary responsibility. Every Service Provider bakes in a percentage of your monthly bill that gets paid to your Sales Agent.  While you might negotiate your total bill down, there is no way to negotiate out the percentage that gets paid to the salesperson.  And, to be clear, this is the salesperson who gets you your first contract.  This is not the project manager that leads installations, the technical support team that resolves trouble tickets, nor is it the account manager who handles your upgrade orders.

SmartProcure^TM is a straight-forward strategy: rather than waste dollars on sales people, utilize an agent that will apply the commissions toward quality expertise you need to achieve the right experience with an evaluation, implementation, or support program.  Get rid of unnecessary sales people, and put all your dollars to work for you.

The Comtel Group is a 30-year-old collective of business and IT thought leadership that specializes in evaluating, implementing, and supporting technologies bought through large and mid-size Service Providers (SP’s).  Our experience is carved from close to 1,000 migrations, encompassing dozens of technologies. We have dedicated hundreds of hours of study on all aspects of the UCaaS lifecycle, for the purpose of improving the 3 essential outcomes: ROI, smooth and hassle-free migration, and ease of use and administration.

Keep Your Team – Reduce Waste – Get Smarter Solutions

For the past several segments, we’ve talked a lot about the technology behind SDWAN. Let’s take a few steps back, and tie it all together.

SDWAN can provide businesses with:
– Reduced risk through improved resiliency and security.
– Optimized expenses by fully utilizing secondary circuits to grant additional bandwidth on diverse pathways.
– Improved user productivity due to application prioritization, greater bandwidth, and fewer outages.

SDWAN directly shapes some of the most fundamental metrics that every business appreciates, so it’s easy to see why so many providers and manufacturers have thrown their hat in the ring to compete with this technology. It’s also easy to see why every business should be considering whether SDWAN is a good fit for their organization, and, if so, from whom it should be purchased. As we covered in the last article, there are a lot of SDWAN solutions, and they vary from each other in a myriad of ways, making comparisons difficult. So how does one navigate such a convoluted evaluation?

If you’ve attempted any degree of SDWAN evaluation, then you probably already know how difficult it can be to get a clear story directly from the providers. The sales-oriented perspective their insights are filtered through will frequently put their recommendations at odds with your business’ objectives. We put together this buyer-oriented series to help you achieve a more effective evaluation. An effective evaluation will take less time to reach a satisfying purchase decision, set you up for the easiest installation and integration, and ensure your user and admin experiences match your needs and expectations.

With that said, if you’ve followed the sequence of articles thus far, you’ve got a good grasp on what SDWAN can do, and how to tie that back to your KPIs. By narrowing down which aspects of SDWAN benefit you the most, you can define the requirements of the specification you should be shopping for. However, before you take that spec out to shop, it’s important to keep in mind what will be coming down the line once you decide on your solution, particularly in terms of implementation and ongoing support, and to have those requirements as part of your shopping spec, as well.

Make sure you get clarity on what the installation and migration process looks like, especially when it comes to defining configurations that pertain to interfacing with or replacing your firewall, connecting to cloud services, and allowing users to connect in remotely via VPN. If you want to have a test period before making a commitment, request a Proof of Concept, but understand that few providers offer a full roll-out prior to a purchase commitment. Most importantly, whether for the implementation or the life of the technology, what resources need to be provisioned for expertise, execution, and support, and how will they be funded? Once you’ve identified all these components of your specification, including what resources you need to properly install and support your decision, you can begin the pricing and negotiation phase of the evaluation.

This starts by choosing some method to distribute and shop the specification. You might choose to do this on your own, and work directly with provider salespeople. Not only does this consume exponentially larger amounts of your time than other methods and require you to be an expert in both technology and negotiations, but every provider locks down a certain percentage, often around 15%, of your purchase commitment to be paid to the salesperson as a commission. Since you have full control of who your agent will be, we recommend that you select an agent who will direct those commission funds toward the expert people and processes you need to successfully install, integrate, and support your technology decision.

However you choose to distribute your spec, allow each of the potential providers an opportunity to respond. Narrow these responses down to the best two, and have conversations with each of these providers to gain commitments on design, pricing, contracts, implementation, and ongoing support. Based on these results, you can determine which you prefer, and give them one last push for a lower price in exchange for your signature. While buyers typically don’t share quotes from other providers, it is perfectly fine, even advantageous, for you to tell the providers that you are shopping and what your desired price point is.

Keep Your Team – Reduce Waste – Get Smarter Solutions

At the most fundamental level, one of the very few ways you can guarantee optimized technology spend, is to tie each purchase back to specific organizational-level metrics. While obvious to some, many feel overwhelmed once they set to the task, and it often never gets completed. This only ends up holding IT leaders back, as they are unable to demonstrate R.O.I.. Which ultimately has a ripple effect culturally starting with leadership. The opposite is also true. Tying your purchases to KPIs, and demonstrating that IT spend drives real change, moves IT department from “cost of business” to Strategic Influencer.

Then why is it that many find it so hard to make these connections and show others? In most cases, it is the level of complexity in properly categorizing and assigning these purchases. If it is as impactful as proposed, then it is important that it is done correctly. Sure, everyone knows firewalls are critical to any organization, but does the security aspect tie the firewall to risk-mitigation measurement, or does the VPN capability tie the firewall to the employee productivity measurement?

The way to cut through this ambiguity is a reframing of the problem. First, we have to understand that the products we buy ought not be dissected into the actual technologies contained within them. A firewall, especially in today’s market of Next-Gen and UTM appliances, is a container and server of multiple technologies. The packet inspection, web filtering, and similar aspects of the firewall do, in fact, tie to measurements about risk-mitigation and/or compliances, but so, too, does the VPN functionality directly impact employee productivity. Rather than struggle to categorize the entire firewall, assign the costs of the security aspects to their KPI, and attribute the costs of productivity aspects to their own KPI.

One way to truly understand the value of a particular component technology is to evaluate the iterative configurations of that specific component. The quickest, though most incomplete, way to do this is to simply compare two products that are mostly similar, except one has the technology you are evaluating and the other does not. The price difference will give you some orientation of how big a difference this technology might make. Again, this is an incomplete view, but it is a comparison that is quick and easy to make, and would factor into the final decision anyway.

The main reason this is not a sufficient means of comparison, particularly for SDWAN, is that there are so many providers in the space that are trying to differentiate themselves that there is rarely a comparison of products that only vary in a single factor. This increases the complexity significantly by requiring more comparisons. Instead of falling down that rabbit hole, we’ve compiled a list of the most distinguishing considerations across 5 categories that helps you isolate and define the specific technologies that you’re shopping for, so that you can assess which SDWAN can best serve both your technical needs and the metrics you need to drive.

The 5 categories include the following 18 considerations:
What is the Core Architecture and Deployment Model of the SDWAN solution?
Does the Network Hub reside in the cloud or at premise devices?
Does deployment require physical devices, can you deploy virtual instances, or is it a cloud-based service that requires no on-site computing?
How does the SDWAN support Admin Experience?
Does the orchestrator portal encompass all of the standard expected functionality?
How easily can policies be templatized and applied/modified?
Do rule changes auto-populate all devices, including new additions?
How does the SDWAN improve Application Performance?
If the SDWAN accepts multiple links, does it utilize Link Aggregation or Load Balancing?
Is Forward Error Correction available to mitigate packet loss?
Can Packet Buffering be employed to mitigate jitter and latency?
Are there sufficient bandwidth detection and reporting mechanisms?
Does the SDWAN adjust packet prioritization based on real-time changes in circuit health?
Does the SDWAN adjust transmission routes based on real-time changes to various connection performances?
How well does the SDWAN integrate with Cloud Services?
Are there meaningful integration options w/ Cloud Services?
Is there route diversity at a Local POP level?
Are you able to present your IP addresses at the Cloud-Edge for greater routing control?
Security
Are the SDWAN’s connections secured?
How does the SDWAN interact with your current firewall?
What security options are available within the SDWAN product?
Which cloud security options does the SDWAN integrate with?

We’ve saved you the leg work and tallied up the results for some of the most familiar names in the SDWAN market.

The rest of this SD-WAN series will shift from technical to a more strategy focused. We’ve covered a lot of ground on what SDWAN is and what it can do for you. Now it’s time to turn our attention toward how to evaluate SDWAN solutions (and whether you even should), how to negotiate with Service Providers, and how apply the benefits of SDWAN toward achieving your key organizational metrics, whether they be cost of operations, customer satisfaction, or whatever KPIs matter to your business.

Every article in this series will discuss a specific technique, process, or perspective that will help you reduce the amount of time and money that is being spent unnecessarily on technology services. Everyone is well aware of the impact recent events have had on national economies as well as individual lives.  It is our hope that helping you reduce wasteful spend in your technology helps reduce the strain on maintaining your payroll during these uncertain times.

We’ve already talked about consolidating your purchasing decisions so that there is only a single gate keeper, and how this will naturally prevent duplicate purchases and continued paying for unnecessary services.  However, while that does help prevent wasteful spend from growing, it doesn’t guarantee that you will reduce already existing wasteful spend. The rest of these articles will speak to how you can evaluate and consume your technology differently to achieve a more streamlined monthly cost, but, before we get into all of that, there’s one fundamental idea that must be addressed before, during, and after all others.  That idea is pretty simple, but it becomes a phenomenal game changer once you understand the true power behind it.  That idea is composed of two simple principles that are consistently true throughout the technology service industry.

1. Every product you buy from a Service Provider pays a commission to the salesperson or “Agent” that you bought it from.
2. You have the power to decide who your Agent will be with each Service Provider you purchase from.

As you were warned, these points are simple and likely well known.  Where things change is when you understand what your Agent does with the commissions they receive. Before we talk about that, though, let’s first do a quick run down of the typical types of Agents you might deal with:

1. Direct Agents – As the name states, these guys work directly for the provider. If you aren’t working directly with a provider, then you are by default working with a Direct Agent. They may be experts in their specific products, but they usually have limited knowledge in their competitor’s products, and can only really push their one set of products. As these are paid hunters, their job is to get you to sign and then move on to the next opportunity.
2. Sales Consultant or Broker – A form of Indirect Agent, as they do not work directly for the provider or providers they recommend.  These guys can acquire quotes from dozens or even hundreds of different providers, but that’s typically where they stop, not providing any installation, configuration, training, or management services.
3. Value-Add Reseller – A form of Indirect Agent, they typically work with just one provider, sometimes a handful. They typically bundle in more tailored aspects of configuration, training, and repair support for the technologies you are purchasing through them. They typically do not get involved in technologies you do not purchase through them.
4. Managed Service Provider – While most MSPs can be paid a fee to manage existing services, that tends to be a direct out-of-pocket cost. At the same time, many MSPs are also Indirect Agents of the provider they are most comfortable with. While this can sometimes limit the width of their perspectives, it typically also guarantees a depth of expertise. This trade-off is more than acceptable if you know that the particular provider in question is the one you want to purchase from. At the same time, this path also typically commits you to the specific provider the MSP partners with.

Some of these agents can provide more value in certain areas than others, but are likewise weaker in other areas.  While some pieces will be taken off your plate, others will be left entirely with you.  In a way, this contradicts our very first point of having a singular source for purchase decisions.  If you use an MSP or VAR, for example, they will likely be heavily influencing decisions related to their specific technologies, but not necessarily weighing in at all on anything outside of their narrow realm.

This conflict introduces a need for an Agent type that can provide services across all aspects of the lifecycle, across multiple technologies, while still giving you the ability to compare different solutions.  We call this type of Agent a Value-Return Broker.  A Value-Return Broker applies the commissions they receive toward the fulfillment of all aspects of the lifecycle, with multiple technologies.  In essence, the purchases you make through a VRB can fund Evaluations, Implementations, and Support services, even if they aren’t the directly for the services you bought through the VRB. With an Agent empowerment vehicle like this, you can easily consolidate all of your technology service purchases through one procurement source, and then you decide exactly how the commissions are applied in your favor. You can even have the commissions from technology A applied to supporting services from technology B, even if the VRB was never previously involved in technology B.

The Comtel Group is not only a Value-Return Broker, but we go a step further in guaranteeing the commissions are put where they best belong.  If you consume no services from us while purchasing your technology services through our agency, we will cut you a check for the commissions that would have been otherwise applied to supporting you. You can put that money right back into your budget, and use it however you want. Any way you slice it, you can rest assured that every dollar paid in commissions is being put to your best interest.

Putting those commission dollars to work for you, in the way you need them, or putting them back in your budget, is the number one most effective way to reduce wasteful spend in your technology services.

If you’re paying too much for your technology services, if you’re uncertain about which new services you should purchase, or if you believe the commission dollars your current Agent is earning aren’t being put to your benefit, give us a call.

Keep Your Team – Reduce Waste – Get Smarter Solutions

Even before the world began responding to COVID-19, organizations of all shapes and sizes were seeking to reduce wasteful spend in every way they could. Any self-regulating organization would naturally move in this direction.  However, with many of a business’ expenses coming from matters that are not their primary specialty, it can be difficult to be certain you are not wasting your budget.  As the response to COVID-19 fluctuates and extends, businesses are stretching more than ever to reduce expenses.  Unfortunately, for many businesses that means reducing staffing levels, a move that hurts both the individual and business.  At The Comtel Group, we have long stood by the principle that properly managing your technology service providers is a provably reliable way to reduce wasteful spend.  We have more than once seen a consolidation project on a single technology produce enough monthly savings to absorb the entire cost of one or more employees.  Now, more than ever, when jobs are on the line, we believe that everyone should be looking at how to cut waste from their technology service spend before cutting payroll. This series of articles focuses on the principles and key techniques that we recommend to achieve an optimized spend on your technology services.

In this article, the title sounds like a challenge, but the truth is most people already understand most of this concept. That being said, it is core to the other principles of cost control, and it would be a disservice to not tie the concepts directly together.  Most business leaders would say they have the ability to distinguish between a Need and a Want. The most common problem arises when you ask them to explain why something is a Need. The typical response to that question is a broad generalization that no one would ever argue with.  Greater Reliability.  Improved Productivity.  Lowered Cost.  Who would say no to any of these ideas?  At the same time, it is also true in many of these cases that aspects previously deemed as reliability or productivity requirements are quickly pared down once a price tag is attached, thus revealing only strong desires, masquerading as needs.

How is it that we can understand there is a difference between an actual requirement and something we would just strongly prefer to have, but we have such trouble recognizing it in practice? The problem lies in the broadness of what is accepted as justification for necessity.  Greater Reliability is an ideal that no one would disagree with, but it also leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  Is reliability a day-to-day matter, or “in case of failure?”  Is it measured in days, hours, minutes, seconds, or less? What is the cost of not having it, or otherwise staying where you are today? Is greater reliability needed, and to what degree, for employee productivity, customer satisfaction, or another business driver?

As you consider the ways in which you can sculpt a broad ideal into a specific need, you will soon find there are many questions that could be asked. In fact, it may even be the overwhelming nature of specification that drives many people to the broad generalizations in the first place.  Rather than risk chasing wild geese down rabbit holes, you can bring a lot of clarity to your need specifications quickly if you answer the following four questions:

1. What business drivers or results does this need stem from?

Tie the need to the results the business requires. If the need doesn’t align with the business drivers, it’s not a need, full stop.  If it ties to more than one driver, try to determine the split amongst the drivers. The benefit is usually not equally distributed, and this will heavily affect how budget is allocated to solve the need.

2. What behaviors need to change to fill the need?

If you expect the need to be fulfilled by an autonomous device, what behaviors are needed to ensure the device continues operating correctly? At the root of it, every solution will involve some change in long-term behavior.  When you understand the behaviors required to support a solution, you have a better understanding of what costs a solution will have that won’t show up on the solution provider’s quote.

3. How will this change be measured & managed to promote success?

More than just generating the results you expect, you also want to make sure that your decisions are positioned to be well received by those who have to support them.  It is essential you know how you will measure both behavior and success.

4. What levels of risk are the business exposed to, and by when, if this need remains unfulfilled?

You cannot accurately describe the value of something without speaking to the cost of not having it. Make a more concrete statement of value by converting soft costs like “employee productivity” into hard costs such as “[X] minutes per day waiting for transactions to complete, which equates to $[Y] per year.”

These four questions will give you the perspective that helps you clarify the actual need by connecting the business strategy to the tactical behavior.  This clarity will allow you to quickly recognize solutions that align with your business drivers, identify the measurements you’ll use to gauge their effectiveness, and prioritize all the requirements you are tasked to tend to.

With a proper understanding of what your organization’s true goals are, and how you will incorporate change into your current business process, you can define a precise list of requirements that, when fulfilled, give you confidence that you aren’t paying anything beyond what you actually need.

Keep Your Team – Reduce Waste – Get Smarter Solutions

Not everyone knows how to negotiate buying a car, but most people know not to just walk up on the lot and ask the car salesman to tell you what kind of car to buy. Most people would assume the salesman has an interest in getting you to spend as much money as possible. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he tried to convince you the extra features were necessities, or that the 20-year-old jalopy really just needs a buff and a coat of wax and is absolutely worth your entire budget.

The same philosophy should be applied when shopping for business technology services. Don’t ask the Service Providers (SPs) to tell you what to buy. Their goal is to get you to spend as much as possible, which leaves you having to be choosey about what you reveal, to prevent them from leveraging your needs into a higher price. But it doesn’t have to be like this! a simple change in the way you approach the game will dramatically improve the outcomes.

For those of us that aren’t experts in car purchases, a typical approach starts off as conversations with friends and family who know the subject. We use their counsel to better define what type of car we should be looking for, and its approximate value. That may include researching some aspects on the internet. Only when we have a clear general idea of what we want do we approach the car salesman to narrow things down. Instead of asking him what we should buy, we ask him what he has that meets our criteria.

The same applies when shopping for business technology service. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for, the first thing you should do is find an expert who can advise you objectively, and have them help you define what results your business requires. A good Subject Matter Expert (SME) will also help draw out needs and wants you aren’t even necessarily aware of. Once you have your requirements defined, you can then approach various SPs and have them present the products and pricing they feel best meet your specifications.

Similarly, when defining your specifications, make sure you’re accounting for the right type of ongoing support provisions. If you expect your team to manage the service after installation, then your specification needs to make the access/control requirements clear. If you are expecting the SP or another party to provide support, make sure you are clear on where the funding for those services is coming from. There are several ways in which you might negotiate with SPs to have them subsidize your ongoing support. If your technology support efforts would benefit from staff augmentation, then make sure you’re clear on what level of support you require before you begin shopping.

Whatever you decide your specifications are, what matters is that you’ve defined them before you walk onto the lot and start talking to a salesperson. If you’re not clear on what you need, if you don’t have the time or staff resources to pursue a proper evaluation, or if you want to make sure that your money is being spent wisely, the Comtel Group can help.

Keep Your Team – Reduce Waste – Get Smarter Solutions