Rob Downes – Head of Partner Solutions at 9 reflects on prioritising eve’s feature release programme
What are end users actually asking for when it comes to a hosted voice or UC service?
In an ideal world we would be developing features that aligns UC with end users desperate to embrace a new collaborative way of working. The reality is that the workplace consists of a wide range of technical abilities and willingness to change. We have to strike a balance between familiar, traditional PBX features and delivering emerging new technologies.
We talk a lot about the end-users’ journey to the cloud’ and helping them to make that move. However, it’s a transition the Channel needs to make too; from Reseller to Managed Service Provider. It’s not enough to provide only the technical side of that journey, user adoption is a key part of the process. As such, the feature set and the way in which it’s delivered to the end user, must be done with an appreciation that things aren’t going to change overnight. Trying to implement such a massive culture change needs to be done with patience and consideration for all parties.
What kind of new features are making their way into hosted solutions and why does this matter for Partners?
For the SME market, it’s bringing features that were once only viable to 100+ seat organisations. Features such as contact centre functionality, CRM integration, compliant call recording, all become scalable and therefore accessible to the SME space. The challenge for the development cycle is balancing significant feature releases to drive sales, with tweaks and optimisation to existing features, with the aim of improving the end user experience for existing customers.
9’s aim is to have regular feature releases from both categories. We share and discuss our product development road map with key Partners, so they can influence which features take priority.
What do Partners want from eve? Sticky product, margin rich, solid network uptime – all of the above? Can eve really cover all those bases?
Yes, all of the above. It’s not necessarily covering all bases, rather connecting all bases. Unified Messaging, Integration, Collaboration. One platform that can efficiently tie all of an end user’s comms solutions together, that’s what eve can do.
The stickiness of the product comes from user adoption, which has to be driven by the Managed Service Provider and to some extent the customer. Margin comes from multiple products, and the professional services required to achieve a successful solution. So, no, one service may not cover all the bases, but one Managed Service Provider can.
