Page 7 - 3CX FebMar 2016

Feb/Mar 2016 3CX Drilldown 7
Going soft in a softer market

I
have long argued in these pages that households simply have more cash on hand
the nexus of market conditions and the a er lling up on cheap gas. Whether you are No matter what your market’s
shape of technology o erings combine to in a Midwest town faced with the downdra
green
create market outcomes. In other words, the that cheap oil is placing on the local economy situation, 3CX is offering
technology that prevails is the one that both or whether you serve a major metro area, where partner support in the form of
o ers attractive technological advantages and is cheery commuters are enjoying cheaper fuel by Doug Green
priced right for the times. e Great Recession, (meaning more money to eat out, shop retail, direct leads and ready-to-go
in its course, propelled the advancement of right place at the right time.
etc.), I would argue that your portfolio must
both on prem IP-PBXs and cloud because the As 2016 got under way, macro economic
be diverse to meet the demands that your marketing material the dealer
technology and the economics all lined up.
forces signaled that the long recovery and customers will have. Dealers will need great can use to merchandise their
Site by site, as newer businesses replaced older expansion from the crash has entered a new entry price points, lots of functionality, lots of
rms, the new occupants looked to technology phase. While the US economy is very likely interoperability with the devices customers like company.
as a major part of their larger business DNA, to avoid a recession, everyone in the channel to communicate on, and resellers are likely to
advancing the churn of old TDM to IP.
should consider how to align their portfolio need having customers who feel at ease with
Meanwhile cloud PBX and the rise of the with the economics of 2016 and possibly their on-going communication commitments.
“Net ix Pricing Culture,” where people become 2017: possibly slower growth, a shi away e 3CX partner program discussed earlier in carefully thought through how to apply the
used to paying small recurring fees, placed from investment in energy and possibly
this supplement, and the 3CX range of products most up-to-date communication technologies
cloud with its low price point of entry, in the
an acceleration of consumer-led sectors as
is an excellent example of a company that has
in such a way as to o er dealers a strong
assortment of options.
3CX has adopted an interesting niche in the
market, by not only o ering their core 3CX
Phone System, which leverages the most widely
distributed OS in the world, while allowing
partners and their customers to choose their
own servers (more opportunity for dealers by
the way), with a system that, because it runs
on a mainstream OS, is easily understood
and mastered by customers. Here we see an
opportunity even for dealers in regions facing
challenges. e customers can take their
extensions anywhere and the customers can
slash their phone bill by up to 80%. A dealer can
o er a customer a fast way to cut operational
costs, and also o er the giant savings of making
the o ce footprint smaller, not with sta cuts
but simply allowing people who really don’t
need to be on site to work all days or some days
from home, with 3CX o ering multiple ways
to ow internal work and collaboration. 3CX
o ers WebMeeting, using WebRTC to o er
clientless web conferencing, and dealers can
o er WebMeeting as integrated with the phone
system or delivered by on prem servers. And
those options mean many ways to right t, or
price a package for a customer.
No matter what your market’s situation, 3CX
is o ering partner support in the form of direct
leads and ready-to-go marketing material the
dealer can use to merchandise their company.
But here’s where 3CX has gone a step further.
3CX is a so PBX company that is also o ering
two paths to the cloud. Dealers can o er a fully
functional cloud PBX and in situation where
the dealer retains account control: 3CX does not
reduce the dealer to the status of an agent. 3CX
enables the dealer to sell cloud based servers, at
rst via 3CX itself. But when the time is right
for the reseller, these accounts can be migrated
to the reseller’s own data center. e reseller in
fact becomes a cloud PBX provider with a wide
measure of control over the account.
at diversity and move-ability is worth
considering because it means that the dealer
has a simple answer for a variety of challenges,
and he can manage these whatever their path.
Customer needs to drain operational costs but
has server capacity to spare? Excellent. So
switch, on prem, with lots of o prem options
for employees. Customer starting up or growing
but is cautious on long term? Maybe the cloud
is a good option, but in this case we are not just
handing o the account, but managing it closely,
perhaps migrating it to a di erent posture as
circumstances evolve. And when the reseller
gets to a certain stage, he can go further in the
game by in a sense becoming the cloud and not
just reselling someone else’s- a very good idea
in a market where everyone will be watching
margins closely.
Control, exibility, lots of choice on the menu
and enabling the dealer to be a technology cost
cutter and enabler for the customer. In 2016,
that combination is worth looking into.