Unified Communications: Make It Profitable

By Larry Lannon

After years of unrealized promises, customers are so over bells and whistles,” wrote Channel Partners Editor-in-Chief Khali Henderson in the recent Digital Issue entitled, Improving UC Deployments and Accelerating Adoption.”

They want a return on their investment,” Khali continued. Today, CEOs are looking for projects to be self-funded or provide an ROI within a few months

Helping your customers understand and realize UC’s value is critical to developing a successful UC practice. UC solutions are capable of realizing rapid ROI provided that the installs are timely and the adoption rates are high.”

Unified communications works for customers and partners when partners are well informed, the plan is well thought out, and the install and follow-through are impeccable. That is why the pre-conference workshop on Acclerating UC Adoption and ROI” is an important part of the upcoming Channel Partners Conference & Expo, March 26-29, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The UC workshop is being sponsored by Cisco, a leading global technology company.

The workshop will break UC down logically for partners. UC experts will break the subject into its four key components, and explain their relationship to one another in a clear way.

The first two components will be discussed during the pre-sale stage. The first will focus on understanding and selling UC features, and how they work together. The second will examine the importance of executive buy-in, and how partners can create it.

The next critical stage is the post-sale period. This stage also will be reviewed in two distinct steps. The first will look at the importance of proper planning and  doing service roll out right. The second will study ROI measurement.

The workshop will conclude with a detailed case study that will bring all four threads together into a coherent, unified whole.

If you are a partner ready to get serious about UC, make sure you schedule time for the pre-conference UC workshop. It will be held Monday, March 26, 2-4 p.m. To attend the workshop, you must be registered for the Channel Partners Conference, which you can do easily here.

UC should be in every partners practice portfolio. In an increasingly complex world of pressurized schedules, multi-form communications and device diversification, UC is the key to making many businesses more productive and profitable. UC is an ROI multiplier. UC also is complex, and takes an effort to master.

Use the UC workshop to help you take that journey. Use the UC workshop to build your practice another road to the future.

Larry Lannon is group publisher of

VIRGO

s Communications Network,
which includes

Billing & OSS World

,

Channel Partners

and

V2M

.