How large should your company’s portfolio be? How many services are the right number to offer, and at what point does it get too large?
Mike Cromwell and Dave Gilbert spoke with John Young and Derek Dionian from Netfortris about this very issue.
In the UC space, there are a variety of periphery technologies that empower and enable the solution. Internet service, SD-WAN, networking, devices, and soft clients are just a few. It is intimidating enough for a customer to reach out to change something critical and core to their business, such as telephony, only to be told to pursue another vendor first for their Internet, and another for their network, and so on.
If your service provider can, instead, become a solution provider, and handle these pieces for the customer, you are simply more likely to close the prospect and you can capture all of the revenue from that client.
John describes the Netfortris model, saying, “we put together solution architects, we put together engineering teams, and we take a team approach to building a customer.” In other words, they take a holistic approach and form bespoke service offerings based on the customer’s needs.
Does this mean you can simply maintain a few line items in your catalog and offer add-ons for the customer who also needs some network upgrades? To do it well, your team needs to be able to become experts on those technologies and solutions on the perimeter of UCaaS. Create your own custom offerings and stay ahead of the curve. Know the routers you will recommend, understand the ins and outs of the SD-WAN backups, and appreciate the nuance of the Internet services you will provide.
Become someone who continues to innovate their products, and doesn’t treat them as throw-ins to their preferred platform.
Watch more of the conversation here: