In January 2016, BCC Research released its

report “Unified Communication and Collaboration:

Technologies and Global Markets,” which found

that the global market for UCC totaled $26.5

billion in 2015 and is expected to reach nearly

$62 billion in 2020, demonstrating a compound

annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.5%. The study

also found that hybrid deployments are the

fastest-growing segment in the global UCC

market, totaling $1.8 billion in 2015 and expected

to reach $6.2 billion by 2020, representing a

CAGR of 28%.

Much of this growth, according to various

analysts’ reports, can be attributed to the rising

use of UCC-as-a-service (UCCaaS) applications,

cloud-based videoconferencing, the push for

mobile UCC apps and UCC monitoring that

enables IT staff to view ongoing issues with voice

or video traffic in real time, to name just a few.

However, despite this continued market growth,

companies still face many challenges when it

comes to selecting the right UCC solution for

their business. More often than not, they end up

having to compromise just to get a solution that’s

somewhat workable in their environment, and

there are a number of reasons why.

For starters, many vendors offer tightly integrated,

yet proprietary, UCC solutions or loosely affiliated

components that are integrated in name only.

Next, most UCC solutions are either from a

vendor that has been around for a while and is

stuck with an outdated core software platform or

from a start-up that may or may not be around

next week. Finally, a majority of the UCC solutions

currently available are either extremely capable,

yet impossible to manage without budgeting for

expensive engineering resources, or they’re easy

to use but very lean on feature sets.

Given these limitations, selecting a UCC

vendor can become an arduous process. This

doesn’t have to be the case, though, if channel

partners arm themselves with the right

information regarding their customers’ needs

and requirements.

UCC Market Landscape: Compromise Is Everywhere

The use of UCC technologies by both SMBs and enterprise organizations is driving incredible growth. Analysts are now predicting that the market could double in the next five years.

Also, channel partners should be aware that nearly every UCC vendor will fall into one of two categories:

a closed, proprietary system that provides all of the components the customer will be using or a

software solution that’s installed on another vendor’s hardware and relies on yet another vendor’s

endpoints and gateways to create a complete solution.

Furthermore, most UCC vendors are either part of the “hosted-only” or “premises-only” camp, and

channel partners need to keep an eye out for premises-only solutions masquerading as hosted

solutions. In reality, these are just vendor solutions that are hosted in partners’ data centers. There

are also the “cloud-only” solutions, but often these don’t provide the added security available with

on-premises UCC solutions, nor do they offer the choice of transitioning away from the monthly

subscription-based model.

Best Practices for Selecting a UCC Vendor Partner

There are several key steps that channel partners should take when helping their customers select a UCC vendor partner.

STEP 1 Identify functionality requirements. Channel partners should look at a number of areas including presence awareness, mobility, CRM integration, remote workers, instant messaging, voicemail, email, faxing, contact center, paging, etc., to determine which functionalities are most critical and should be prioritized when recommending a UCC solution to their customers.

STEP 2 Take inventory of company and device types. This is a key step that should not be overlooked by channel partners, as most vendors don’t support all functionalities on all device types. For example, if the customer is 100% vested in Windows PCs, smartphones and tablets and relies on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, then Microsoft Lync is a good place to start. However, if the customer (like most) uses both Mac and PC desktops, a combination of Android tablets and iPads, a variety of installed apps and web-based cloud apps, plus a mixture of smartphones, then the company will require a solution that supports a wide range of devices and operating systems.

STEP 3 Determine if cloud, on-premises or hybrid best fits the customer. In some cases, the customer may not know which solution is best or believes that their needs will change in the future. As such, it’s important that channel partners take the customer’s evolving requirements into consideration when recommending a solution.

STEP 4 Create a spreadsheet of vendors that fit criteria. Channel partners should always invite a variety of vendors to present their solutions, as this will provide the customer with a better sense of their offerings and key capabilities.

For example, Teo is 100% open standards-based

and can integrate with most SIP-compliant

technologies. Also, because Teo develops the core

software that’s tightly integrated with their purpose-

built hardware, as well as all endpoint desk phones

and softphones, its UCC solution is a truly complete

system. This provides customers with the peace of

mind that comes from knowing that everything will

work together as intended to by design, yet will still

be able to integrate with other technologies to

provide increased functionality.

Finally, the Teo UCC solution is built from the

ground up for cloud, on-premises and hybrid

deployments. The code base is identical,

regardless of the configuration. The data centers

are its own, and Teo offers companies the ability

to move from cloud to premises, premises to

cloud, premises to hybrid or cloud to hybrid, and

back again with zero interruption to the user base.

Teo Technologies Solutions OverviewTeo Technologies designs, manufactures and

supports the most comprehensive business

communications technology portfolio available

today. Its range of solutions includes the Teo

UCC Suite, call center system, contact center

and Teo Analytics.

Teo UCCTeo UCC features seamless integration of

presence, instant messaging, voice, video, mobility

and collaboration tools in a single suite. The suite

integrates with existing systems, installs in minutes

and doesn’t break the budget. Customers can

choose to buy the technology, subscribe to cloud

services or create a hybrid deployment.

Call Center SystemThe call center system offers all the capabilities of

a fully operational call center, including:

• Agent logging

• Supervisor barge, monitor, whisper

• Group summary reports allowing access to

commonly requested call activity information

• Scheduled reports

• Call recordings set for all, inbound, outbound,

on demand or on a per-agent basis

Contact CenterThe contact center is a full multimedia customer

interaction suite that provides organizations

with the ability to optimize all of their channel

communication flows seamlessly within a

singular platform. This allows for superior

customer service and sales capabilities without

cost-prohibitive integration and implementation

costs. Voice, chat, fax, email, WebRTC and

social communications can all be routed using

the same routing rules and agent awareness

for optimum performance.

AnalyticsAnalytics empowers organizations to go beyond

digging through data and into a world where

answers are available on any web-enabled

device in real time. Businesses can extract,

review and analyze key data sets to determine

efficiency, sales and support metrics.

What Sets Teo Technologies Apart?

Teo Technologies is a proven industry leader with more than 40 years of experience in developing communications technologies.

What makes Teo different is its ability to simplify the supply chain so that channel partners and their customers are able to effectively rely on a single vendor for all their communications needs.

Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital, which is

headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has

satellite offices in Virginia, Maryland and West

Virginia, is the nation’s largest Girl Scouts

council. As such, it was critical that the

organization put an effective communications

system in place to ensure that staff could remain

in close contact with volunteers.

Careful about every penny spent, the council

needed to identify a phone system that could be

installed and maintained for at least 10 years,

with little or no fluctuation in cost or performance.

This led the council to engage initially with two

separate vendors for its phone and unified

communications needs.

This setup met the council’s baseline needs for

multiple years, but success was contingent on a

stable price point. Unfortunately, several years into

the relationship, the council hit a snag when they

were notified that their phone system had reached

end of life and they would no longer receive

support or protection against service errors.

The council needed to find a new solution that

was highly effective and could be implemented at

an affordable price point. In addition, they

wanted to work with a vendor that could

guarantee competitive rates—not just in the near

term, but seven years down the road. They were

also in a hurry, as within a month their existing

phone system would no longer be supported.

The council reviewed solutions from its current

vendors, but those were ultimately passed over

in favor of the Teo Technologies UCC solution,

which came highly recommended by one of the

council’s managed services providers.

Not only was Teo able to provide the desired

performance at an affordable price point, it also

offered the ability to deploy the UCC services in

a timely fashion.

Additionally, Teo successfully addressed a

number of other lingering issues caused by

the two disparate platforms that had affected

performance and impeded day-to-day

communications between branch offices. For

example, with Teo, the council staff could quickly

and easily direct calls to their volunteers without

forcing the caller to hang up and dial another

number. And, with a staff of 15 employees at

various locations (including satellite offices) who

took turns running the council’s main phone line,

uniting the council’s two main phone lines within

the single Teo UCC platform made it easier for

the council to transfer calls to anyone within the

organization, regardless of their location.

With Teo Technologies, the Girl Scouts of

Nation’s Capital were able to condense both their

phone and data needs into a single delivery

channel. Teo also provided the council with an

unparalleled level of reporting capabilities that

help to quantify the value that Teo is providing.

This included giving the council access to a wide

range of metrics such as the number of calls per

hour/day/month, the length of those calls and

where they originated.

Case Study:

Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital Leverage Teo Technologies to Improve Communications Between Staff and Volunteer