deeper level of specialisation to enhance their business, especially when they’re starting to look at new solutions and new opportunities. We’ve got a great technical team and business development managers that can stand alongside partners to help.” Specialist Subject The decision to create departments within the distributor has come about in order to provide resellers with the ability to offer any solution as everyone gets to grips with a converging market. Each department within it will have a structured sales team with department- specific expertise for resellers to grow with and utilise as they grow. In addition to this service, Chimoindes committed to “selectively expanding our vendor portfolio” to the resellers in the room, adding, “Our strategy and Nuvias UC is not to offer loads of competing vendors; we want to add complementary vendors to our solution portfolio. “We want deep relationships with our partners; that’s a mark of success for us, and the more time we can spend with our partners, the more opportunities we can generate together.” To the layman, offering solutions from both Microsoft and Zoom may appear to contradict its policy of not including vendors that compete against each other. However, according to the Nuvias UC CEO, both solutions have carved out their own niches within the UC&C industry. “If you’d asked me that question 12 or 18 months ago, I might say that, because of where they both were in their lifecycles, there was a lot more competition in terms of what they did. “But now, Zoom sits alongside Teams in many ways. Many organisations are using Teams for their chat and file management, for example, but they’re also using Zoom for telephony and CX experience. “I don’t think these are competing as overall platforms, they’ve now got their own spaces to sit in and exist in. Of course, the meeting side of things is a competitive landscape, but the platform of choice for an end user will dictate what meeting room solutions they have, if they’ve already got a Zoom environment integrated into their workflow, they’re probably not going to go and swap all of that out to put Teams in, and vice versa.
“I think that’s the difference. Now, if it comes down to a straight shootout with an end user about whether they are going to put in an NTR or a Zoom Room, that will come down to personal preference.” The More Things Change While the competitive forces of Teams and Zoom may have found a way to coexist, the next battleground to fight on has emerged, called Artificial Intelligence. Chimoindes much more graciously referred to these battlegrounds as “inflection points” but went on to say that AI should not be the topic of conversation when we talk about… well, AI. “I heard an analyst say IoT and the metaverse were potentially two inflexion points that perhaps didn’t quite happen,” said Chimoindes. “They’ve been steady in what they’ve delivered, but they were expected to be a little bit bigger than what they’ve delivered. They haven’t been an inflection point. “Undoubtedly AI is an inflection point, and we’re just at the start of what that can do. I mentioned in my keynote that 12 months ago, when I stood there and talked about what AI was going to do in the future, around collaboration and CX solutions; twelve months on, we’re there. “What’s interesting is that we’re talking about the technology. Actually, what we should be talking about is productivity, because that’s what AI should be driving for people. So we’re helping the channel understand how they can help their end users be more productive with AI. I think that’s the inflection point, and it’s the opportunity as well.” The More They Stay The Same The inflection point of Artificial Intelligence is certainly one that Chimoindes is looking to capitalise on. These inflection points keep coming, bringing with them opportunities for the channel to reach out to businesses and create value for the vendor partners at the heart of the new Nuvias UC structure.
What’s interesting is that we’re talking about the technology. Actually, what we should be talking about is productivity, because that’s what AI should be driving for people.
CONTINUED
ucadvanced.com
13
Powered by FlippingBook