Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Demand for Machine to Machine (M2M) SIMs is growing. Channel partners are building a pipeline of big deals in key vertical markets, generating high-margin recurring revenue.

Transport

The driving experience is being revolutionised. Apps and services are giving drivers everything from in-vehicle Wi-Fi and incredible entertainment, all the way through to faster, more insightful diagnostics and maintenance.

Utilities

Businesses are managing their energy flows through smart energy grids and smart meters, allowing for more accurate bills. There is a focus on improving energy efficiency and resolving outages more effectively, with remote site monitoring.

Health

Smart devices offer important patient benefits, like connected ambulances. Ambulance crews have access to high-bandwidth internet capabilities, and tablets holding patient records. This means that information can be sent to hospitals in real-time.

Security

Commercial security is getting smarter. CCTV and alarms can be monitored securely and footage can be stored remotely.

Part of Office 365 and launched in 2018, Teams is Microsoft’s fastest selling product and recently overtook Slack as the #1 collaboration tool, according to recent research. By upgrading to MS Phone System, Office 365 users also get call management features.

If you need to make and receive calls outside of the Teams family, the Microsoft solution starts to look a little clunky and quite expensive. Out-of-bundle calls are paid for per minute by logging a company credit card on the system, and whilst some country rates are in line with the market, others are not.

Instead of using their Calling Plan, Microsoft will allow you to connect Teams to an alternative network provider using Direct Routing. However, setting this up is complicated and expensive and only a handful of companies in the UK offer Direct Routing as a service. There has not been a true, self-serve, white-label, channel programme for Direct Routing in the UK - until now.

Jola’s Direct Routing for Teams is built on a Microsoft approved platform and offers numbers in 167 countries as well as every area code in the UK. Jola’s unlimited wholesale UK call package costs less than half that of MS Calling Plan with very competitive out-of-bundle rates – billed monthly in arears. 

For the first time suppliers of Office 365 will be able to offer a viable alternative to traditional, or hosted telephony, at a compelling price to their customers, whilst making a good recurring margin on call bundles and out-of-bundle call charges.

I was on a beach and a guy tried to sell me some local precious stones. Very quickly we went from $100 to $10 and when I tested the ‘stones’ they were actually lumps of plastic. He shrugged and moved on to the next tourist – no hard feelings on either side. His negotiation approach is more zero-sum than win-win but has this damaged his business? – probably not.

Handle negotiations with a one-off sale badly in B2B and you may harm your reputation or your bottom line, but usually only on that one deal. However, getting it wrong with an ongoing relationship can be disastrous, especially in the channel. Where a company is re-selling your product, you have to know exactly where you fit in the value chain. What is the Standard for your product? What will your partner need to sell at, to win against the competition? - and still make enough margin to excite them, and their salespeople. What is unique about your offering and how does that translate into benefits for your partner and their customers?

I see basic negotiation mistakes all the time in my industry and usually due to lack of research and preparation. Suppliers trying to sell products to resellers without considering what they will sell it for, or assuming that their ‘unique’ features are benefits, without having properly tested the proposition. On the other side, resellers come back with random requests for discounts and get offended when you ask why. Alternatively, they invent prices they have received from other suppliers in an attempt to improve their own margin.

Going into a negotiation, there is an assumption that you will come to an agreement. If you are unable to agree terms this is often viewed as a failure but whether or not it is depends on how well you have prepared.

Before you start a negotiation it is important to think through potential outcomes. Which party has most to lose if you cannot agree? If you have done your homework on Standards you will know the range of acceptable outcomes. If you cannot get to a deal in this range, which side is most adversely impacted?

You should be able to answer this question for both sides and for individuals on both sides. e.g. perversely a product manager incentivised on average margin may be more inclined to lose a large customer than give them a significant price cut to stay. However there is a cost to switching suppliers as well as acquiring and on-boarding customers, and moving away may be the wrong decision for both organisations. One option is to adjourn the conversation with the product line and find someone with a more holistic view. Even then they may overestimate the value of inertia, so you have to make them believe there is a real possibility of losing your business. Properly research the alternatives and be prepared to walk away from a deal if your minimum requirements cannot be met.

There are plenty of doom-mongers around Microsoft’s recent incursion into the cloud PBX market but little practical advice. If you find yourself competing with Teams Phone System, here are three things to consider;

1.   Be prepared. Microsoft list only 22 inclusive features of Phone System on their web site and they don’t appear to offer optional extras. If you currently charge for some of their standard features, you may initially feel a little disheartened. However, many features you offer, and your customers need, may not be there. Put together a competitive matrix for your salespeople and their customers. Include the range of devices you offer vs Microsoft approved devices. Make sure your salespeople understand Office 365 pricing. Phone System is available with only the more expensive licenses and at time of writing is not an upgrade on Microsoft’s most popular 365 licence, Business Premium. Build a price comparison table into your Features Matrix. As Microsoft expand their features update your sales team.

2.   Focus on SMEs. Due to the level of licence and technical skill required to configure Teams Phone System, it feels as if it would appeal more to bigger companies. It has always been hard to sell a hosted cloud product to really large organisations. Yes, they benefit from not having to have a PBX in every office, but at a certain size it’s often cheaper for them to buy their own cloud platform. Because it is an upgrade to expensive Office 365 licences, Teams Phone System may be less attractive in the SME market, which is the sweet spot for most hosted providers and where the average sale is still only seven seats.

I first encountered the concept of corporate stories when I went to school, and then worked, in the USA. Here are two examples.

Nordstrom – these guys love to encourage tales of heroic customer service and this one is my favourite. A man goes to one of their stores and complains his relatively new tyres have worn too quickly. He has lost his receipt but regardless the store agrees to refund him the cost of the tyres. Weeks later he finds the receipt and returns to the store. “I’m so sorry” he says, “I’ve just realised I didn’t originally buy the tyres from Nordstrom”. “I know” says the store assistant, “we don’t sell tyres”.

Dominoes– a store in San Francisco ran a promotion. They would refund your money if for any reason you were dissatisfied with the pizza they delivered. A customer ordered a pizza every few days, ate it, and then claimed a refund. This continued for several weeks until the local Dominoes invited him to come in and prepare his own pizza, exactly the way he wanted it. This he did, ate it, and then asked for his money back. They refunded him, no questions asked (and then quietly withdrew the promotion a week later).

I told the Nordstrom story to my Customer Service Manager at Griffin and challenged him to implement a sustainable process (arguments rage as to whether the Nordstrom example is good or bad in the long run) that would create a positive story . He actually did two things;