[VoiceOps] VoIP Service Providers Market Research report

[Peter Rad.]

A bunch of scattered thoughts on the subject o Hosted VoIP/HPBX/UCaaS in 
the USA:

The state of VoIP is that most of it is SIP trunking.  Cable has the 
lion's share and that is all trunks.
XO and Windstream - 2 big Broadsoft shops - have over 1 million SIP trunks.

It has been slow going. Over 10 years and 2000+ Hosted VoIP providers 
and less than 25% of the market.

You can't point to the whole market and say:  low price or high touch. 
The market is highly segmented.  Under 10, Under 20, under 50, under 75, 
under 150, under 250, 500, 500+

The main conflict:  we sell telecom as a replacement for less money 
(hence, SIP trunks).  And people want what they have but cheaper; hence, 
SIP trunks. Hence, cable's dominance.  HPBX/UCaaS is selling business 
process change -- and people hate change! BAM! The obstacle that 
prevents sales.

Another point:

Under 50 buys primarily by price UNLESS there is a relationship and they 
can't be hand held.
Mid-market wants managed, managed, managed.
Enterprise wants integration.
Well, now we are seeing even 4 person Allstate shops that want integration.

The reason we have skipped UM and went to HPBX, which lost favor quickly 
and jumped to UC -- we needed a bigger bundle to actually get them to 
buy.  Now it is Workflow or Business Process as a Service that they are 
looking for.

You can sell this 2 ways: cheaper or high touch solution.

Most of the people buying right now already have HPBX/UC! They don;t 
like the outcome of the service that they had.  If they have OTT, they 
blame the ITSP, not the crappy Frontier DSL or the TWC blocked ports. If 
they had a BSFT, it was probably deployed wrong, they got no great 
outcomes from owning it and a lack of training.

One thing is to have a Brand because people associate a Brand (capital 
B) with Trust. Without a Brand, you have to build Trust by educating the 
customer on what it will be like to own that phone system from they day 
they sign the deal.

On the customer acquisition:  in the US, CA costs are high. PPC rates 
are high.  Good salespeople are expensive. Channel partners want a 
recurring commission. And price is sensitive -- or so people believe.

Price is all over the place. I haven't seen a deal rejected for price. I 
have seen deals get rejected for integration, lack of HIPAA/HITECH BAA, 
poor fax solution.

That's just me and my opinion.  Want more? Get my 2015 Hosted PBX Market 
Report:
http://www.onradsradar.com/2015/09/2015-hosted-pbx-market-overview.html

Or read my blog every day: http://rad-info.net

Thank you.

Regards,

Peter Radizeski
RAD-INFO, Inc.
813.963.5884
http://rad-info.net




On 12/3/2015 5:48 PM, Shripal Daphtary wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I recently downloaded a market research report from Voiplogic. I'm 
> sure that some of you know that they are a wholesale application 
> service provider that sells class 4 and 5 services to service 
> providers. I found the report pretty enlightening (and free).  You 
> just need to take a survey to get it.
>
> I would be interested to see what others in this group think about the 
> state of Hosted PBX, UC, UCaaS, etc.
>
> Some of the major bullet points are listed in VoipLogic's press release:
> http://www.voiplogic.com/dec-1-2015-2015-voip-service-providers-market-research-3rd-annual-report-extensive-original-data/ 
>  along with the link to the survey.
>
> I would like to actually see what Peter Rad, thinks of the sales stuff 
> in the report. In particular this statement:
>
> /"Low touch sales methods – primarily web-based selling – are dropping 
> while high touch sales methods such as Direct and through Value-Added 
> Resellers – are growing. This is, in turn, increases the cost of 
> customer acquisition. That Service Providers appear to perceive value 
> from the personal assistance of direct sales and customer service 
> support may be explained by the increasing complexity of Unified 
> Communication and Collaboration."/
>
> I'm wondering if others see the same trend?  it just seems to go 
> against another figure in the report that states that price is the 
> most important factor in sales and marketing success.  I don't see how 
> you can be a solution sales organization and still think that price is 
> the most important thing.
>
> anyway, it was by and large good read with a lot of information.
>
>
>
> Shri
>
>
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