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The Ins and Outs for MSPs Building a UCaaS Practice

By Edward Gately | October 8, 2021
Unified Communications

Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) represents a massive global sales opportunity, with the market nearly doubling from 2022 to 2025.

UCaaS is one of the industry’s fastest-growing markets for channel partners focused on delivering cloud-based messaging tools packaged as a complete solution. Global sales should grow from $72 billion in 2022 to more than $141 billion by 2025.

So how can MSPs make the most of this opportunity? Len DiCostanzo, CEO of MSP Toolkit, and Jamaal Savwoir, vice president of partner experience at Intelisys, have a wealth of information to share

During their MSP Summit session, titled “Bridging the Gap: How MSPs Can Build Out a UCaaS Practice,” Nov. 2, DiCostanzo and Savwoir will help partners at all levels of UCaaS knowledge understand not only how to get started, but the pitfalls, the most channel-friendly vendors, investments required and some of the more complicated issues they need to learn from peers who developed high-performance UCaaS practices. (The MSP Summit is co-located with the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 1-4, in Las Vegas.)

In a Q&A, DiCostanzo gives a sneak peek of what he’ll share with attendees.

Channel Partners: How do MSPs go about building an effective UCaaS practice? Are there dos and don’ts?

Len DiCostanzo: Do you have clients who can already use a UCaaS solution? Do you plan on using UCaaS to win new [customers]?

Discuss with peers who have made the move. Evaluate technology, vendors and potential service delivery partners/vendors. Understand revenue potential for assessments, projects, managed services plus licensing and services. And think about partnering before investing and going all in.

CP: How do you determine which are the right vendors to work with?

LD: Talk with peers. Is it someone you work with already who has other solutions? Ask to speak to other partners who work with a vendor. Do they have a detailed enablement and go-to-market journey defined? Do they provide pre-sales support? What type of support? Do they sell with you? Have they solved the billing and taxation issues? Do they know how to communicate the revenue opportunity?

CP: Is setting up a UCaaS practice expensive? Are there ways to minimize cost?

LD: It’s always expensive to build a new practice. There’s long-term investment, training, muscle memory, solution development, experience, etc. Can you partner with a vendor/peer who has quoting and service delivery capabilities? Can you shadow your vendor partner?

Use a vendor as a bridge to practice building where possible. Work with a vendor who has sales and marketing assets ready to use.

CP: How can peers who already have developed practices help?

LD: They can help as service delivery partners. They can provide advice on vendors to evaluate and technology to look at, how they did it, and pitfalls and potholes.

Tags:
MSP Summit, UCaaS