Outsourcery pushes channel expansion

Unified Communications and hosted IT provider Outsourcery has launched its own version of Microsoft’s Office Communication Server as a hosted, per-user per-month service aimed at resale through channel partners.

Outsourcery joins rivals such as InTechnology and Lumison in an increasingly crowded space although Mark Seemann, product strategy & development director at Outsourcery, believes its close relationship with Vodafone and expertise in smartphones make it more attractive to the market.

“For our channel partners there is no upfront cost, no integration headaches just a small client download and we take over the management and support of the customer,” he explains.

Seemann points to a typical two server Microsoft OCS solution deployed in-house costing around £13,000 in the first year and then around £2,500 in subsequent years. In comparison, he highlights an Outsourcery Office Communicator solution of around £8 per user per month for “a better core functionality and improved resilience.”

“Once a client is on platform, there is potential to quickly add additional Software-as-a Service elements including CRM, virtual PBX and other applications,” says Seemann.

Although Outsourcery is not the first in the space, the firm believes that its rivals are still lagging behind or are not focused on either the channel or SMB space, “BT has really lost its way in this space and is not agile enough,” says Seemann, and although he believes Microsoft will eventually offer a competing service, “…They [Microsoft] are not a telco and they would struggle to give the level of service that us our channel partners can deliver.”

As a Microsoft Gold Partner and one of the largest providers of Microsoft CRM in the UK, Seemann believes that expanding its own channel is essential for success. The firm currently runs only 40 percent of a circa £60m annual turnover through the channel and hopes that its Office Communicator platform will mark the start of a greater shift toward partners.

“Our direct business is too large to kill off overnight,” Seemann concedes. “But with the growing SME market, they don’t have the time or budget to dither. Instead they rely on trusted relationships with partners and that is where we will add value.”

Outsourcery currently only has 30 partners across the UK but is actively recruiting more. The firm has also developed a hosted PBX solution and is using a Broadsoft hardware platform to allow channel partners to quickly migrate SMB customers from legacy TDM phone systems to IP.

“Everything we do is focused around Microsoft," explains Seemann. “Love them or hate them, nobody can integrate into the desktop better Microsoft and we will continue that ethos as we move into the cloud.”