Recognizing the Opportunities in the SMB Market

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(No Transcript)
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Recognizing the Opportunities in the SMB Market

• Bill Miller
• VP Product Management
• Digium, The Asterisk Company

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Recognizing the Opportunities in the SMB Market

• Recognizing the Opportunities in the SMB
  Market(TMCU3-05)
• Tuesday - 09/16/08,  145-230pmMany SMBs find
  the idea of cutting their phone bill and, perhaps
  more important, being able to take advantage of
  applications that unify voice and data, very
  appealing. However, research also shows that SMBs
  are confused about the products on the market and
  often lack the in-house technical expertise to
  comfortably sort through the options. Vendors of
  all sizes are coming out with products that are
  designed to be easier to use and many big telecom
  equipment vendors are moving downstream from the
  enterprise market to SMB with tailored offerings,
  which only serves to add to the SMBs confusion.
  In this session, the presenter will help
  attendees better understand the factors affecting
  their opportunities in the SMB market and
  determine how they can make the most of its
  opportunities. Presented byBill MillerVice
  President of Product ManagementDigium Inc.

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Why are you Here?

• Are you an end user?
• Are you a reseller?
• Are you an open source developer?
• Are you a service provider? Hosted?
• Are you a student?
• Will you use twitter during the presentation?
• Will you just plain text during the presentation?

.one more question
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• Are you confused?

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SMBs..S..M..B..!!!!!

• So lets look at the definition of an SMB in
  Wikipedia
• Super Mario Bros., a video game made by Nintendo
• San Miguel Beer, a local beer in the Philippines.
• San Miguel Beermen, a professional basketball
  team in the Philippines now called Magnolia
  Beverage Masters
• Server Message Block (alternatively, SMB/CIFS),
  an application-level network protocol mainly
  applied to shared access to files, printers,
  serial ports, and miscellaneous communications
  between nodes on a network, used in particular by
  Microsoft
• Seven Mile Beach, a name of several beaches
• Simulated moving bed, a method for countercurrent
  chromatography
• Small and Medium Business, a synonym of Small and
  Medium Enterprise which is a perceived commercial
  sector
• Small Mouth Bass, a fish
• Spartan Marching Band, the marching band for
  Michigan State University
• Steve Miller Band, a 1970s rock band.
• SMB connector, SubMiniature version B connectors
  for radio-frequency circuits
• Super Monkey Ball, a video game made by Sega
• Surface Marker Buoy, a surface detection aid used
  by divers
• Sveriges Medeltida Ballader, the 'official'
  collection of old Swedish ballads
• System Management Bus, a PC communication bus

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SMBs..S..M..B..!!!!!

• Ok, just having some fun with you.
• .seriously, when you talk to our
  SMBs,
• if they are confused
  
• YOU can help them!

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What is an SMB?

• Small Business Medium Business
• An SMB is classified as a business with 2-1000
  employees
• The divides vary by supplier, but typical number
  of users/seats/phones
• lt100
• lt500
• lt1000

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Classifications for SMB Today

• Lets have some fun here as well
• Some companies call SMB 5 users
• Some companies call SMB 50 users
• IBM and others calls SMB under 1000 users
• Some companies refer to as SME, Small Medium
  Enterprises as multi-site businesses with up to
  5,000 users
• For this session, lets call all the following
  sizes SMB
• Each group has both common and specific
  requirements which well address
• 1 to 10 Seats/Phones SOHO, or Small Office -
  Home Office
• lt50 Seats/Phones Small business class
• lt100 Seats/Phones Small to medium business
  class
• lt250-500 Seats/Phones medium mostly multisite
  business class
• lt1000 Seats/Phones medium enterprise class

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Market Dynamics and Data

• Infotech 70 of US SMBs are implementing,
  trialing, or planning a deployment with VoIP
  Unified Communications
• A Savatar-Digium survey over 90 of all
  enterprises, including SMB, would consider open
  source for their corporate telephony system

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SMB Explosive Market Potential

• Less than 20 of the SMBs have purchased VoIP
  Systems
• 1/3 of SMBs are planning to purchase a new phone
  system in the next 12
• months
• 2/3 SMBs are selecting premise based IP PBX
  solutions rather than
• hosted but there is growth in both

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SMBs, VARs and Open Source

• Whom do SMBs buy their business phone systems
  from?
• Over 65 purchased it from a VAR
• VARs should sell a total solution, taking the
  worry out of the SMBs objection category
• Phones, PBX, VoIP/T1 service, networking, network
  services, etc
• Blur the line between sales consulting (be
  consultative)
• Youll close more sales
• Your customers will be happier
• Gartner Group says
• 90 of new businesses in US are SMBs
• These SMBs will accelerate adoption of open
  source
• Up to 15 of spending will cannibalize
  proprietary software market but it is incremental
  spending (over next 5 years)

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SMB Telecom Phone Costs

• Sweet spot of phone systems for SMB
• 97.6 percent is lt100 users.
• Top 10 Vertical Markets for sub 100 users
• Finance, Insurance, Wholesale, RE, Mfg, Admin,
  Health Care, Trans, Educ, Const, IT, Prof, Sci,
  Repair, Retail, Hospit, Farming
• Size/Ranges of these SMB Phone Systems
• 3-7 phone lines
• 250-1250 per month
• 3000-15,000 annually

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SMB factors..

• SMBs will consider changing to a VoIP system if
• Economics Maintenance is more expensive than a
  new system
• Support Old System needs replacing or End of
  Life and no longer supported
• Management new systems have easier to use tools
  and better visibility to the owner
• Change event Office Move
• Company growth
• Features Owner wants new applications and
  flexibility

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How do SMBs buy their VoIP?

• Most are unsure where to turn
• Need Trusted Advisor
• Today, there is NO 1 brand, its splintered
• SMBs buy differently than Enterprises no RFP
• Its about SMB owner trust of supplier
  implementer
• Many SMB owners are hobbyists and/or gadget folks
• Decision maker is typically the business owner
• Most are not savvy enough to know questions to
  ask!

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Selling to SMB VoIP customers?

• AMI says 80 of SMBs try to understand the TCO
  for their potential purchase
• Explain to the SMB owner how the new VoIP system
  will make life easier
• Explain a few of the many VoIP features that have
  relevance to their business

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SMB VoIP Choices

• There are two basic choices
• Premise based IP PBX traditional
• Hosted PBX Centrex-style
• There are combinations of above from various
  channels and suppliers, and some offer both
• Resellers who build and integrate turnkey offers,
  including services, SIP Trunks or phone trunks
  (FX0, T1/E1), integrate converged solutions have
  the advantage since its One throat to choke
  and make it easy for the customer.

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Buyer Selection Drivers

• When does premise-based make sense?
• Buyer wants ownership and control
• Buyer does not trust any phone company/service
  provider
• Buyer is uncertain of quality of service
• When does hosted make sense?
• Buyer does not want to manage the system
• Buyer wants ability to modify service with a
  phone call
• Buyer wants to minimize up-front costs
• Buyer does not want to pay perpetually

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Basic Feature Sets for SMBs

• The MOST basic features for SMB (from recent
  interviews with a group of SMB resellers)
• Voice mail
• Call Control Call hold, call transfer, etc
• Caller-ID
• Conferencing (Audio)
• Auto-attendant/IVR
• Find me/Follow me
• Simultaneous Ring

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Advanced SMB Features

• Performance Monitoring
• Call management including concurrent calls, max
  number of calls, call flow patterns, bandwidth
  used
• Cost Control
• Call Detail Records (CDR) to analyze costs
• Comprehensive Historical reporting and trends
• Expense management
• Call Center
• Queue management
• Call Recording
• Supervisor barge-in for monitoring and assistance
• Customizable Reporting

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Advanced SMB Features

• Unified Communications
• Web 2.0, web-based tools
• Presence
• Presence across multiple networks (SMBs use own
  network, Skype, Internet, open source Asterisk,
  soft clients, social networks, Google, etc)
• IM/Chat/Text/Emerging Social Network tools
• Integration with CRM
• Outlook/Office/Google Integration
• Security
• Voice encryption

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Most popular SMB VoIP Capabilities
SMB lt100 Employees SMB/SME gt100 Employees
Auto Attendant/IVR 1 1
Simultaneous Ring (1) 2 8
Call Center Features 3 6
Find me/follow me 4 5
Unified Communications (2) 5 2
Soft Phone 6 3
Click to Dial 7 9
Office Integration 8 4
Music on Hold 9 7
Source Savatar
1. Office Phone Mobile Phone, most common 2.
Voice Mail to Email, most common
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Unified Communications for SMB
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SMB/SME Challenges
SMB lt100 Employees SMB/SME gt100 Employees
Phone System Costs 12 7
Features Missing 10 7
Features Costly 10 9
Moves/Adds/Changes 9 10
Billing Accuracy 7 10
Routing 6 6
Capacity 5 11
Multi-site 4 9
Source Savatar
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What End Users Ask For

• The solution has to be easy to install, buy and
  use (No IT Department)
• Complete Solution with Feature Rich Services
• Quick Provisioning Time
• Fully supported if mission critical

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SMB Gains Productivity

• Adding more information to your call enriches
  your productivity
• Customer calls present information to enhance
  customer service and satisfaction
• Internal calls can do wiki lookup and background
  of person and display them for immediate access

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SMB Benefits Gain Productivity

• Recording calls on the fly protects an owners
  business while ensuring new employees can be
  trained properly and legal issues can be tracked
• Presence enables more efficient communications
• Simplicity enables the SMB to focus on the
  business, customer service, and flexibility

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Connecting Trunking Choices
(TrunkPhone Linechannel)

• What is trunking? Its the Connection to phone
  service and phone company.
• Traditional analog (FX0) trunks
• SMBs typically buy one phone line for each 5
  people, but minimum of 3 main line, backup line,
  and fax
• Traditional digital (T1/E1)
• 24/30 trunks respectively
• Using 5-1 ratio (employees-phone lines), can
  support companies over 100-150 people
• IAX (Asterisk)
• These are VoIP lines that connect Asterisk
  Servers
• SIP (Emerging)
• Newest Popular VoIP Service
• Attend SIP Trunking Seminar here at ITEXPO

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Resellers Pitfalls

• Our experiences have shown
• Some data VARs over-engineer the solution
• This places their quotes higher than the winning
  VAR
• Some Voice VARs understand features, but lack in
  depth knowledge of VoIP and data infrastructure
• Key system replacement with VoIP tricky
• IP Phones more expensive
• IP Applications far exceed KS capabilities
• Why these observations and experiences?
• Data engineers want redundancy fault tolerant
• Ideally match the user requirements with the
  solution
• And the budget..

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End User Pitfalls

• Know your pain points and toleration for key
  criteria
• Features (VoIP SMB Systems near parity with
  legacy solutions)
• Price (legacy systems cheaper, less flexible)
• Technology (Do you care?)
• Ownership hosted or premise based (i.e. want
  complete control to add/modify users?)
• Be clear about requirements
• Complete Clarity

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In Summary

• VoIP is mainstream today
• Price/performance is unparalleled
• Resellers are looking for a new offering to
  address todays SMB/SME
• If you answer a few simple questions, you should
  be able to focus on the right solution both
  price points and capabilities.
• Digium is in the Open Source pavilion, stop by
  and see UC for SMB and why todays choices are
  more cost effective than ever before!

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Thank you!
Bill Miller bmiller_at_digium.com