As a UC Partner your number one priority is ensuring that your customers achieve their goals when they implement a new unified communications system.
Unified communications technologies are an essential part of any organization's digital transformation strategy. And, as is the case in any large-scale implementation, organizations need assistance from an expert.
This is where a trusted partner with a proven track record is indispensable. Your team enables an organization to minimize its deployment headaches during transformation and increase delivery speed by helping conduct thorough analysis and planning.
Here are four steps that channel partners need to take to ensure a successful UC deployment and see to it that your customers realize the full benefits of digital transformation.
1. Understand what Digital Transformation means to your Customer
Digital transformation can mean different things to different organizations. If you're planning to win state but your team wants to win the national championship, you might fall short of their expectations. Your first challenge is to make sure you clearly understand what digital transformation means to your customer and that you agree on the best way to achieve it. Begin by identifying the goal. Ask your customer what they are looking to accomplish in their digital transformation. What parts of the business is it seeking to transform? Is it aiming to improve the experience of its customers? Enhance internal operations? Elevate performance management? All of the above? Equipped with this information, you will have a better understanding of the ways that unified communications can contribute to the customer's digital transformation strategy.
2. Knowledge is a Differentiator, do your Research
Next up, you need to help your customer investigate the myriad technologies in the market, including collaboration tools, social media, voice, video and web chat. As a channel partner, you will really distinguish yourself by guiding your customers through the complex UC solution landscape and steering them toward selections that best suit their environment and best accomplish their goals. As a savvy partner, you should do your homework: study their competitors, understand the playing field and be familiar with equipment they use. Learn what technologies are working best and where the industry is having the most success.
3. Be an All-Rounder
Like most champs you need to be able to excel in multiple areas with multiple teams. Every UC implementation involves distinct groups. There is the leadership team that's driving the digital transformation, the operational folks on the ground who are enabling it, and their users who deliver the transformation experience to customers. As a channel partner, you need to be aligned with all camps. You need to embrace the vision of the CEO or CMO who is leading the charge. And you also need to work seamlessly with the people on the frontlines who are tasked with deploying the technologies, reworking the business processes and training the users. This is sometimes a fine line to walk and your success depends on striking the right balance. Miss the priorities of any of these camps and your job will grow exponentially more difficult.
4. Don't say Goodbye at the Finish Line
Finally, you should be able to measure the return on the investment of the new technologies with the customer. Companies often implement technology on some vague promise of transformation. They go to an industry conference and hear some other company talk about its success and assume they will magically get the same return simply by greenlighting more technology. But your business is not magic. And you don't get a medal after one race. To ensure the success of your customer, you must put in the work. You must stay engaged long after the initial implementation is complete and help your customer conduct regular operational reviews to measure the implementation's impact on the business and find areas where you can improve it.
The good news for channel partners is that a digital transformation is long-term initiative that takes place in increments. If you can help a company successfully reshape one part of its business, you then have the proof point you need to go to other stakeholders in the business and repeat the process in other sectors of the organization. Research firm Gartner estimates that only about 30 percent of digital transformation initiatives achieve the desired results. Perform well as a channel partner and you will have new customers (or athletes!) beating a path to your door.
Want to become an IR UC Partner? Find out more here.