Editor Ian Hunter recently travelled to Manchester to meet software firm Invosys who specialise in providing inbound, non-geographic, geographic and international telephone numbers on a cloud-based call management platform to find out what their plans are for 2015.
Comms Business Magazine (CBM): What have been your key growth areas during the past year and what are your growth expectations for the coming 12 months?
Amina Marfoua, Head of Products, Invosys (AM): Converged and Cloud Solutions have been key growth areas in 2014 for Invosys. As early adopters have seen, these solutions allow us to be more flexible and efficient, reducing the number of missed calls and giving us the ability to choose where we work from, and what device we receive our calls on. Gone are the days of losing calls to mobile voicemails when out of range or unanswered - with simple features like ‘choose to accept’, you can ensure calls are always answered by a person.
PBX functionality is extended to mobile devices and PCs using cloud technology. Customers have become more ambitious in what they do with their calls and are realising the benefits of cloud-based solutions, resulting in our channel partners securing some huge deals. We envisage this will continue to be a key area for us in 2015.
Invosys has had great success in the SME market and we will continue to grow this market share. The next 12 months will also see Invosys focusing on launching a suite of products aimed at the enterprise market, starting with our latest product Enterprise Number Manager.
CBM: What are the three main market trends and emerging markets that are influencing your go-to-market strategy this year?
AM: Disruptive technologies are making an impact on emerging markets. Hosting is a key area for growth, as well as cloud based convergence solutions. These areas are driven by the fact that data speeds are increasing while prices are decreasing, making data more readily available. In addition, advances in handset capabilities mean more people use mobiles as their sole device, with huge benefits all round.
Traditional call centres no longer require people to be sat in cubical farms - they can be based anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection so they can be logged in and out, and can make and receive calls via their mobiles.
There will be more customers and channel partners embracing this in the coming year. It will also lead to an increase in self-service - the more the customer can do for themselves and the less that they rely on a support desk, the more convenient it is for both customer and partner.
These areas will both play a key role in our strategy this coming year.
CBM: How do these market drivers translate into your near/mid-term channel strategy?
AM:Invosys has specialised in cloud based solutions since day one, and as part of our strategy this year we will be taking it even further as we move into call centre distribution.
The change in how and where people work and receive calls has lead to the launch of Agent Ready, in direct response to customer demand. This new app works alongside Number Manager, to allow agents to log themselves in and out of hunt groups, and decide when and where their calls are sent, without expensive call centre solutions. The mobile app means all this functionality is available on the move for remote workers and on call staff.
In 2015, as well as looking after, training and nurturing our existing channel, our horizons will be opened to other niche sectors and with this, we will meet exciting new partners who want the products we have and be a part of our success and fast developing business.
CBM: What do you see as the biggest challenges/opportunities in the UK ICT channel and how will you maximise the opportunity and address the challenges as they relate to you?
AM: The regulation changes, which come into effect from July, will be affecting the market place significantly this year. We will see a massive shift in how inbound numbers are used, which presents a huge opportunity for the channel.
With consumers having visibility to the access charges from networks and access charges from mobiles so high, it will open up the voice short code market to complement the use of non-geographic numbers. With around 50% of calls originating from mobiles today changes have to be made to ensure costs are not putting off potential callers.
Invosys will embrace the challenges and changes in the industry, helping it shape our future products as we continue to design and develop simple yet beautiful software.