Paul Burn, Nimans’ Head of Category Sales says demand is down 3% across the industry but up 10% year-on-year at Nimans for CCU shipments and associated applications in the sub 100 extension arena.
“Everyone is aware that the impact of the cloud and an uncertain economic outlook is biting into the traditional comms space – but not at Nimans.
“We are not only placing significant investment in helping resellers protect their existing revenue streams but also develop new areas of activity such as applications and WLAN.”
Paul points out how in today’s ever converging market resellers don’t need to nail all their colours to one mast and become too preoccupied by off or on-premise solutions.
“Asking which is the best deployment model is not generally the right approach as in most cases it’s not the most important overriding factor,” Paul emphasised. “The market has moved on but it’s kind of endemic of how some people are currently thinking. As an industry we shouldn’t get too obsessed by the cloud verses on-premise. The mindset around deployment rather than functionality and solution sales needs rebalancing.
“CPE or cloud doesn’t need to dominate the whole conversation. It’s what the customer wants and what they are trying to achieve. How do their staff work. These are much more fundamental questions.
“We are at a point in the industry where we have a luxury we’ve never had before; as we can confidently ask what the customer is trying to achieve because it’s very unlikely there won’t be a solution available. Resellers can ask in-depth questions and then just apply the right products to the answers. It’s not about what is the best deployment as the answers customers give will dictate which route to go down. There is no universal best deployment model. The best one is the one that suits each customer. That is the key.”
Paul added: “Here at Nimans we are in an enviable position of covering all bases. We have a strong PBX portfolio, our own hosted offering and also hybrid solutions such as from Unify.
“For us it’s important to offer our customers access all parts of the market at their own speed and protect them from the lurches of technology until they are ready. If they want to sell standard phone systems, no worries we are here for you. If you want to sell full on hosted, we’re here and if you want to sell hybrid we are here for you as well. The market is shifting but resellers should be comfortable to move when the time is right for them.”