Love them or hate them, if you’re in the business of providing any kind of IT solution you probably work around Microsoft in some way. As one of the largest tech conglomerates of all time, the thinking that you have to play well with Microsoft (or one of their main competitors in the IT space) is firmly baked in, because of course you do…they’re Microsoft.
But as Teams firmly plants its feet in communications, a lot of providers are feeling the brunt of the disruptive moves that Microsoft are making. This may be because even though telco and IT have always been in a state of orbit, they’ve also always kept each other at arm’s length.
From the speeds at which they move, to the ways in which they think and behave, the two industries seem almost incompatible, and anything that disrupts this status quo creates significant ripples.
With this being said, the convergence of voice and IT that we’ve been seeing for the past few years has already broken down a lot of barriers to get where it is today. General ways of thinking across the globe have come around to the notion that when voice and IT are used in tandem, magical things can happen.
The problem is, a good chunk of providers are either ignoring this change or approaching it from the wrong direction, causing friction in their product strategies. What these providers don’t know however is that becoming a part of this change is neither complex nor expensive. All you have to do is let everyone else do the hard work for you.
Fitting in with Microsoft Teams
To be a little less cryptic, integrating into Microsoft lets you get the best of both worlds. If the PSTN-enabled side of Teams continues to grow (and all signs are pointing towards it doing so) then you have an established avenue in which to sell your services. If Teams growth falters, you’re still appealing to a customer base that totals in the hundreds of millions with very little commitment on your end. Either way, you’re the one giving people what they want.
We get it, nobody wants to put even a small part of their roadmap in the hands of an external entity. We would all rather have the time, money, expertise and foresight to develop everything in-house, but the fact remains that this is near impossible at scale.
Case and point, even Microsoft relies on external providers to keep Teams telephony ticking – external providers like you. This reliance means that if you’re looking at Microsoft with the mindset that they are overtaking the communications market then your thinking is wrong.
You may now also be thinking about the impact that integrating into Teams may have on your core product set, your brand identity and the future of your roadmap. But becoming a part of the Microsoft Teams communication ecosystem doesn’t mean you have to give up on your trajectory or completely rehash your positioning.
All of this is due to a number of factors:
- You no longer have to build it yourself
- You can lean on Microsoft to strengthen your brand identity, not the other way around
- Your customers don’t have to change any BAU, software or hardware
- You don’t even need industry expertise (if you get the right partner that is)
How to work well with Microsoft Teams
Leaning into the power of Microsoft Teams Phone used to be quite a difficult thing to do. Early forms of Direct Routing required a lot of investment and maintenance, calling plans were limited and the Operator Connect marketplace was just finding its feet.
But since then the Teams Phone ecosystem has come on leaps and bounds. Now boasting a 99.999 per cent uptime SLA and over 23,000,000 voice enabled users (who are almost half made up of those using third party providers), Teams Phone is set to become one of the most dominant forms of business communications that the world has ever seen.
Using Direct Routing as a leading example, you can tap into the power of Microsoft with very little risk or investment and if leveraged correctly it can even be woven into your existing portfolio of products. This is because with Direct Routing you can bring an extra level of service that not only eliminates a massive threat in Microsoft but also turns that threat into one of your biggest strengths.
By acting as a bridge between Microsoft Teams and an existing phone system, you can make it so that your customers can set up their entire communications stack within their preferred platform and play a massive part in their voice strategy moving forward.
In short, the key to playing well with Microsoft isn’t a secret and you certainly shouldn’t be viewing Teams as a threat. Because of the overwhelming presence of Microsoft and an over-reliance on the way things used to be this message may have been lost in the noise for some providers, but the truth is unlocking the potential that Teams has for your business is easy, because as I said before, all the hard work has already been done for you.
If you’re a provider or reseller and you’re interested in finding out how you can work with Microsoft Teams Phone, why not get in touch today?