Toshiba Channel’s G2M Experience with VIPedge in the Cloud

Following the Tigerpaw National Conference 2012 during the last week of September, we caught up with Brian Metherell, VP & GM of Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division to discuss Toshiba’s VIPedge go-to-market (G2M) cloud strategy and channel experiences. Toshiba announced general availability (GA) of the VIPedge cloud-based business VoIP solution this past July and made its public debut at the Tigerpaw 2012.

The VIPedge go-to-market (G2M) strategy, dubbed the “Power of Choice,” gives users the choice of Toshiba’s cloud service (VIPedge), on-premise IP-PBX (IPedge) or IP/digital converged (Strata CIX) systems, plus the ability to migrate between systems, using the same endpoints, software features and other applications. For example, VIPedge uses the same version of Call Manager as does IPedge and is now available with UM, IM/P, unchanged PC softclient and the same CRM integration with more than 30 applications. In addition, Toshiba custom development services can be engaged to communications-enable business processes.

VIPedge also has simultaneous ringing “twinning” built-in as a standard feature supporting mobility. In addition, Toshiba-branded SIP trunks are provided with the service. In its initial release, however, VIPedge cannot be networked to an existing IPedge or Strata CIX customer premise system. This is a Phase 2.0 capability. In addition, during Phase 2.0 the “twinning” capability will be enhanced allowing the smart cell phone to use the identity of the PBX extension instead of the cell phone on outgoing wireless calls. Other enhancements will include: cloud data secure backup, email hosting (Partners or Toshiba) and vertical applications (Toshiba, third-Party).

Interview with Brian Metherell, VP & GM Toshiba

What is the market’s acceptance of hosted/cloud solutions by customers?

Partners have seen a significant positive shift in the request and requirement for cloud services, and in the amount of competition they are facing in comparison to what they faced when they had just the premise-based solution. In fact, Toshiba is experiencing growth consistent with the Frost & Sullivan 2010-2018 IPT and UC Services Market forecast that was shown at Tigerpaw depicting a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of about 30 percent in lines and revenue.

Many customers want cloud-based telephony either because of the OpEx for CapEx tradeoff, or because their philosophy is such that it’s not core and they do not want to run it. On the other hand, some customers want premise-based telephony, because they feel they require control and they have the staff to do it. In our case, because we do both, we’re not going to fight the battle to change their mind. We can be a trusted advisor and say we have both and let each choose what best matches their needs.

All this is well and good. But partners with dedicated cloud and on-premise sales teams have found that they were losing deals to premise-based competitors because the cloud sales guys wouldn’t give up the leads to the internal premise-based sales team. Dealers, in this situation, have started offering referral fees to boost teamwork.

How is the channel embracing hosted/cloud solutions from Toshiba?

We’re certainly not the first people to market on the hosted PBX. In a number of cases our dealers carry competitive host PBXs already. We have found a significant and fast adoption rate by our dealers who already have a hosted solution for sale. The channel response was just that it was easier to sell the hosted Toshiba solution. The Toshiba name helps, and it’s the same phones and the same software that the IPedge runs. So there’s a pretty clean story that they can tell. A rep can go out and be the trusted advisor to the customer.

Do you see VIPedge as vendor "pull through” or channel "push?"

This is certainly channel push. But Toshiba, itself, is doing a lot of work to make it vendor pull as well. The channel does have the sales reps and they sell it. But we’re trying to drive leads to them. Furthermore, in order to drive early adoption, we’ve heavily discounted/subsidized the phones. The most popular models are 75 percent off list. We’re moving in parallel to the cell phone provider who subsidizes the phone in order to charge on an ongoing basis for network use.

In addition, we’ve got a website where the channel partners can go and pull up a basic configuration and get some basic costing. They can even use the website to self-diagnose whether or not their customer has the LAN/WAN connectivity that is good enough for hosted. The dealers will also be doing the installation, including a router that we’ve certified. The phones, they just plug-in and they self-register. But the dealer can program them in order to customize the application for the end customer. So there is very much a team effort going on here. But it is the dealer’s customer.

We believe it’s a better customer experience with our dealers driving the implementation. We have a tremendous benefit of having over 30 years experience with the dealer network with some 500 dealers across the US. It would be foolish for us not to utilize, take advantage of, and deliver all of that strength to the end customer. We truly believe that’s a unique value proposition.

How do you relate to your channel in terms of services delivery?

Our partners are upfront. They are the primary driver for the sales and for the implementation and the project management and all of the after-sales service. We provide support to those dealers as it relates to programming questions or any form of tech support, even some project management advice. If asked, we will also go to the site with the partner to help with sales process. We mainly help in the background, but it is definitely what you would call a co-delivery model.

When we go in with a partner, at their request, we do it as Toshiba. To be clear, we have not been asked to do that in any of our cloud implementations. They've all been dealer run. And the dealer handles all ongoing maintenance. Now we do 24x7 remote monitoring. But the dealer does anything that needs to be done on-site to get the customer trained and up and running.

Has there been a channel push to white label VIPedge and move into the MSP business?

We hold dealer webinars and we ask our dealer principals what they want. Well over 90 percent said they did not want to white label. Some of our dealers who have been selling other third-party hosted services or even white labeling under their own name have had difficulty with name recognition. In fact, many of those have switched over VIPedge in order to leverage our Toshiba brand.

What is Toshiba doing in the realm of channel enablement?

Today, over 80 percent of our dealers and dealer technicians are doing self-paced training online. It’s customized for our applications and involves: how to use the tools for LAN /WAN assessment, how to program the system, setup of SIP integration, etc. The other thing we’re doing is providing sales intelligence through a third-party that can literally drive hundreds of leads a week into our dealer network. It’s not purely leads, it's sales intelligence indicating when somebody’s been funded or relocating and how many square feet they are relocating to. That helps partners quickly identify opportunities. We’re also heavily focused on social media and search engine optimization to help identify and draw in online leads.

We’re doing a lot of work with our dealers to make sure they do their own local research in terms of website and marcom comparisons. We found dealers who didn’t even have a contact or chat link on their website. If you wanted to talk to them, you had to phone them. Well, people who are searching on the web want to be able to do their research on the web. They don’t want to phone a salesperson until they’ve conducted all their preliminary research. Partners have to be cognizant of today’s cloud buyer characteristics and react accordingly. And partners have to specifically understand that cloud buyers are more technically savvy than premise equipment buyers. Toshiba is working hard to support our dealers so that we can all succeed in this fast-changing Cloud market.