Collaborative: Untrained Sales Channel Inhibits Conferencing System Sales

Posted: 5/2003

Untrained Sales Channel Inhibits Conferencing System Sales

By Zeus Kerravala

Many factors -- price, buyer behavior, service, etc. -- can impact technology adoption. In the case of conferencing applications, however, sales and marketing could be a major inhibitor, according to new research from The Yankee Group, which surveyed end users about drivers and barriers for use of these technologies. The data suggest widespread implementation depends upon the execution of the sales and service channel.

Among audio, Web and video conferencing technologies, video conferencing is more complex to sell and service. Complicating the process is the technologies' own transition from support for ISDN to IP infrastructure, which is expected to be a boon for the application. Currently, video conferencing equipment is sold predominantly through an indirect channel made up of audio/visual resellers and video conferencing specialists -- neither of which is proficient with data networking technology. Until the channel becomes comfortable with explaining the value proposition of video-over-IP to end users, adoption will be slow.

In contrast, audio conferencing and Web conferencing primarily have been delivered to end users through service providers. Due to the growing usage and high demand for conferencing services, several conferencing bridge platform vendors have started to change their marketing and sales strategy to sell directly to enterprises. A few of the vendors offer customer premise solutions that deliver both Web and audio conferencing services. A September 2002 Yankee Group study showed such a platform offers a seven-month return on investment for a midsized enterprise with 600 employees, 15 Web conferencing users and 50,000 minutes of audio conferencing use. This kind of ROI is compelling enough for an enterprise to seriously consider purchasing an audio/Web conferencing platform. The challenge, however, is to find a sales channel proficient enough to sell and service it.

Both the voice and data reseller channels have been reluctant to add convergence equipment and applications to their product lines. Adding new products requires training sales and service people, which many resellers have not been willing to do. Logic should dictate that voice or data resellers would want to leverage existing relationships with their main product lines to upsell conferencing equipment. The reality, however, is that the vendors have had a difficult time bringing on channel partners.

Yankee Group recommends vendors make it a top priority to teach the indirect and direct sales channels how to sell the value proposition of applications to potential customers. Training should focus on how the applications can make business users of the applications more productive and improve business process and efficiencies. In addition, vendors must dedicate resources toward training technicians to do all the work associated with preparing the LAN and WAN to deliver quality voice and video.

By the same token, channel partners have an opportunity to penetrate markets for conferencing services by taking advantage of such training to deliver technology around business imperatives and the application requirements of the specific verticals.

Zeus Kerravala is vice president, enterprise infrastructure, for The Yankee Group. He can be reached at zkerravala@yankeegroup.com.