Ask Steve: Agents Can Help SMBs Overcome IP Telephony Fear

What Do SMBs Want?
Ask Yankee Group analyst Steve Hilton. Send your questions to asksteve@yankeegroup.com. Please include your name, city, state and a phone number. Only first names and locations will be published. 

In the industry, we often joke about SMBs’ inability to deal with technology issues, almost as much as my kids joke at my inability to reset the clock on our microwave oven. This month, in Ask Steve, let’s discuss ways for channel partners to overcome an SMB’s largest technology-related concerns regarding IP telephony deployment.

Q: I often find my customers lacking in skills to deal with IP. As an IP PBX dealer in the Chicago suburbs, what skills should I focus on to convince my customers to adopt an IP phone system?

— Clarence, Schaumberg, Ill.

A: Good question, Clarence. SMBs are notoriously weak on IT (and IP) skills. They focus on their businesses’ top business challenges like landing and keeping happy customers who spend more. They tend to ignore or repress all that techie stuff that excites us.

IP telephony still is a scary thing for the majority of SMBs. Based on Yankee Group survey data, no more than 25 percent of SMBs feel fully capable of supporting IP telephony (see chart).

Top Skills Gaps and SMBs' Abilities to Support Ip Telephony

Like Clarence we wondered which particular skills sets were lacking in these SMB decision-makers that would make them feel more comfortable with IP telephony. If we could identify those skill sets, we could advise the channel on areas of concentration — from both marketing and training/certification perspectives — to help SMB decision-makers become less reticent about IP telephony.

Planning and design of the IP telephony network and security-related issues are the top skills lacking in SMBs with 20 to 499 employees. Security almost always ranks as a top IT-related concern for SMBs, but rarely does it hit the radar for communications-related services. This focus on security for IP communications makes it very clear that SMBs view IP telephony as part of their IT issues, not their communications rubric. Channel partners need to highlight their security credentials/certifications and address these security-related issues upfront with SMBs. They should not minimize the potential decision-making paralysis created by SMB security-related concerns. Planning and design should be core skills of phone system partners, otherwise SMB decision-makers wouldn’t have turned to them in the first place. Partners should focus on past implementations and sound networking implementation processes to overcome SMB concerns related to the planning and design phases of implementation.

SMBs that have not deployed IP telephony also believe they lack the skills for end-user training. Once SMBs deploy IP telephony, they seem less concerned about their lack of end-user training skills. Fear of the unknown often is more stress inducing than the actual unknown. We believe end-user training is something channel partners and vendors must address early in the sales process, but in actuality, use of the voice-related features of an IP phone system are very similar to a TDM phone system. The bigger end-user worries should be related to unified communications (UC) offerings over these new systems. Either way, channel partners should offer simple train-the-trainer programs to address these SMB concerns for voice-related and UC solutions.

Steve Hilton is the vice president of Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research Group with an expertise in converged solutions for SMBs. Hilton manages a team of analysts delivering consulting, research and programs to help vendors and service providers better serve SMBs, midmarket enterprises and large enterprises globally. Visit Yankee Group online at www.yankeegroup.com.