INTERVIEW Paul Taylor - Voiceflex
“It’s not the only UC&C application on the market but it will be the one which
everyone else benchmarks their solution on.” Paul Taylor, Sales Director - Voiceflex
Direct Routing with a difference
In this interview Paul Taylor, Sales Director at Voiceflex, spoke to Comms Business for a company update and
about their new Direct Routing proposition
Comms Business Magazine
(CBM): How are trading
conditions right now for
Voiceflex?
Paul Taylor (PT): ere is very
little new business going on so
very few SIP Trunk orders are
going through right now. I speak
to several people in the market
on a regular basis and if anyone
says they are rushed o their feet
they are absolutely lying!
We are a revenue-based
business and when you look at
the services we supply people
still need those, they might
reduce them down temporarily
but they need them. Looking at
the new SIP Trunks we had in
this month and comparing them
against terminations, they were
about the same. We are currently
standing still, which is not a bad
place to be in at the moment.
We are also still signing up new
partners and supporting them.
CBM: Is it a big leap to think
much of the collaboration
technology people are using
now will stick in the long
term?
PT: I don’t think it’s a big leap. I
have two friends that have just
started using Teams in dierent
industries and they say it’s the
best thing since sliced bread.
ey knew it was there but have
never used it. ey have both
said they will use it a lot more
moving forwards. In March,
Microsoft reported 44 million
users (now 75 million) of Teams
and 90 million minutes of
meetings, I think under normal
circumstances that would have
taken about ve years to achieve.
All the meetings now are
either on Microsoft or Zoom,
and that’s friends, family or
business. It’s not the only
UC&C application on the
market but it will be the one
which everyone else benchmarks
their solution on. When you
work out the standard license
cost price to the reseller is about
£6 and they put it out to the
market at around £10, it is the
same as a hosted seat. I have
spoken to some resellers that
have said they are only going
to sell Microsoft Teams going
forwards.
CBM: You have launched your
Direct Routing proposition,
why is it any different?
PT: We are selling the same thing
we do with every other PABX
which means it is just a SIP
Trunk and not a per user license.
If you take a normal hosted
product you normally need 1
SIP Trunk for 20 users, that’s
the average if you have 5,000 in
your base. Teams is federated,
which means there is no PSTN
requirements. As more people go
for the federation route it is all
on net, not o-net, which means
the number of telephone calls is
going to be signicantly less.
at is the way we have always
sold SIP Trunks, so we didn’t
want to change that. It’s easy
for the partner to work out how
many SIP Trunks they need
per customer, and the larger the
organisation the less SIP Trunks
you are going to need per head.
We also have an application
called Forking. If you have SIP
Trunks on your traditional
telephony system and you have
SIP Trunks into Teams, on an
inbound call it will ring on both
circuits. Which ever one answers
it rst will take the call.
With applications such as
Forking, you might have a
customer already with SIP
Trunks that you could put a
couple onto Teams. You can
still retain the business from the
telephony application for some
Paul Taylor winning the 2019 Services to the
time to come which is a happy
medium.
CBM: Clearly COVID-19 has had
an impact on Teams adoption,
what about the long term
drivers though?
PT: e catalyst now is people
are used to working from a
PC so they are more condent
to go with a hosted product
which would link it to Teams.
You used to sell PABX into the
Channel at the Comms Business Awards
owner manager of a businesses,
now you are selling to the IT
department. A lot of these IT
departments look after their
own Microsoft applications. If
you have a small business with
an IT guy what is he going to
do? He will take Teams because
it is dead easy and where it
doesn’t do what they want
they will work around it. No
one else has the single reach of
Microsoft.
42 | Comms Business Magazine | June 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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