INTERVIEW Andrew Graves - Nuvias
“Direct Routing represents a huge opportunity for the channel and Microsoft have seemingly endeavoured to
make Teams as channel friendly as possible.” Andrew Graves, Pre-Sales Solution Specialist - Nuvias
No Brainer?
The hosted telephony players have been experiencing a surge in demand like everyone else that can offer
flexible technology right now. In this interview Comms Business spoke with Andrew Graves, Pre-Sales Solution
Specialist at Nuvias, about the hosted telephony market in 2020
CBM: Is ISDN end of life still
a major driver for the march
towards hosted telephony?
Andrew Graves (AG): Yes
and no. Many smaller
organisations have already
made the transition to hosted
telephony but larger enterprises
are still reluctant to move
to hosted because of the
commercial model. Hosted
doesn’t really stack up when
many users are involved. ese
types of organisations are more
likely to be looking at things
like Microsoft Teams and
using this as a replacement for
their PBX when it comes to the
end of its life.
CBM: Has Microsoft delivered
a killer blow to the market
with its Direct Routing
proposition or is this another
Channel opportunity?
AG: Absolutely not. Direct
Routing represents a huge
opportunity for the channel
and Microsoft have seemingly
endeavoured to make Teams
as channel friendly as possible.
eir Calling Plans are only
really viable for smaller
organisations due to the costs
involved. Many organisations
looking to migrate to Teams
from a legacy solution already
have SIP trunking in place;
Direct Routing enables them –
through their service provider –
to leverage this when migrating
to Teams and can save them
signicant sums compared to
purchasing a Calling Plan for
each user. is combined with
the sizeable opportunity for end
points – headsets, desk phones,
video conferencing systems etc.
– plus the professional services
required to enable organisations
to use the functionality
correctly, means that Teams is
a great area for resellers to get
involved in.
CBM: What do partners
really want out of an IP
proposition? Sticky product,
margin rich, solid network
uptime, or all the above? Can
one service really cover all
your bases?
AG: All of the above really. Very
few partners we deal with will
have only one UC solution
to oer customers – there is
no one-size-ts-all product
on the market. Most of our
channel partners have a range
of solutions in their armoury;
a hosted solution (or two), onpremises
PBX solutions from the
traditional telephony providers
plus solutions like Teams or
WebEx for organisations who
want to do more than just make
calls. It makes sense to have this
exible approach as every end
user is dierent and has their
own specic needs.
CBM: Have the larger
providers taken the legs out
of the market with the ability
to offer super cheap bundled
propositions?
AG: Not really, as these
solutions aren’t suitable for all
and resellers can always look
to dierentiate their oering
and make their proposition
unique through the value that
they add. Where providers
like Gamma have been so
successful is by making their
product so easy for resellers
to sell. Resellers with little
to no UC experience can
sell next generation hosted
voice technologies to their
existing customer base, with
the service provider being the
one responsible for owning and
operating the platform. To coin
a phrase, they have made selling
their s Andrew Graves, Pre-Sales Solution Specialist at Nuvias olution a ‘no brainer’.
46 | Comms Business Magazine | June 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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