The UCaaS market continues to grow, and for good reason. The benefits of a communications solution that combines UC and cloud computing delivers a host of benefits, including communications efficiency, geographic flexibility and business agility. There are a host of other buzzwords to that highlight why businesses should move from their current communications solutions to modern UCaaS alternatives – and they make sense.
But, what the UCaaS vendors that are so good at espousing the benefits of their solutions don’t talk about is the migration process and ongoing management once the migration is complete. Providers would like customers to think it’s a simple process, but the truth is typically just the opposite from the beginning.
Think about it – it makes sense. At some point, every user had to be added to the system and configured with the right devices, connections, features, permissions, etc. When companies switch systems, all that data has to be migrated as well before the new solution is ready for use. The larger the business, the more complicated the migration becomes.
Headquartered in Paris, Kurmi Software saw a significant opportunity in the U.S. about two years ago as the UCaaS vendors started enjoying greater upmarket success. Kurmi specializes in UC migration and management and understands not only now complex large-scale migrations can be, but it has delivered a solution to simplify it.
In fact, whether businesses are moving from on-premises to cloud solutions, or from one vendor to another within the same delivery model, Kurmi provides a simple interface that allows mapping from one solution to the other, then automatically collects the data from the old system and pushes it to the new one.
“According to some of our customers, our software saves the up to 80% in operational costs by automating these day-to-day tasks,” CEO Thibaut Feigeres told me last week at Enterprise Connect. “We put the same interface on top of any vendor’s solution.”
To Thibaut, one of the keys is Kurmi is able to adapt to any business’ processes and services – sometimes mirroring service provider environments requires a little additional customization, but that, too is done using the same interface and software.
“We are not a service company – we are a software company,” he said adamantly. “But it is highly customizable, which is why the service providers love us, for the differentiation they can bring to their customers through the way they are able to interact with them through our management portal.”
That portal provides for more than the migration process – it includes resources for complete ongoing management of all the components of UC solutions. The software gives providers a single interface to manage and create new customers and create management portals for those end customers to manage their own implementations as needed.
Of course, Kurmi also has pre-built configurations that can be deployed quickly off the shelf for customers that don’t need high levels of customization, which can provide a quick fix for enterprises that have tried to use self-developed management solutions but have failed to update them or build in enough functionality.
Thibaut says the company is also going to become much more focused on the MSP market. This again makes sense, as MSPs are increasingly adding UCaaS services to their portfolios to increase their value and generate additional recurring revenue. With many customers to migrate and manage, these MSPs will certainly look to simplify management of their customers’ UC implementations.
For the very latest on how the MSP market is handling the complexities of adding UCaaS to traditional IT services – along with other key discussions about the evolution of the MSP business model – don’t miss MSP Expo in Las Vegas, April 24-25.
Edited by
Erik Linask
