The second is a new workflow orchestration product that integrates with a range of processes and applications, including those related to the Internet of Things. The solution is intended to enable micro-business processes as well as other orchestration, but includes integration into the communications aspects. While companies like Cisco and Microsoft are focused on their team collaboration products for micro-business process implementations, the NEC solutions may have advantages in other ways, including the integration of other NEC IT elements.
One key challenge for NEC is the transition of the channel partners to selling and supporting these new solutions. That some have begun the transition was evident at the event, but so too was that a large number still haven't begun to do so.
With shrinking average cost/revenue for monthly communications seats, one key point for channel partners is how they can increase the revenue per customer by adding in new products and solutions --this, of course, being a critical component of a successful value-added reseller/integrator business model. A key measure of NEC's success will be the uptake by its traditional telephony channel of the new adjacent solutions. Cisco faced a similar issue in the early VoIP days, when its data channel struggled with voice deployments. Just as opportunity, training, and channel mergers enabled the Cisco channel to sell Call Manager, NEC is focused on transformation to sell the NEC adjacencies.
Core Positioning
From a traditional communications platform perspective, NEC continues to improve its products as well as accelerate the availability of a cloud offer. As discussed at the event, NEC has a new licensing strategy that enables companies to migrate licenses from smaller separate systems to a centralized core system. This is designed to enable both migration from nodal branches to a converged central system or to the cloud.
In a world where product differentiation is often less important than solution adjacencies and sales position, NEC continues to provide a solid product underpinning. Interestingly, consultants in attendance at the event had almost universal praise about how generally challenge-free NEC solutions are.
Overall, I came away impressed that NEC, in many ways like Mitel, is growing and winning in our industry, without the hype of video, collaboration, meetings, and teams. While most of the industry pundits and press focuses on the Microsoft-Cisco battle for teams and video, NEC and Mitel are quietly winning half of the market share of the four big vendors (24.6% market share of the 48.2% total T3i attributes to NEC, Cisco, Avaya, and Mitel). They are accomplishing this by focusing on the core elements of communications, telephony, basic collaboration, and contact center.
While NEC has partnered with Vidyo for a video solution, video may not be a major buying driver for its customers. NEC customers instead are focused on dependability and telephony today, and the adjacencies are clearly of interest in the same markets and verticals. For example, facial recognition has strong use cases in all of the NEC vertical focus areas. NEC adds in the adjacencies and the scale of a large global organization to compete in an ever-complex market.
Based on what I heard and saw at the event, for companies that are not totally knowledge worker (read my whitepaper about worker types and communications needs) organizations should include NEC (and Mitel) as companies to consider as a business communications solution provider.
Related content:
