Introducing UNIVERGE BLUE® Early Adopters Series – Where NEC Corporation of America (NEC) honors Channel Partners who were early adopters of UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES and are improving customer care, employee engagement, and business operations. Hear the stories of why our early adopters chose UNIVERGE BLUE for their customers.
MDCOM was first incorporated in 1979 and currently employs staff with over two centuries experience in business communications and technologies.
I recently met with Eric Lutz, President and CEO of MDCOM to discuss the partnership with NEC and his experience being an early adopter of the New Generation of UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES, which is NEC’s portfolio of cloud services.
MDCOM has a long and rich history of offering NEC’s on-premises communications platforms and systems including NEC’s UNIVERGE® SV9000 and the SL2100 Communications Systems. As a long-standing NEC Channel Partner, the decision to be an early adopter of the New Generation of UNIVERGE BLUE was an easy one. Eric explained, “Based on the level of attention we have received over the years and the success our business has seen from selling NEC’s hardware solutions, expanding our relationship with NEC was an easy decision – so we adopted UNIVERGE BLUE as soon as it was released – we came on right out of the gate”.
The Challenge
MDCOM had previously offered hosted telephony to their customers but realized that there were some significant disadvantages to the vendor they chose. Eric described, “The problem that we ran into is that there was way too much heavy lifting based off our infrastructure. We also noticed that we were gaining customers very easily, but we would lose those customers just as easily”. MDCOM wanted to own more of the customer relationship and maintain a strong and close bond with customers, like the way they do with their hardware customers. They wanted to do so without being overwhelmed with backend IT management and implementations.
The Solution: NEC’S UNIVERGE BLUE COUD SERVICES Partner Program
- The Ability to Choose a Revenue Model
Eric appreciated the three options of partner models that NEC allowed him to choose from, but ultimately decided to go with the Revenue Share partner model which allows Channel Partners to stay involved with the customer and even set the sell prices for each customer. “As you know it doesn’t matter if you are selling hardware, software, or services, the technology industry is competitive, so you really have to be aware of your market and your price points. We’re able to adjust our price points based on the market demands with the Revenue Share Model. I think that is number 1 in terms of advantages,” Eric explained. By being able to adjust the margin on the monthly revenue, UNIVERGE BLUE has provided MDCOM’s sellers with more attractive margins and better commissions. - Easily Integrated into all Business Environments
Trying to integrate hardware into customer environments has become increasingly more complex and challenging. According to Eric, “When you talk about IP Communications and networking multiple systems, there is a great deal of complexity which forces you to continually upgrade your technician skills- but as much as you do- you are always turning the corner to a new issue”.After explaining some of the challenges MDCOM faced with being a hardware provider, Eric went on to highlight ease-of-use and simplified management that UNIVERGE BLUE has to offer. Eric expressed, “[UNIVERGE BLUE] CLOUD has been a breath of fresh air from the technical and implementation perspective. We now have insight down to the button level of a customer’s end points. We can control the users, passwords, automated attendants, time zones, and call recording. We log in from anywhere and we have insight into every single customer and user device, and we can make changes or add services for a customer at any time.”
- A Better Bond with Customers
Eric compared the relationship that he now has with his UNIVERGE BLUE customers to the relationship that he has with his hardware customers. When you provide hardware to a customer, you are with them for a very long time due to the long lifespan of on-premises systems, NEC’s in particular. With UNIVERGE BLUE, MDCOM was able to maintain a strong bond with their customers, like the bond they have as a hardware provider. Being able to provide the first line of support and continue to manage the relationship with the customer has created a “stickier” long-term relationship with customers, according to Eric. - Feature Capabilities and Easy Implementation
Another aspect of UNIVERGE BLUE that has benefitted MDCOM and their customers is the ease of implementation when it comes to feature enhancements. With on-premises hardware, if a customer wanted to add a feature or update endpoints, the process could be highly labor intensive and expensive. With cloud services, Eric can simply go into the UNIVERGE BLUE management portal to add any specific feature to every endpoint in a customer location as well as scale up or down as needed. “That type of feature invigoration has really been a huge plus. The deployment could not have been simpler,” Eric said.MDCOM launched UNIVERGE BLUE in April 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic lock downs. During this time, MDCOM did not have their normal complement of field technicians out on the road, but according to Eric, they were still able to deploy systems. “Phones were getting drop shipped to customer locations and it was very easy for them to plug in the instruments; we did everything in the back office. Being able to install over a dozen systems without having a technician cross a customer’s doorway was a huge benefit to us,” Eric explained.
- Quick and Painless Quoting
With the BLUE quoting tool, the ability to provide a customer with a very professional looking proposal with accurate pricing is seamless according to Eric. Adding one-time services and/or monthly services is as easy as a click of a button. Once you create and confirm the quote, the tool will automatically send your customer proposal via e-doc, the customer signs the doc, which then allows the sales rep to immediately create and provision the account. “It’s just been one of the most seamless deployments that we’ve been able to be a part of,” according to Eric.
The Result
MDCOM has found that selling UNIVERGE BLUE is very easy. It’s robust feature and solution capabilities make NEC a one-stop-shop for fully integrated cloud services. “Customers appreciate having everything integrated into one single application. UNIVERGE BLUE has solved much of the application fatigue that customers are facing as they switch back from countless different applications daily”. In addition to this, “People know that NEC offers the most reliable and secure communications and IT solutions, they trust the name brand, and they trust that they will be taken care of with NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES. When I walk into a customer account that has used NEC in the past, they are excited to have a conversation about NEC”. Overall, NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES has allowed MDCOM to improve their revenue stream, expand their solution offering into customer accounts, and control their customer relationships.
“The UNIVERGE BLUE launch has been the best rollout that I have been a part of as an NEC partner for well over 10 years now. NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE has been our easiest adoption of any new program, product, or solution by far.”
– Eric Lutz, President of MDCOM.
What Will the Future Bring for NEC UNIVERGE BLUE and MDCOM?
MDCOM will continue to sell UNVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES while owning their customer relationship in addition to offering NEC’s on-premises portfolio as they adjust to a Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) model with cloud. MDCOM is excited to see what other features and solutions are released within the UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD Portfolio down the road.
For more information on how you can become a UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner and begin realizing the unlimited benefits and high-margins that come with being a cloud provider, visit https://www.univergeblue.com/partners today. For any questions about the program or to meet with a UNIVERGE BLUE Partner Program Representative, submit your information to us and we will get back to you shortly.
