Consultants Grade The VendorsConsultants Grade The Vendors
What’s most important in choosing a system, and which vendors deliver? Members of the leading consultants’ groups in the U.S. and Canada weigh in.
January 28, 2008
This article originally appeared in the December 2007 issue of Business Communications Review
Members of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants (STC) and the Canadian Telecommunications Consultant Association (CTCA) recently participated in a survey designed, distributed and analyzed by TEQConsult Group. The survey’s primary objective was to determine how leading enterprise communications system suppliers compare with each other based on the experiences and perceptions of telecommunications consultants. This year’s survey is a follow-up to the consultant survey as reported in BCR January 2007.
The STC is a not-for-profit organization made up of independent telecommunications consultants based in the U.S.; the CTCA, as its name implies, is composed of independent telecommunications consultants based in Canada. The STC and CTCA both provide forums where telecom consultants can discuss and share their experiences and encourage educational opportunities that will ensure the advancement of their profession. Telecommunications suppliers and distributors are associate members of each organization and work closely with the consultants for the betterment of the industry.
The two professional organizations are self-regulating, with a strict Code of Ethics, and require applicants to have several years’ industry experience before they are considered for membership. An important membership criterion is that consultants must be independent, and not have ongoing fiduciary relationships with telecommunications equipment suppliers and distributors that could influence advice provided to their clients. Membership in the STC or CTCA signifies that a consultant maintains a current perspective on industry events and is an active participant in the industry’s future direction.
Survey Results
There were 58 survey participants, all with extensive industry experience. The consultant experience distribution is as follows: 57 percent have more than a quarter-century experience; 31 percent have 15–25 years’ experience; and 12 percent have 5–15 years’ experience. The survey participants were not novices. The list of suppliers graded in the survey is made up primarily of STC Vendor Advisory Council (VAC) and CTCA Supplier Liaison Council members with a complete portfolio of enterprise communications system products and application options. The vendor grading scale for survey questions was:
Weak (1 point)
Fair (2 points)
Good (3 points)
Excellent (4 points)
A score of at least 2.5 should be considered satisfactory; below a 2.5 score indicates a high number of Weak–Fair grades from the consultants. More detailed grading results are currently available to STC and CTCA members only, but a report will be available for purchase at a later date.
Not all participants fully completed the survey, and for the vendor grading questions there was an option to check “No Answer” if the individual believed their lack of experience/knowledge for a specific vendor did not warrant a response. For this reason, the number of responses varied per vendor by survey question.
A few general observations before presenting the results:
There appears to be a high correlation between vendor prominence (as measured in market share and revenues) in the domestic market and the survey’s consultant grades for vendor consultant programs, support capabilities and product offerings.
The domestic enterprise communications system market leaders run the strongest consultant support programs (Avaya, Cisco, NEC Unified, Mitel, Nortel, and Siemens) and generally received the highest grades and number of consultant responses.
In some instances, vendors with relatively weak consultant support programs, or no formal program, received far weaker product grades than they should have based on actual technical and feature capabilities.
Avaya received the highest grades in four of the five product categories, and was an extremely close second in the fifth category, but ranked much lower in the two services/support categories. In contrast, Cisco’s product grades were not as strong, but their two services support grades were superior. Is this one of the reasons why Cisco has now replaced Avaya as the domestic PBX market leader based on line shipments?
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Aastra did not fare well in the survey, despite strong global market presence. Each has miniscule U.S. market shares and consultant support services that have not measured up to their strategic competitors.
3Com’s lack of a formal consultant program, until very recently, likely played a role in their receiving weak/fair grades across the board for all vendor-related questions.
Toshiba’s long-term strength in the small systems market does not appear to have translated well with the consultants. This is likely due to low consultant activity in the small line-size market segments that Toshiba focuses on.
Consultant Liaison Program (CLP)
The first question posed to the survey participants was to grade the consultant programs of enterprise communications system suppliers based on their experiences and perceptions. NEC Unified received the strongest grades, edging out last year’s survey leader Cisco. Kudos must be given to Larry Kollie, the sole member of the NEC Unified CLP. Kollie is more than holding his own against other programs staffed with several individuals, such as Cisco’s, Nortel’s and Avaya’s.
Speaking of Avaya, they may be the largest global enterprise communications supplier (based on revenues) and the long-time domestic market leader, but their grades relegated them to an also-ran sixth place finish in this category, consistent with last year’s ranking. Avaya’s failure to name a new program director for many months after its previous director left the company earlier this year may have been a factor for its barely satisfactory overall grade (or maybe it wasn’t).
Also, ShoreTel’s CLP grade of 2.39 may not look impressive until one recognizes that they did not have an in-house CLP manager until shortly before the survey. 3Com, too, did not establish a formal program until recently, but still ranked ahead of Ericsson’s place at the bottom of the rankings.
Vendor Support
The rankings and grades for the next survey question concern a vendor’s ability to support and satisfy consultant needs. Results here were consistent with those for the CLP question. NEC Unified and Cisco received the highest overall grades, followed by the other market leaders Nortel, Siemens, Avaya and Mitel. Avaya’s support grade was greater than its CLP grade, but they still placed fifth. A few of the lower-tier vendors need to significantly step up their game if they want to maintain a competitive market position, because they are dangerously close to the absolute bottom of the grading scale.
It should be noted that Interactive Intelligence, a supplier often left out of discussions about industry market leaders, received slightly better than average grades for both survey questions despite a lesser and more focused market presence than their much larger competitors. Interactive Intelligence is an aggressive marketer, hence it received a good CLP grade, and also provides a solid level of field support for the consultant community. It doesn’t hurt that their corporate flagship product offering (contact center) is highly competitive and well rated by end users and consultants alike.
Voice Communications System Portfolio (PBX, KTS/Hybrid)
Little surprise that Avaya and Nortel received the highest grades from the consultants for the strength of their voice communications system portfolio (Figure 1), despite the former’s declining fortunes in the small systems market and the latter’s recent PBX market share decline. The two vendors have a collective share of about 40 percent of the domestic installed base.
Of the next four ranked vendors, only NEC Unified is a strong KTS/Hybrid vendor, although Mitel’s recent acquisition of Inter-Tel gives them coverage in the space as well. Grades for Interactive Intelligence and ShoreTel placed them ahead of several longer-established vendors, particularly a few with strong global market presence.
Desktop Telephone Instrument Portfolio (Digital, IP)
The top five ranked vendors—Avaya, Mitel, Cisco, NEC Unified, and Nortel—were closely bunched with strong overall grades from the consultants in this area (Figure 2). Siemens lagged slightly behind the top group, despite the introduction this year of their high performance OpenStage models. One can speculate that the new Siemens IP telephones require more marketing support to receive the grades their performance capabilities warrant.
Several of the other vendors received slightly better grades for their telephones than they did in most of the other categories. For example, Toshiba’s telephone grades were its highest among the five product categories.
Contact Center Avaya received the survey’s highest grades for its contact center offering, with only one consultant offering a grade (Fair) less than Good or Excellent. This is Avaya’s strongest product offering, one that they leveraged a few years ago to expand into global markets.
As stated before, this is Interactive Intelligence’s strongest product offering and the consultant grades support this contention. In contrast, Cisco received their weakest grades in this category, although they were still above average.
A somewhat surprising result was the less-than-satisfactory grade of 2.36 received by Alcatel-Lucent, one of the stronger global competitors in this product category and the parent of Genesys Labs, the premier provider of standalone contact center solutions. Alcatel-Lucent’s dismal grades throughout the survey can probably be traced to its poor local marketing initiatives and a weak consultant program during the past few years. Alcatel-Lucent has recognized the errors of its way and is devoting significantly more funds and personnel resource for marketing, and has brought back Jeanne Bayerl to revamp its CLP. Let’s see if Alcatel-Lucent improves its grades in next year’s survey.
Messaging System
Avaya also received the top grades for its messaging systems (voice-only, unified). The next five vendors were relatively close to each other, with Interactive Intelligence making a somewhat surprising appearance as the fourth-ranked vendor, ahead of much bigger-name competitors.
Ten vendors received favorable overall grades of at least 2.5, and an eleventh just missed by a small amount. It appears that the consultants are quite satisfied with most of the leading vendors’ messaging system offerings, although no one vendor could be said to have a superior offering based on the grades.
Unified Communications System
Unified communications (UC) is the product solution everyone is talking about, but few are actually yet implementing. Cisco and Avaya were virtually tied for the highest overall grades, with a small fraction separating the two (Figure 3).
Siemens, the vendor acclaimed by many to have the best UC offering based on feature performance capabilities, came in third. Nortel, another vendor with a very strong UC offering, followed in fourth place. Alcatel-Lucent, a vendor also associated with a very competitive UC offering, received a below average overall grade from the consultants, proving that marketing (good and bad) is a major factor between reality and perception. NEC Unified received its lowest product offering grade in this category, probably because their very recent UC enhancements have not yet been absorbed by the consultant community: NEC’s UC offering has always trailed the market leaders until recently.
Consultant Recommendation Evaluation Factors
The purpose of this question was to determine the most important evaluation factor used by consultants when making a recommendation to a client (Table 1). System performance, including system design, redundancy, features, security capabilities, et al, was the clear winner, with more than half the vote. Price/TCO was second with almost 18 percent of the vote.
The other listed factors (and Other) each received a fraction of the vote, despite much talk hyping vendor services capabilities (pre- and post-installation) and vendor reputation as important decision factors. Based on the survey results, system price/performance should be the primary focus of the vendors when pitching their offerings.
Hosted IP-Telephony System Solutions
According to the survey, only one-third of the consultants have ever recommended an off-premises hosted IP-telephony system solution to their clients. This number is surprising, because market results would assume a far lower percent of recommendations.
The explanation may be that most consultant practices are focused on large enterprise customers, and this is the market segment that has shown a strong reluctance to implement hosted solutions. Hosted system providers should find some solace in the survey result, although the majority of consultants have yet to be persuaded to recommend this alternative to customer premises-based solutions.
Conclusion
For more information about the STC and/or CTCA please visit their respective websites: www.stcconsultants.org and www.ctca.ca
As this is the last issue of BCR, I would like to thank the readers who have conveyed their compliments on my many articles these past 20 years. I am always happy to hear from a reader who enjoyed and/or benefited from something originating from my keyboard.
Allan Sulkin is president of TEQConsult and a frequent speaker at VoiceCon and other industry events, and a contributor to NoJitter.com.
