Independent Consultants Gaining InfluenceIndependent Consultants Gaining Influence

Solution partners are carrying more vendors' product lines, making outside advice more useful for all concerned in a deal.

All elements of the UC industry are changing--from technology to channel. My colleague, Marty Parker, wrote a great article for last week's edition of UC eWeekly and posted No Jitter, "Perspective from the UC Summit 2014: Change". Another change we are seeing is the increased influence of independent industry consultants, and the growing recognition among vendors and integrators that they need to do more to support and leverage this influential community

Independent industry consultants:

* Collectively influence 25% of industry sales across all business size segments and vertical market segments.
* Average 5-7 end user client engagements per year, representing a market awareness multiplier effect for vendors and integrators.
* Are major players:
--The average consultant recommends $9 million worth of solutions annually
--30% of consultants recommend more than $15 million annually
--83% of recommendations are implemented
--Consultants recommend what they know best in concert with qualified channel partners to ensure successful deployment

The annual UC Summit, an invitation-only event held in La Jolla, CA, includes a series of 45-minute focus sessions where vendor sponsors hold private meetings with 10-12 consultants or channel partners (VARs, SIs. Resellers, etc.). The sponsors can request sessions with either group. At the first UC Summit in 2008, sponsors requested less than 20% of focus sessions with consultants. At this year's Summit, that number rose to over 40%. Vendors are clearly looking for ways to engage with the consultant community.

The channel/resellers have historically viewed consultants as a threat to a potential sale. Knowing an independent consultant would recommend the best solution for their client and not knowing if the solution they had to offer was in fact the best fit, a reseller was reluctant to recommend a consultant to a prospect.

The problem was, in the past, most resellers supported only one major platform. This has changed. At the first UC Summit, resellers supported less than 1.6 call control platforms on average. By UC Summit 2014, that average had risen to more than five. Resellers are supporting more platforms, which means they have a better chance of having a fit with a prospect's needs.

The major UC platform vendors--including Alcatel Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel and Unify--have consultant Liaison Programs (CLP), staffed to inform and support consultants, to increase the likelihood of being recommended to the consultants' enterprise clients. A growing number of mid-tier and niche platform vendors have recently started or are looking to launch a CLP.

In addition, resellers are seeing a need for their own CLP. At this year's Summit, Mick Sawka, Managing Partner, CLP Central, announced that 2 major solutions integrators, Black Box and SPS, have joined CLP Central and 2 more would be announced in the next 60 days. That's in addition to 17 vendor programs that engage consultants through CLP Central,, a 1-year-old start up that is leveraging Sawka's 25 years of helping vendors with their CLPs.

An executive from one of the nation's largest solutions integrators commented during the Summit that he saw the lines between his business and the consultant community blurring as his company moves from box selling to providing services, thereby increasing the partnering opportunity between integrators and consultants