On the 9th November 2021, Mitel and RingCentral announced their formal partnership marking a shift in approach for Mitel and their 35 million global users. The partnership with Gartner magic quadrant leader RingCentral finally enables Mitel to add a true Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) cloud subscription model to its portfolio.
After digesting the announcement and attending the Global Mitel Consultant briefing, we have summarised some guidance which we hope provides some insight to the significance of this news. Importantly our guidance is based on our Lead Consultant, Richard Betts unique position as Independent Consultant drawing on over 20 years’ personal experience working with both Mitel & RingCentral in his career.
The Big Picture
The UC marketplace has undergone a rapid change due to the pandemic. The global lockdown forced organisations to rapidly deploy remote telecoms services to their distributed workforce. This opened the door to new entrants Microsoft Teams and Zoom who rapidly secured market share alongside more established players RingCentral and 8×8 leaving traditional non UCaaS vendors in their wake.
Mitel were developing their own UCaaS service which was a good strategic decision and much needed to consolidate their multiple platforms following their acquisitions. However the pandemic accelerated the rate of growth in the UCaaS market with Mitel not being able to capitalise on the opportunity.
Mitel’s traditional competitors namely AVAYA, Atos Unify and Alcatel/Lucent have all decided to opt for the RingCentral UCaaS partnership as their route to market instead of developing their subscription service. Positively the RingCentral partnership model is tried and tested as is the onboarding process onto the RingCentral MVP service.
Mitel’s news reinforces the trend that technology investors demand solid and growing annual reoccurring revenue (ARR) business models from their Teleco investments. RingCentral has been able to provide the answer to this investment requirement for the traditional vendors in the telco, SIP and VoIP marketplace. Mitel are following a well trodden path where profitability sustained growth can be a reality and testimony to the success of the RingCentral model.
AVAYA’s latest Q3 earnings statement is further evidence of the shift in the market with Jim Chirico, president and CEO of Avaya stating, “Annual recurring revenue, a key indicator of our progress, is outperforming our expectations, up over 275% percent from a year ago to $425 million”. It is clear to see why Mitel’s new CEO Tarun Loomba signed the partnership.
What next if you have a Mitel system
Clearly there is going to be a lot of activity within the market, especially in the early days of such an announcement. Positively there is no need to react immediately as Mitel imply the status quo should prevail. Mitel have already taken steps to define the key elements of their portfolio along with their Cloud Transformation Model, this should settle nerves. Furthermore initial commitments suggest that work will commence in early 2022 on integrating Mitel devices onto the RingCentral MVP platform – this is positive considering the huge investment made into endpoints. However the finer detail of this integration is yet to be clearly defined.
With workplaces adapting to life post lockdown and pressures to implement a hybrid working strategy, this news provides the perfect opportunity to stop and reassess your communication requirements and strategic needs. This way, organisations are ideally placed to make an informed decision on your next step as the Mitel roadmap and finer detail becomes clearer.
How can Trig Point Consulting Help
We have experience working with both Mitel and RingCentral we are ideally positioned to assist our clients in defining their requirements especially post pandemic as part of our Discovery process. We can then formulate the strategic options to enable CTOs, IT Directors and business leaders to make balanced informed decisions on the next step with their Mitel platforms.
In Summary
As an independent Consultancy the move by Mitel to partner with RingCentral is a positive decision and one which should enable Mitel to evolve in the UCaaS marketplace. Our advice to organisations with Mitel is to use the time now to assess your needs especially in the wake of the pandemic. This way firms will be prepared and ideally placed to maximise the opportunity when Mitel releases their UCaaS market offers.
If you need assistance or simply want to discuss the options available following this news we are happy to help. Please book your free Initial Consultancy Session with our Lead Consultant, Richard Betts or please make contact via our Contact us page or email info@trigpointconsulting.co.uk.
