NFON increasing channel support
Vendor has seen its IT partner levels increase and has a fresh portal and products that will support resellers
Cloud telephony specialist NFON expects its coming integration with Microsoft Teams to spur growth on the IT side of its channel business.
The firm has a base of telephony partners, but has been growing its IT dealer numbers over the past three years. It expects the compatibility with Microsoft to appeal to all partners.
“Over the past two or three years, we’ve built up a good working relationship with IT resellers, and we continue to develop that side of the business as they move more and more into the cloud telephony world,” said Myles Leach, UK managing director at NFON.
“Microsoft Teams integration is really going to help that side of our channel,” he added, claiming that the product’s availability from the first quarter would “make it a much easier sale for them because the app is in within the Microsoft Teams environment already”.
Leach said the market had accelerated since the pandemic because customers had been exposed to the technology and had become familiar with cloud telephony.
“It became the thing to use and the interface that people wanted to choose and become used to. It’s really pushed them and we’re seeing that those who embraced cloud telephony, maybe before Covid, but struggled to take it out to their customer base, are now finding it a lot easier,” he said.
The firm has updated its partner portal to make sure it can support the channel and foster growth as it looks ahead to 2023.
“We’re attracting very different types of reseller now. It is not just the traditional telco reseller – there are IT support MSPs [managed service providers], as well as print resellers,” said Christopher Selby-Rickards, UK marketing director at NFON.
“It had to be something that everybody can do easily, so it had to be simple, easy to navigate, all those kinds of things. Also very flexible, because we were getting a lot of different people as we started to work with larger partners, who had multiple teams. We had to make sure that these people are able to access information easily and have access to things that are relevant to them,” he added.
In terms of the year ahead, there are clearly concerns across the industry around economic headwinds, but Leach is confident it has taken steps to support the channel in the UK.
“In the past three years, our product has moved on quite significantly, and continues to do so with everything else that we have, including the partner portal and our approach. We’re as confident as we can be,” he said.
“It’s all about how we support those partners we work with, because they’re the trading arm, if you like, of NFON,” he added.
