Cloud and On-Premise: Why Businesses and End Users Need their UC Vendor to Offer Both

Buying a Unified Communication business phone system can be confusing.  There are many options, many pricing models and many features.  And in many cases, what’s right for an SMB is not right for a large enterprise, and vice versa.  What is right for me?  One of the first decisions you’ll need to make is should I install a system on-premise, or be serviced via a cloud. If you talk to different people, you’ll get many different answers.  And that’s because whether you go to cloud or prem will be dependent on your unique requirements.  What is good for the business next door may not work for you.  And if you talk to different vendors, you’ll get different answers as well, most likely extremely skewed to whatever they offer (because most don’t offer the same product in premise or cloud form), or which part of the company the particular sales person is getting paid from.  So you might even get different answers from different sales people from the same company!  Super confusing. So what are you to do?  One of best things to do is to start with a vendor that offers both on-premise and cloud.  And one that offers the same product for both.  Many companies offer premise and cloud, but because of various M&A they have done, the cloud product is very different from the prem product.   What are the top 5 reasons you should choose a vendor like this?  

One – The vendor (or reseller of the vendor) can act as a true trusted advisor.

If the vendor (or reseller) offers the same product both premise and cloud, all the vendor (or reseller) cares about is making the sale.  Not a cloud sale.  Or not a premise sale.  Just a sale to you, that fits what is best for you.   A true trusted advisor can help you understand and navigate through your unique needs. 

Two – A product with the same look and feel will have future benefits.

If the company is growing and you want to put remote offices on the cloud, then all employees will have the same tools and look and feel for their UC system.  It also gives you as the end user flexibility should you want to change to/from cloud or prem for some reason.

Three – As you go through the process, you’ll be dealing with the same sales people.

In many cases, companies have different sales teams because they represent different products or different divisions.  You’ll want to maintain talking to the same sales team so you get consistent answers you can understand.

Four – You won’t have to worry about channel conflict causing you confusion.

Many vendors with large on-premise installed bases are essentially instructing their sales people or channel to sell cloud.   They can’t possibly act as trusted advisors in that case.   And in some cases, the channels are entirely different.  You may get calls from two different resellers – one selling a vendor’s cloud product and another selling a vendor’s on-prem product.

Five – Maybe you haven’t decided which is best for you.

This could be about cloud vs. on prem, but also could be about remote work capability, CRM integration, video calls, contact center features, etc.  You need to talk it through.  Which brings us back to the Trusted Advisor role as described in number 1. Sangoma offers both on-premise and cloud solutions for both PBXact and Switchvox UC products.