Unify ensures reliability and commits to resiliency

Unify specializes in delivering unified communications (UC) and collaboration tools, offering seamless solutions across digital portfolios. Its innovative approach fosters rich conversations across channels, and platforms, providing a mobile, real-time, and collaborative work experience. Centered around the cloud, Unify ensures a secure UCaaS experience, unifying voice, video, and data networks, devices, and applications into an easily accessible platform. This transformative communication and collaboration strategy amplifies collective effort, energizes businesses, improves employee satisfaction, and enhances overall performance. In a chat with VARINDIA, Narayan G, Head of APAC Region, Unify shares insights on the partner transformation, its strength in its conventional Unified Communications offerings, key priorities of Unify India etc. 

Partner Transformation: A Pillar of Unify's Success     
Narayan emphasizes the integral role of partners in the company's growth strategy. Unify operates as a 100% channel company, and Narayan highlights the crucial contribution of legacy partners to their success. He states, "The primary growth factor has come from the legacy partners who have been with us for quite some time. They are a pleasure for us, and our commitment to our partners remains the same." 

In the context of the Indian market, Narayan recognizes the enduring significance of on-premise business, particularly in government and manufacturing sectors. Despite the prevalence of IP requirements, on-premise TDM telephony continues to play a vital role. He underscores the continued investments in on-premise telephony, emphasizing the need for continuous availability. "In India, the importance of on-premise business persists, especially in government and manufacturing. Despite the shift to IP, on-premise TDM telephony is still significant. Big investments in on-premise telephony showcase the continuous demand for availability" comments Narayan.

Unified Communications and Cloud Solutions: Driving Integration 
Unify's strength lies not only in its conventional unified communications offerings but also in its robust cloud solutions. Narayan details the success of their solutions in deep integration, enabling users to seamlessly connect without disrupting existing ecosystems. He states, “On the unified communications and cloud solution front, we have a strong conventional unified communications and a solution with deep integration. Our focus is on scaling critical communication, where we are seen as a differentiator in the market. In the last couple of years, Unify has replaced major banking customers' treasury operation solutions. Our vision is to cater to market requirements in emergency communication, critical event alerting, and trading boards all provided by Unify as a single vendor without third-party solutions." 
However, Narayan sees the future focus shifting towards critical communication. He believes this is where Unify can differentiate itself in the market, aligning with the evolving demands of customers. 

Strengthening the Channel Ecosystem  
Narayan underlines the importance of channel ecosystem strengthening as an ongoing process. Regular enablement sessions, team enablement, and sales activities are essential components of Unify's strategy. He mentions, "Strengthening the Channel ecosystem is not a one-time activity; it has to be a constant process. We have regular enablement sessions - team enablement, and sales activities to create opportunities and showcase the value Unify brings to the channel. The marketing, enablement, and sales teams work in tandem to create a continually evolving ecosystem aligned with market and product demands."  

Unify's approach is holistic, involving the collaboration of marketing, enablement, and sales teams. The goal is not only to equip channel with skills and capabilities but also to create opportunities in the market. Narayan emphasizes the need to showcase the value Unify brings to its partners continually.  

Key Priority for Unify in India 
Looking ahead, Narayan identifies 2023-24 as a significant growth phase for Unify in India. Despite challenges in enterprise telephony, he notes substantial growth, both in the volume and value of deals. "2023-24 is the growth phase for us. Despite challenges in enterprise telephony, we anticipate significant growth. Our focus will be on investing in channel capabilities to be a critical communication consultancy. We aim to empower our channels to be solution players in the market and continue our concentration on critical communication concerns," he notes. 

Empowering SMBs as a Growth Path 
Narayan acknowledges the unique challenges faced by small and medium enterprises (SMBs) in the telephony market. He recognizes the price sensitivity of this market but expresses a keen interest in working with specific SMB partners who sell on value rather than price. Unify aims to empower these partners, aligning their strategies and visions, and facilitating a growth path from SMB to large enterprise partners.

SMB being a price sensitive market still has a lot of appetite for new technologies. The way Unify Solutions seamlessly integrate with new age collaboration tools, creates a solid business case for New SMB partners to work closely with Unify and grow together. Ideally scaling the partners to Value sellers.

To Conclude 
“Unify's large enterprise product line is built on global reliability standards. Our fundamental emphasis is not to fail, driven by resilience and reliability. In a demanding market like India, where downtime is unacceptable, our identity is built on rock-solid product performance and High availability. While we may not be the price sensitive option, we ensure reliability and a commitment to resiliency, which gives a solid TCO to the customer. That will continue to be our focus and identity at Unify, while we continue our growth on Critical Communications domain across the nation and APAC", Narayan says in his concluding words.