The phrase one-stop shop is used often by vendors and providers in the enterprise communications space, but in most cases, it is a misnomer. Even the most basic of on-premises phone system installations require both an equipment vendor and a service provider or carrier to bring telephony services. In other words, most legacy phone systems are two-stop shops. Furthermore, when customers start including collaboration, endpoint devices, and advanced services, such as unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS), they often struggle with linking disparate platforms and services together into a cohesive solution.
Sangoma, the recipient of the Frost & Sullivan 2020 North American Unified Communications and Collaboration Competitive Strategy Leadership Award, stands out from the rest of the participants in the enterprise communications market. The company has actually been particularly aggressive in its merger and acquisition (M&A) strategy to deliver a true end-to-end unified communications (UC) solution.. Sangoma currently offers customers a choice of multiple on-premises UC platforms, compatible desktop and mobile collaboration, traditional desk phones, headsets, and supporting infrastructure, such as media gateways and session border controllers. Unlike other participants in this space, however, Sangoma offers its own in-house wholesale session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking services to customers, ensuring that even on-premises customers can rely on a complete Sangoma solution.
The one-stop shop approach is clearly working for Sangoma because it resonates across a broad spectrum of direct and indirect customers. Sangoma truly is a rare case in the UC market. Its ability to navigate successfully a diverse set of business and service provider customers and adapt its solutions to operate across on-premises, hybrid, and public/private cloud deployment models. In 2020, Sangoma reported that over 50% of its customers were using cloud-based services across its portfolio, up from the prior year. Flexibility, in terms of both technology and license pricing and use, has enabled the company to right-fit its customers into solutions that work best for them.
In other words, Sangoma strives to be a complete technology enabler for almost every organization that needs communications services, regardless of size, scale, or deployment strategy. The company continues to strive to become the trusted advisor for customers. That trust is earned by not having a hidden agenda to push customers in a specific technology direction, be it on-premises or in the cloud.
While one-stop shopping is a marketing buzzword for many competitors, it is at the heart of Sangoma’s solutions strategy. Sangoma is finding success in the challenging UC market through thoughtful acquisitions, well-executed innovation, and an unwavering focus on enabling technology for a broad range of business customers and service providers. Supported by an end-to-end product communications portfolio, Sangoma is well-positioned to deliver business communications aligned with highly-specific customer needs.
About the Author
Michael Brandenburg is a senior industry analyst on the Connected Work research team at Frost & Sullivan, a global market research and consulting company. Michael leverages over years of market research and competitive analysis experience, with a 15-year track record as a career IT practitioner to identify emerging market trends, competitive threats, and growth opportunities across the enterprise communications market. Michael is a lead analyst for communications-platform-as–a-service (CPaaS), SIP trunking, and on-premises UC platforms and infrastructure, in addition to supporting the team’s research in UC systems and endpoints and UCaaS.