Packet Fusion / ShoreTel / MPLS / SIP
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Business Cable? The Emperor is Naked

By
Joe Bjorklund

If you watch any television at all, you have undoubtedly seen hundreds of advertisements for “Business Cable”

The commercials take you into the offices of these business owners that are completely frustrated with the “Phone Company” and the high prices that they push upon their customers.  Customer after customer holds up their current bill with a look of disgust and then begins to tell us how much faster and more affordable their new service is from the cable company.

So here is my gripe.  It is not what you may be thinking.  I agree that the cable companies offer a great product for the home user or the small business.  They can bundle telephone lines with the internet capability and the net result is a very nice voice and data solution.  I use it at my home every day and it is wonderful.  Notice I said my home?  The problem with the Cable companies pitching their services to the business is not a feature/benefit problem, it’s an availability problem.  In a recent project for one of my customers, we set out to price cable voice and data services for approximately 45 locations.  After 60 days of setting up site surveys and pre-qualifying these locations, we found that 4 of them could sign up for the service.  The cable companies built out a fabulous residential network but they are still in the very early stages of building out their network to the business locations.  The net result for my customer was a bunch of hype about converting to “Business Cable” only to waste over 60 days of everybody’s time and delaying their project into the following quarter.  They placed orders for DSL and the project finished up quickly thereafter.

So my advice to the cable companies: take some of that advertising money and build a network that my customers can sign up for.

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True Single Point of Contact

By
Joe Bjorklund

I will be working on my latest post this weekend.  I will explain why it is so beneficial to procure your carrier services from the VAR that deploys your PBX

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How to Buy

By
Joe Bjorklund

I was recently giving a presentation to a group of telecom decision makers in thePortlandarea.  They asked me several questions about the telecom “state of the union” as well as where I thought things were moving to in 2012.  Near the end of the meeting a man in the front row asked a very simple question.  He told the group that he was in the middle of a telecom project and has several proposals from a variety of sources.  His question was: “We are talking to carriers, resellers and agents.  They are all recommending different solutions.  In your opinion, who is giving me the best chance of success?”  I actually laughed a bit, paused, stalled, pondered my answer and told him to look to my blog for the answer.

Here you go:  To start, you need to remember that he asked me for my opinion.  This is how I see it.  I have been in the telecom business from February of 1985 and my opinion has not changed.

The Carrier Rep:  This person has ONE job to do.  Convince you to buy circuits on THEIR network. Period, end of story.  Is their solution the best one for your application?  It doesn’t matter.  They MUST sell you their network. This one is self explanatory.

The Reseller:  The reseller has a group of “underlying carriers” that make up their network.  They have wholesale relationships with the carrier  like Verizon, Qwest, AT&T, XO, Paetec and Level 3, to name a few.  Like any retail business, they buy at wholesale, mark it up and sell at retail.  There are some good resellers out there with some really nice software tools but there are problems. The biggest issue that customers have with a reseller is the lack of control.  They do not like having a “middleman” between them and the carrier.  Oh by the way, if the reseller doesn’t pay the carrier’s monthly wholesale bill, what do you think happens?  If you find a good reseller that you trust then this is a good option but not the best.

The Agent / Carrier Partner:  The Carrier Partner is the best of both worlds.  These companies have a portfolio of products to bring to the table for their customers.  They are sales agents for the carriers and the customer pays nothing for their services. The customer gets three distinct benefits from the Agent / Carrier Partner.

  • Diverse product mix to choose from assures proper network deployment
  • Carrier Partner that works for the customer during contracting and project management
  • Security of dealing directly with the carrier without middleman

Those who read this blog know that I work for a ShoreTel VAR as their Manager of Carrier Services.  TRUE.  A few years back after I sold my hardware business, I wanted to get involved in network services.  I met with all of the big carriers, master agents and resellers.  I made my career decision based on the exact information that a customer should use in choosing how to procure network services.

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Tough to beat #Paetec these days

By
Joe Bjorklund

PAETEC Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: PAET) today announced that it will provide Rural Area Health Education Center (R-AHEC) with a a high-speed IP-network for the Western New York Rural Broadband Healthcare Network (WNYRBHN). This work is part of a 60-month contract valued at $6 million that will serve 38 facilities with advanced Internet and MPLS-based VPN over PAETEC’s fiber optic network

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No longer, Same, Same, Same

By
Joe Bjorklund

Several years back, I would go into a meeting with a potential customer that was looking for a new PBX and begin the process of learning about their business and their telecom needs.  I was going to show them how my product could help with all of their problems.  My goal was to show them that my product was so superior to my competition that it was the only intelligent option.  After years of this it dawned on me that we were all selling the same thing.  Reliability was no longer an issue and there were more “features” than any 10 customers combined would use. 

A typical customer would tell me that they were looking at Avaya, Nortel (me) and Cisco.  My reply would be to point to each of the demo phones left behind and say “same, same, same” because they were.  The industry had made some great telephone systems that lasted for years but that was it.  The industry had hit a plateau and there was no innovation.

It got so old that I sold my company and moved on.

I recently made a decision that I was going to look under the hood of the telecom industry that had treated me so well in the past and see if I should spend the last 10 years of my working life doing what I had done in the first 20 years of my working like.

My approach was simple.  If I was the director of IT for a 500 person company with multiple locations, what would I buy.

Long story short, here I am back in the industry and finally I no longer need to say “same, same, same”.  I am excited to write about how I picked the product and service to sell for the next 10 years.  Please stay tuned.

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What it takes to be Partner of the Year

By
Joe Bjorklund

Packet Fusion is awarded the Shoretel Partner of the Year.  I think its important to know how incredibly hard that is to achieve.

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UC Demo

By
Joe Bjorklund

Well I was correct in my choice to partner with ShoreTel.  I saw a demon today of ONE of their Unified Communications modules.  In a word, Amazing.

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Demo Today

By
Joe Bjorklund

Well I was correct in my choice to partner with ShoreTel.  I saw a demon today of ONE of their Unified Communications modules.  In a word, Amazing.

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Retirement Decision

By
Joe Bjorklund

Well, here we go.  I needed to find a plan for the next 10 years of my life.  I chose a company and a product that I felt was the best combination to get me to retirement.  Introducing  Packet Fusion and ShoreTel.  Stay tuned

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Is Your Gatekeeper Costing You Money?

By
Joe Bjorklund

I am supposed to write about lowering telecom costs.  However, as I began to write, I felt compelled to discuss a different topic.  The real challenge with telecom expense management the  is not the availability of products and services but the accessibility of the people who need them. 

I hear there is a recession, I see the un-employment numbers rise month after month yet I am finding it harder and harder to speak directly to a financial decision maker.  The reason this is troubling to me is that I save companies money. A lot of money!  I appreciate that they can’t possibly talk with every sales call that finds their way to them but how much money could that be costing them?  Whether your gatekeepers are staff members, department heads or receptionists, they should screen these calls more proactively so the real money savers can get through. 

There are many areas in telecom that can cost unnecessary money and many fine companies and highly experienced professionals that can address savings, big savings.  Yes it takes time; yes it takes resources, but the bigger the spending, the more opportunity for savings.  Here are two easy questions your gatekeeper could ask to save you money.

What is your service? – If the person on the other end of the line can’t quickly articulate that, screen away, end of conversation.  If their answer indicates cost savings, ask the next question.

Why do you think you can save us money? – Again, a true professional, with proven cost savings will be prepared for this question and able to respond quickly and concisely.

If they can answer those two questions satisfactorily, don’t you owe it to your employees, stock holders and the economy as a whole to pursue the conversation further?    

 

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