1. Competitive Battle Card: Unify
A quick reference guide to help you sell against the Unify OpenScape & Circuit Portfolio
Unify – Company Overview
Acquired by Atos for $373 MM on Nov 3rd, 2016
Hq’d in Munich, Germany. Was owned 49% by Siemens AG, 51% by The Gores Group (private equity firm). Previously Siemens Ent Comms.
2014 Revenue: $1.9 billion, 7th largest corporate telephony provider worldwide with 5.2% global share
Telephony shipments dropped 14% in 2014
Broad portfolio spanning SMB to VLE, supporting on-prem, hybrid or cloud
Majority of customers in Europe; has not delivered on NA expansion goals yet.
Recently completed a protracted restructuring, mainly focused on 50% global headcount reduction.
Widely-touted inContact partnership for cloud contact center delivery resulted in almost no sales.
Unify – Solution Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths:
Fully-integrated UC solution scaling from small to very large enterprises, supporting on-prem, hybrid or cloud deployments.
OpenScape UC is a repurposed carrier soft-switch; it is technically elegant and robust, requiring fewer servers than most competing solutions, carrier-grade availability and scalability, works well in large, dispersed multi-site settings.
Specialized solutions for verticals such as Healthcare, Finance & Government (increasing interest through JTIC certification); strong in manufacturing.
Integrations with other vendors including Microsoft, IBM & Google
Weaknesses:
Questionable outlook after Atos acquisition & massive lay-offs, unmet NA market goals and very low sales of Circuit. Integration can hinder on-going initiatives
No Multi-tenant solutions, even Unify as a CSP + No IM/Chat for mobile apps and lack of video codec support
Different platforms for cloud CC (inContact) and on-prem CC (in-house) + Degraded support quality.
Positioning & Objection Handling Against Unify:
Atos Merger & Financial Stability
Issue 1: Acquired by Atos on Nov 3, Recently undergone a massive restructuring
Issue 2: Couldn’t deliver on NA penetration goals
Issue 3: Made significant investments into Circuit, which has seen virtually no market acceptance
Impact: Uncertain perspectives on Unify’s future and the integration can hinder on-going initiatives.
BroadSoft Advantage: BroadSoft customers are some of the industry’s strongest and most stable brands. We are here for the long term, stable and our financials prove that.
Lack of some UC Features & Anemic Multi-Tenant Solution
Issue 1: Anemic multi-tenant solutions (even if cloud-based)
Issue 2: No IM/chat function for mobile
Issue 3: Inequivalent & lack of compatible video codec support for desk phones
Impact: Customers are limited to Unify’s capabilities and bundles, or they have to handle the effort to integrate a 3rd party solution for a full suite.
BroadSoft Advantage: UC-One is a highly reliable, all-in-one product (including seamless moderated voice, video, chat for mobile and desktop) powered by BroadCloud, with proven and predictable deployment.
Cloud CC
Issue 1: Cloud based contact center is a white-labeled inContact solution, overly complex and hard to migrate to. Almost no sales so far
Impact: Requires significant professional services investments to deploy, integrate and train staff
BroadSoft Advantage: Integrated contact center (cloud or on-premise) that eliminates multiple-service costs, providing faster time to market with very intuitive management tools and APIs for easy customization
Support Quality
Issue: Restructuring efforts has reduced global hxeadcount by more than 50%, including the support team
Impact: Quality of support given by the organization has degraded, according to some established European customers.
BroadSoft advantage: Strong worldwide team and robust global partner network supporting a well- established product, delivered by well- trained service providers staff.