Automated Transcript
Holly Sharp, Microsoft Voice Sales Specialist: Hi Andy.
Andrew Robinson, Head of UCaaS Practice: Hey Holly.
Holly: So I’ve got a few questions for you all around the Service Suite for Microsoft Teams. So we’ve just released the Service Suite for Microsoft Teams. Can you tell us a little bit about it and the benefits as well?
Andrew: Yeah, sure. Exciting times. I mean, we’ve had at Gamma a voice enablement solution for Teams for quite some time. It started off with Microsoft Direct Routing, of course, we were very successful in that. Over the last 18 months, two years, we’ve released Operator Connect, which of course came with its own bundles like inclusive minutes, fraud management, and SIP Trunk call manager. Of course, can’t forget SIP Trunk call manager. And we also included a call recording solution on there as well with Dubber. From a partner perspective, it was felt that in order to get it into their portfolio, because let’s face it, having Microsoft Teams in your portfolio is a must-have, given the size of the market that it’s ultimately going to have. I think we were quoting something like 41% by 2028. So, it kind of stands to reason that they need it within their portfolio. But the excitement of just having a line that you voice enable for Teams wasn’t exactly lighting up the channel base. So we needed to add value within that transaction, within that service. What we ended up with was just a relationship that was based on transaction. We were just selling them low-margin lines to voice enable Teams. So what we’ve done is come up with this Service Suite for Microsoft Teams, which in effect enables a more sticky service. It enables partners to put a bigger service wrapped around it, and it enables them to make margin on it. It’s a whole suite of products that you can wrap into Teams. So it just takes it away from just being that transactional relationship to a value-added relationship. That’s effectively what it is, and as I said, we’ve already started the process, but we’ve got a whole load more products to wrap around it.
Holly: Exciting stuff! So I guess it’s all about getting customers stickier, increasing AMPU. Can you give me a little bit more detail about the actual components of the Service Suite for Microsoft Teams, so what’s coming?
Andrew: So, we’ve got the Dubber one. As I said, just a recap on that, it’s the call recording solution that gives you a very advanced level of AI. You’ve got sentiment analysis in there, and even things like emotion detection. So that’s available now. But what we’re starting to do, or going to start providing, is things like call recording. You’re going to need call analytics, so we’ll provide that piece alongside it. We’re delighted to be in partnership with Akixi. So Akixi, we just use for all of our partnerships. So we’ve got all that, the call analytics that’s gonna dive into everything you could possibly think of in terms of reporting on that voice element. We’re also going to be bringing additional elements, such as providing the hardware behind it so handsets, headsets, and so on, that are very specific to Teams. They’ll work well alongside that. Professional services is another one, we’ve always had it, but we’re really going to do a push on it. It can be complex when you’re talking about a large port of numbers, for example. That’s where our professional services come in. They can do a little, or do a whole managed lot if you want them to. But they’re there to provide that whole stack.
Holly: Excellent. So you talked around all the solutions that are coming. Can you talk a little bit more detail about what’s coming in 2025, so the extra bits that we’re adding to this Service Suite for Microsoft Teams?
Andrew: Absolutely. When we review our portfolio of services, we just need to keep it evolving it as we go. We do tend to get a lot of feedback from our partners about where we need to steer the products, where we can start adding additional value, and giving them the ability to give that service wrap-around. So, we’ve got a few things coming out in 2025. We have a contact centre solution that’s traditionally just sat on Horizon. It forms a main part of our CCaaS strategy. What we’re going to do is decouple that from Horizon, and fully integrate it into Teams, so that, in effect, you won’t need the Horizon element of it. You’ll be working natively out of Teams, with the contact centre running in the background, providing all of those call flows, all of that queuing capability, and routing capability that a good quality call centre needs. It could serve a traditional agent or supervisor solution, but we’ve realised with Horizon is that you can take that into a concert centre. Horizon, a good example, a GP. But as we know with what Microsoft are pushing in the market, they’re looking to get further into the SMB market, and they’re looking to us for help, which is exactly why we’re bringing this contact centre, or contact for Teams, into being. So that’s one of them. We’re also bringing out a more managed service to help our partners with their ongoing support of the solution. We realise it can be quite complex and time-consuming, there’s a lot of training to support the whole aspect of Teams, the installation element. So we’ll be providing, alongside the professional services that we already have, a managed service solution as well, which kind of ties in with the last element that we’re doing. So from a Microsoft licensing perspective, Gamma will provide that full solution for you to purchase that licensing through Gamma. With everything that we’ve now got, it’ll be provided in a single bill, single support unit, managed service piece in there as well. Professional services with that full support. There’s literally no excuse not to have Microsoft within your portfolio.
Holly: Yeah, absolutely. Essentially, it’s like a kitbag, like a DIY Microsoft Teams solution. Brilliant. Can you talk a bit about what we’re doing this year and what we’re going to be releasing essentially?
Andrew: Sure. Post-release of course, we mentioned earlier that it’s always an evolving product, then we’ve got those other three elements that we’ll be releasing during the course of 2025. Just a reminder, you’ve got contact for Teams, managed services and elements of it, and most importantly Microsoft licensing.
Holly: So, Andy, we’ve talked about all that the Service Suite for Microsoft Teams can bring. Can you expand a bit on what types of partners this solution really benefit?
Andrew: Sure. It’s a really quick and simple answer, and that’s everyone. This is for all of our partners, especially for those who don’t have Microsoft within their portfolio right now. What we’ve done, as part of this Service Suite, clearly designed this service to make it as easy as possible to take the Microsoft proposition into the partner portfolio as simply as possible. How is it that simple? The Service Suite is absolutely full of things like professional services to help you, the managed services aspect to it. All of those different elements, and you don’t have to take them all. It’s a suite of products, it’s like a sweet shop, so you can take whichever ones you want. But whatever you want, you can take one bit, all of it, we’ve got a single support wrap around it, but most importantly we’ve got a single bill around it. So it’s really just driving the simplicity of this Service Suite into our partners just to make it really easy to put into their portfolio.
Holly: That’s key, isn’t it? Because as a partner, you have so many things you need to do, so having something so simple to deploy takes a lot of the stress out of it and reduces the time spent on it. That’s definitely a benefit.
Andrew: Absolutely. From the beta trials we’ve already done, we can see that it’s quite popular and will be a good success. It’s in line with all the Bell reports and so on, this hockey stick. Everything has a hockey stick curve on it, doesn’t it? Drives the approach, drives the adoption, motivates people to start looking at it. It really does stand to take a 41% part of the UCaaS market by 2028, so if you ignore the opportunity that this presents to you now, there’ll be a world of problems.
Holly: Thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you found the podcast useful, and hopefully, you’ll join us in getting involved in the Service Suite for Microsoft Teams.
Andrew: Perfect, and thanks Holly for pressing me with all those really good and interesting questions. I hope you all found it useful. But if you need any further information, just reach out to the sales specialists. Holly, myself, Matty, Elliot, any of the guys will help you. Alternatively, the BDMs, but they’ll probably push them our way anyway.
Holly: Thanks so much.
