Channel Partner Success Story MDCOM Technology Solutions for Business

The Solution

NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE Customer Ownership Partner Model was unique in allowing MDCOM to maintain full ownership of billing, bundling, adding services, and supporting a customer’s environment -- preserving the customer confidence upon which MDCOM has built its reputation.

MDCOM decided to offer their current customer base cloud-based communications in addition to NEC’s on-premises communications and looked to NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE Partner Program to do so.

Eric Lutz explained what keeps MDCOM loyal to NEC: “Finding a vendor that runs a profitable cloud business with its own distribution and technology platform is rare. NEC UNIVERGE BLUE has created the whole package and is in a perfect spot to take advantage of this cloud shift, and I know that NEC will be here for us in the long run”. Eric shared the top five reasons why MDCOM sells UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT (UCaaS) and ENGAGE (CCaaS):

• The Ability to Choose a Revenue Model:

  “As you know it doesn’t matter if you are selling hardware, software, or services, the technology industry is competitive, so you really have to be aware of your market and your price points. We’re able to adjust our price points based on the market demands with the Revenue Share Model. I think that is number 1 in terms of advantages,” Eric explained. By being able to adjust the margin on the monthly revenue, UNIVERGE BLUE has provided MDCOM’s sellers with more attractive margins and better commissions. “NEC understands that partners serve different types of customers, and with the program flexibility they offer, there’s no need to go anywhere else”.

• Easily Integrated into all Business Environments:

  Trying to integrate hardware into customer environments has become increasingly more complex and challenging. According to Eric, “When you talk about IP Communications and networking multiple systems, there is a great deal of complexity which forces you to continually upgrade your technician skills- but as much as you do- you are always turning the corner to a new issue”.

  Eric went on to explain the need to offer customers a cloud-based communications solution that was easy to use with robust feature capabilities, and one that was could be seamlessly implemented into their environments. Eric expressed, “[UNIVERGE BLUE] CLOUD has been a breath of fresh air from the technical and implementation perspective. We can control the users, passwords, automated attendants, time zones, and call recording. We log in from anywhere and we have insight into every single customer and user device, and we can make changes or add services for a customer at any time”.

• A Better Bond with Customers:

  Eric compared the relationship that he now has with his UNIVERGE BLUE customers to the relationship that he has with his hardware customers. When you provide hardware to a customer, you are with them for a very long time due to the long lifespan of on-premises systems, NEC’s in particular. With UNIVERGE BLUE, MDCOM was able to maintain a strong bond with their customers, like the bond they have as a hardware provider. Being able to provide the first line of support and continue to manage the relationship with the customer has created a “stickier” long-term relationship with customers, according to Eric.

• Feature Capabilities and Easy Implementation:

  Another aspect of UNIVERGE BLUE that has benefitted MDCOM and its customers is the ease of implementation when it comes to feature enhancements. With on-premises hardware, if a customer wanted to add a feature or update endpoints, the process could be highly labor-intensive and expensive. With cloud services, Eric can simply go into the UNIVERGE BLUE management portal to add any specific feature to every endpoint in a customer location as well as scale up or down as needed. “That type of feature invigoration has really been a huge plus. The deployment could not have been simpler,” Eric said.

• Quick and Painless Quoting:

  With the BLUE quoting tool, the ability to provide a customer with a very professional-looking proposal with accurate pricing is seamless according to Eric. Adding one-time services and/or monthly services is as easy as a click of a button. Once you create and confirm the quote, the tool will automatically send your customer proposal via e-doc, the customer signs the doc, which then allows the sales rep to immediately create and provision the account. “It’s just been one of the most seamless deployments that we’ve been able to be a part of,” according to Eric.