ucaas portals make or buy
DESCRIPTION
Examining the temptation to build one's own Unified Communication Cloud Service management portal. This presentation offers the opinion that it is better to buy from a specialized vendor.TRANSCRIPT
© Copyright 2014 Kurmi Software S.A.S.
UCAAS MANAGEMENT PORTAL: BUILD OR BUY?
Abdel Kander, CEO Kurmi SOftware
WARNING
• You may be right in thinking that this is a rhetorical exercise coming from Kurmi Software since we make a living out of selling UCAAS Management Portals therefore we should be deemed ill-placed to make the case for the « Buy » option but we hope you’ll detect at least some traces of intellectual honesty!
THE PORTAL IS THE FACE OF UCAAS
• Attraction• Retention• Upselling
“BUILD”, A TANGIBLE POSSIBILITY
• The basics are available– Interfaces – Web frameworks – Developers
• Only needs to look good to customers– “We’ll do the back office manually to start with”
• You probably have the functional expertise– You know your stuff better than anyone else!
“BUILD”, THE ECONOMICS LOOK GOOD!?
• Available R&D staff providers– Good mix of on/off-shore– Market is competitive enough to force bidding war
• Or maybe internal developers – With 0 incremental cost – Plus you gotta keep the guys busy, right?!
• Part of the project setup – Then no ongoing cost
• Built to own specifications– No customization costs
ARE YOU SURE?!
« I DID SOMETHING FOR THE WORST POSSIBLE REASON -- JUST BECAUSE I COULD »
Bill Clinton on the Monica Lewinski affair, June 20, 2004, CBS 60 Minutes
SOME FUNDAMENTAL FACTORS
• UCAAS, unlike PAAS is a user-centric service– Not an ICT play– No matter how sophisticated is the Data Center, if the
phones don’t ring it’s bad!
• A good portal is the difference between making and loosing money– Delegation reduces costs and increases customer
satisfaction and retention
SOME FUNDAMENTAL FACTORS
• It’s a moving target…– Customer/user expectations evolve– New usage habits spawn new needs
• On shifting grounds– Ecosystem vendors upgrade versions potentially triggering
new unscheduled developments for you– Competitive landscape impose fast reaction– “Nice to have” features become “Must have”
WHAT MAKES A ROBUST ARCHITECTURE?
• Four layers– Connectivity– Persistence– Business Logic– Rendering
ON CONNECTIVITY
• Ability to interact with underlying systems– Query and modify every object and attribute– While maintaining a coherent state at all time– With roll-back capabilities– Manage concurrent data access– Throttling to avoid overload
• Handle many systems– Different API technologies– With orchestration capabilities (order of execution, error
handling…)
ON PERSISTENCE
• You can’t do without it!– If you have more than one underlying system– Some tried and failed miserably!
• Intelligent data model– To handle future evolutions– With a business rather than an technical representation– Enable own workflows
• Suspend a user• Move users across systems
• Avoid collisions with ecosystem– Manage multiple master data sources– Graciously manage data conflicts
ON BUSINESS LOGIC
• Capture Marketing requirements– Service Packaging– Customer interaction
• Translate functional scenarios into technical multi-step multi-system workflows– I.e. Downgrading from multi-line, premium device to a basic package:
• Which line do you keep?• Should you bother changing the device?
ON RENDERING
• Ergonomic design• Adaptive and customizable• Multi-language
OTHER IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
• Security– Continued compliance with industry standards– Network and database isolation
• Robustness– Redundant platforms– No SPOF
• Interaction with customer’s IS– Active Directories– Authentication systems
• Interaction with provider’s IS– Ordering– Billing
End-users
Customers Administrators
Internet
Load Balancer
Apache Cluster
Kurmi Cluster
SP SSO
DB Cluster
SP Information System
SSO
Unified Com. Platform For Company 1
Unified Com. Platform For Company 2
Unified Com. Platform For Company N
ARCHITECTURE & IS INTEGRATIONSP Administrators
billing
API
THE ECONOMICS OF « BUY »
• Proven compatibility with UCAAS model– 2+ years of market experience– Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers– In many geographies– Pay as you grow
• Many of our customers tried “Build” before– And If they paid us that money, I would be driving a Roll’s
Royce!
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Kurmi Software Professionals
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