The Gartner Magic Quadrant is one of the most well-respected reports in the communication and collaboration space. Every year, companies fight for a chance to be listed in one of the significant segments of the report, from leaders to challengers, niche players, and visionaries.
This year's Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service was just as exciting as ever. In the latest report, Gartner even suggested that 40% of all telephony purchases by 2023 will be made through a cloud-based suite. As a result, various aspects of the MQ changed to focus on the new nature of the marketplace. For instance, up until recently, Cisco and Microsoft weren't featured as front-runners of the UC market. However, this year, both companies have gained ground.
The question is, what does the changing Magic Quadrant report mean to the UCaaS industry and the vendors that excel in it? We spoke to some of the market leaders to be featured in the report this year from Dialpad, StarBlue, RingCentral, LogMeIn, and Fuze to find out more.
What Value Do You Get from Being in Gartner's MQ for UCaaS?
As the Magic Quadrant and its guidelines continue to transform, we were keen to find out whether businesses still give the same degree of weight to a position on Gartner's report. For years, a spot on the MQ has been one of the most sought-after accolades in the UC market, but what does it mean to 2019's featured brands?
The Senior Director for Product Marketing at RingCentral, Sunny Dhami, told us that RingCentral was "delighted" to appear as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for UCaaS for the fifth year in a row. "We see this annual recognition as a testament to our relentless focus on empowering businesses to better serve their customers while improving employee and business efficiency."
According to Dhami, RingCentral saw a considerable jump to its position on the MQ this year, driven by things like the company's expanded global footprint and the increased scale of sales the business has seen. "We are humbled and honored to receive this kind of recognition."
The CEO of Dialpad, Craig Walker, told us that being in the UCaaS MQ is valuable for a lot of reasons. The accolade is a stamp of approval for the company's leadership in the UCaaS industry, validating the team's work and highlighting the innovation at the core of the brand. "The MQ lends credibility to everything we’ve already accomplished and what we’ve set our sights on."
Walker also noted that Gartner is a well-regarded brand in the industry, with a name that corresponds to quality and trust. Additionally, Gartner analysts can now recommend Dialpad as a vendor of choice to prospective buyers, and Dialpad's sales leaders can use the same accolade to stand out.
"Having Dialpad featured by Gartner lends itself to conversations with prospects and gives us a leg up. Prospects have even more trust in us to deliver high-quality audio, visual and voice intelligence across platform deployment, product ease of use, ROI, and more."
Joe Roche Head of Marketing at Blueface (here representing StarBlue, comprising Star2Star and Blueface), noted that 6 years of being featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant had given greater credibility and trust to the StarBlue business. The brand today can now really stand out among partners and customers. What's more, the Magic Quadrant covers the full and saturated UCaaS industry. Being one of the only recognised businesses in the report positions Starblue as a market leader.
"In addition to industry credibility, the report provides self-auditing, industry analysis, competitive analysis and product outlay analysis, providing focus and strategic insights. In short, inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant positions Starblue as a market-leader in Unified Communications in rarified air."
Mark Strassman, Senior VP and General Manager of UCC for LogMeIn, said that in 2018 when the company acquired Jive Communications, the business was evolving with the goal of becoming a leader in the UCC space. Recognition from the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant suggests that LogMeIn is making progress towards that goal. In just one year, the company has managed to earn the title of "Challenger."
"This is our first year in the Magic Quadrant, and we believe that it will help get our new fully integrated UCC product, GoToConnect, in front of IT leaders"
LogMeIn feels that its position in the Magic Quadrant will help it to plant its flag squarely in the UCC space.
According to Eric Hansen, VP Product Marketing of Fuze, Gartner is still one of the leading information tech research and advisory companies in the world, with a team of expert industry analysts on board. The business has the potential to understand the enterprise space and have influence over the way the UCaaS environment evolves.
"As UCaaS goes mainstream with larger organisations, Gartner’s influence will also increase. Fuze values that expertise and closely collaborates with the UCaaS analyst team."
How Does Your Company Maintain/ Improve Its Position in the MQ?
Every year, the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS changes and evolves, driven by the new demands in the marketplace, the ever-changing buyer journey, and the transformation of technology. That means that a position in the MQ one year won't guarantee you a space in the years to come. Companies that want to hold onto their accolades will need to have a plan in place for improving on and maintaining their position in the Magic Quadrant every year.
We asked our market leaders how they plan to hold onto their position from 2019, and how they've maintained their space (were relevant) so far.
Sunny Dhami, Senior Director of Product Marketing and GTM for RingCentral:
According to Sunny, RingCentral believes that their solution is an industry-leading offering in a number of crucial categories. The scalable and robust UC application for calling, messaging, and meetings appeals to a wide variety of customers. Additionally, the strong developer ecosystem and ability to support large enterprises makes the RingCentral offering more accessible. What's more, the API and SDK capabilities of RingCentral means that businesses can transform their offering however they see fit.
"As much as we are proud of what our product can do, it’s the overall customer experience that matters most. RingCentral empowers employees to Work as One from any location, on any device, and via any mode to better serve their customers, improving business efficiency and customer satisfaction." Dhami noted that RingCentral's ability to improve its MQ position, which means expanding on completeness of vision and ability to execute, is something the business continually strives for.
"It’s great to have an independent third party industry analyst firm that can assess vendors in these key areas and help shape the future direction of our industry"
Craig Walker, CEO of Dialpad:
Dialpad's CEO said that the goals of the company haven't changed in recent years, even as the marketplace evolves. Fortunately, Gartner examines the potential of companies in its Magic Quadrant on the critical aspects that Dialpad also prioritises.
"We’ll continue to show growth in our customer base — number of customers and users overall — as well as expand geographically. Importantly, we believe our product innovation will continue to lead, too"
When it comes to improving its position with Gartner specifically, Dialpad is looking forward to building new relationships with the analysts there and making sure they have first-hand access to everything that Dialpad's products and services have to offer.
Joe Roche of StarBlue said that the merger of Star2Star and Blueface was a huge step forward for the brand. The combined entity created an fantastic technological and staffing synergy to pave the way for StarBlue's incredible geographic expansion. Refining the design-driven self-service portal with a focus on UX and feature functionality for wholesalers and end customers has increased engagement too.
"Localisation features have been augmented to support global CSPs – such as Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) in AsiaPAC – to deliver White-label UCaaS services anywhere. This includes expansive numbering options, new data centre PoPs, new languages, multi-currency billing engine integration, and partner-channel management tiers." Roche also pointed out that Starblue has reallocated its internal marketing staff from direct business to go-to-market agency for UCaaS entrants.
"Custom, branded sales, marketing, operational, and support white-label collateral branded collateral has expedited the client’s speed to market entry and overall product visibility."
Mark Strassman of LogMeIn said that 2019 marks the first year that LogMeIn has appeared in the Magic Quadrant for its GoTo portfolio of collaboration products. The recent addition of the UCC platform "GoToConnect" is a great step forward for LogMeIn. "GoToConnect brings together the power and reliability of market-leading meeting solution, GoToMeeting, with Jive’s cloud telephony system to provide exceptional video, audio, web conferencing, as well as visual voicemail, messaging and more in one application."
According to Strassman, in the short time since the GoToConnect solution has launched, the company has already made significant updates and improvements to it. Some of the items that Gartner addressed as "cautions" in their report have already been addressed. For instance, GoToConnect is expanding into the EMEA region next month.
