In today's breakneck business technology landscape, where companies are racing to adopt new solutions and augment them with an ever-evolving repertoire of AI features, the choices companies have to make when it comes to choosing their solutions are mounting.
Thus, even something like selecting your UC platform represents a critical strategic decision for enterprises.
With options ranging from cloud-based solutions to hybrid deployments, organizations must carefully evaluate vendors against increasingly complex requirements spanning technical capabilities, integration potential, compliance standards, and future-ready innovations.
Such a decision-making process involves multiple stakeholders across departments, and even external consultancies, on what to implement.
But what exactly weighed heaviest on the decision-making process? To find out more, we spoke with Courtenay Mills, Head of Voice & Data at EfficiencyIT, about how they guided and worked with Motus Commercials, who, after weighing up the information, settled on their UC solution.
Navigating the Issues at Hand
Motus Commercials is one of the largest independent commercial vehicle dealer groups in the UK and the largest DAF trucks dealer globally.
They operate in excess of 30 locations across the UK. With so many sites came a problem, however. Motus Commercials had eight disparate communication systems running across its 30-plus sites.
Motus Commerical at a Glance
- The company has annual revenues of around £600 million and employs almost 1350 people across its operations
- It operates 13 ATF (Authorised Testing Facility) sites for DVSA MOT tests and has two specialist commercial vehicle body shops
- Motus Commercials is part of the wider Motus Group, a multinational automotive mobility provider with a significant presence in South Africa, the UK, and Australia
This resulted in data silos, difficulty communicating between sites, and an inability to get an overview of the analytics as a whole.
Understanding this problem was holding them back from their growth ambitions, they brought in the help of EfficiencyIT, a specialist consultancy and service provider that, among other things, offers UCaaS solutions. EfficiencyIT worked with Motus Commercial to translate their needs into the tech stack they required.
Consulting Key Decision Makers
As you would expect, these large decisions may include a number of people behind the decision. From EfficiencyIT's side however, it was a lot more streamlined.
"Internally at EfficiencyIT, the decision regarding the UC platform direction was made exclusively by myself as Head of Voice and Data. I had total autonomy over this decision,"
Courtenay Mills, Head of Voice & Data, EfficiencyIT, told UC Today.
"At Motus Commercials, however, finance stakeholders, including Regional Directors, Commercial Directors, and Financial Directors, had significant influence, with final approval required from the UK MD, Group CEO, and CFO."
Factors that influenced the decision for Motus Commercial included compliance, which Mills said was "heavily involved," given the critical nature of data security and regulatory adherence.
Yet interestingly, the people you as an outsider would expect to be involved in the process were largely absent. "Motus's IT department was not directly involved, as the focus was primarily strategic and operational rather than purely technical," Mills explained.
"Priorities across these stakeholders aligned around financial prudence, compliance, and operational efficiency, ensuring a unified strategic consensus."
Perhaps because Motus Commercial was working with an IT consultancy, they felt more assured that the systems they were being integrated with would work.
However, it is interesting to see that IT was neither the driving force nor the leader of the transition.
Coming to a Decision
When embarking on the journey to select a unified communications platform, organizations often find themselves overwhelmed by feature comparisons and technical specifications.
For EfficiencyIT, however, the process began with a holistic view of potential partners rather than simply comparing product capabilities.
"The key non-vendor source influencing our UC vendor shortlist was Gartner's Magic Quadrant,"
Mills explained.
"It provided a comprehensive and impartial evaluation of vendors from both UCaaS and CCaaS perspectives, allowing us to identify leaders based on market performance and technological capabilities."
How Resellers and Service Providers Can Score Some Wins
This approach highlights the value of trusted third-party analysis when navigating complex technology ecosystems.
By leveraging analyst perspectives, EfficiencyIT gained critical insights into not only current vendor capabilities but also their market trajectory and innovation potential.
Mills and his team took their evaluation further by prioritizing vendors who owned their entire technology stack.
This strategic decision aimed to ensure "a single unified platform capable of seamless scalability and integration across all business units."
This was a crucial consideration for Motus Commercial due to its geographically distributed operations.
Attractive Offerings
When weighing technical capabilities against vendor stability, Mills emphasized the importance of balance.
"Vendor stability and transparency were vital priorities during our selection process. Understanding the vendor's financial health and clear technology roadmap provided confidence in their capability to support us long-term," he noted.
Simultaneously, technical requirements like open API platforms remained critical for ensuring smooth integration with existing systems.
