WebRTC: What better time for resellers to assert their sales knowhow and profit from a transformational technology that is growing in popularity among users across the world?
The advent of WebRTC is already fundamentally transforming how many businesses communicate with their customers and reserving judgement on whether to dive into this deep pool of market potential is not an option for comms and IT resellers, according to Dean Manzoori (pictured), Vice President of Global Cloud Communications at Masergy. "We are starting to see WebRTC real-world applications in gaming, social networks, content streaming, job interviews, online retailing and even real-time language translation," he stated. "One of the most obvious WebRTC uses is to facilitate customer engagement on websites. It enables visitors to click a button to initiate a call or video chat with a call centre agent. We use WebRTC ourselves on our own customer support page."
In an enterprise environment, WebRTC can extend collaboration beyond the corporate borders and, for example, enable individual sales people to more easily conduct video conferences that let customers see not only the sales person's face, but also slides, on-screen demos, videos and other supporting material. WebRTC is also making a notable difference in the NHS. Andrena Logue, a health expert at public sector technology analyst firm Kable, commented: "Collaborative tools are starting to be used more extensively by clinicians, not only to consult with peers but also to offer online patient consultations. GP practices and hospitals are already offering this capability. When usage becomes more widespread there will be considerable scope to offer services in areas such as social care via public sector agencies."
To opportunistic comms resellers the rise of WebRTC is their chance to capitalise on a tech-trend that can only gather pace. "Resellers are in a unique position to help customers truly understand WebRTC," added Manzoori. "Businesses that embrace WebRTC will undoubtedly see commercial and competitive benefits, not least better customer engagement, boosted sales, improved communication and reduced call costs. If 2015 was the year WebRTC was hurled into the limelight, then 2016 will be the year it becomes the go-to solution for real-time communications. Comms, IT resellers and VARs should be taking full advantage."
In most cases, personal video conference services that make use of WebRTC operate on a monthly pay-for-use subscription fee, offering plenty of quick scalability and the freedom from having to own expensive and difficult to manage hardware. Facebook, with its 1.9 billion worldwide users, recently added a WebRTC powered feature that allows Chromebook users to initiate video calls without the need to install plugins or go through workarounds. "Gone for good will be the hassle of downloading software, managing frequent software updates, searching for contacts to join a video call, and the disappointment of finding your contact isn't even a Skype user and prefers FaceTime," said Manzoori. "Anyone can use WebRTC."
Ease of use has helped WebRTC services to gain strong appeal, but until recently there has been a slow take-up of the technology as the industry has struggled to understand how to apply it to real customer situations, hampered by Apple and Microsoft's slow progress toward adoption which is now starting to pick up, believes Darren Hilton, Director of Partner Services at Timico, who also predicts that 2017 will be the breakthrough year for embedded real-time communications and collaboration.
"WebRTC plays a significant role in the Digital Transformation movement that is currently taking place," he said. "It enables a business to offer tailored real-time contextual communications throughout the customer experience workflow. We already have WebRTC live and working on our own website and are launching our WebRTC-based Synergy Smart Office technology in Q4 this year. Next year it's all about working with our partners to enable them to start delivering this technology and showcasing some of the examples of how we've already done this.
"The short-term impact of WebRTC is hard to quantify but it is accepted as a disruptive technology and being adopted by all the players who define future markets. Clearly it has the potential to seriously impact existing telecom business models and for those looking at longer term value now is the time to act. The biggest winners will be the early movers. For us, our technology partnership with Greenland has been key to overcoming the challenge of providing a scalable platform to bring enterprise class WebRTC services to market."
The influence of WebRTC is already strongly felt by some of Timico's partners who face the challenge of implementing it. "It's our job to give partners the technical assistance and training they require to meet their customers' demands," added Hilton. "Software vendors are ahead of the game so IT resellers and traditional comms resellers need to start thinking about how they can add software and web development skills to their capabilities."
Hilton re-emphasised that partners require particular assistance with the software development aspect of integration in order to give their customers a tailored solution. "Software development skills are currently not prevalent in the partner community, but we have seen a new breed of partner emerging with the integration skills that are traditionally lacking," he said.
Just as these new entrants could speed past traditional resellers, WebRTC bypasses the traditional models of monetising voice and video communications and therefore threatens the business models of many established players. "Although WebRTC won't remove the minutes model immediately it will start to erode that model over time," said Hilton. "There are new resellers who are approaching telecoms from a completely different perspective and consider voice to be simply an application to be used on the web. Innovate or die has never been more relevant in the telecoms industry than today."
As noted, WebRTC has the power to eliminate traditional boundaries, including distinctions between device manufacturers, operating systems and types of browser to deliver always-on communications between any parties. "WebRTC will rapidly change our understanding of communications," stated Martin Taylor, CMO at Content Guru. "With no downloads or plugins and its ability to incorporate video, text and voice communications straight from the browser on any connected device, WebRTC has the potential to transform the way we communicate on a global scale. By breaking down these barriers, organisations are just a click away from their customers."
Organisations are increasingly looking for cost-effective UC solutions that are both easy for users to operate and simple for corporate IT departments to incorporate within their existing systems infrastructure, noted Taylor. "WebRTC is already the stand-out option for businesses on account of its ease of use, accessibility and affordability," he added. "Users will increasingly look towards providers who embrace WebRTC as a seamlessly integrated communications experience. As adoption continues to grow and more mature WebRTC-based solutions emerge, these capabilities will continue to drive widespread advances across communication and collaboration, as traditional pre-requisites such as physical equipment become redundant."
However, noted Taylor, WebRTC in isolation can be difficult to monetise. Resellers therefore need to consider ways that WebRTC can be integrated with existing, mature communication portfolios and other technology roadmap items. "As portfolios become more diverse, so do customers' expectations," he added. "Resellers therefore need to look for cloud providers that not only have a roadmap in place to continue delivering on customer expectations, but also those that offer a true multi-channel solution."
WebRTC is already ingrained to the point that people are unknowingly adopting the technology, observed Rob Keenan, Head of Portfolio Readiness and Growth UK and EMEAR at Unify. "For example, WebRTC is embedded into UC products such as Unify's Circuit," he said. "WebRTC is also starting to replace communications in existing products from known vendors and it's used by new entrants to the market."
According to Keenan, WebRTC supports the future of the market because the technology works side by side with the cloud model and is easy to deploy and use on any device. "For comms and IT resellers WebRTC will be at the heart of any products they are selling, so they must be able to explain its impact and benefits," he added. "WebRTC is as fundamental as IP or SIP and will be the standard to deliver the communications and collaboration businesses need. The opportunity for the channel is immense. Resellers have the relationships to make these products successful."
Customers are crying out for more integrated, less complex, less expensive yet more seamless experiences, and WebRTC is one technology that can help to make that a possibility, agrees Spencer Bradshaw, Manager of Advanced Applications and Solution Architects for EMEA at ShoreTel "As new applications and devices come on to the market we're likely to see interest in WebRTC continue to grow," he said. "The emergence of CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) will start to see WebRTC-based applications communicate with each other without the need to log into all of them and carry out the discreet tasks. Expect to see wider adoption in areas like video and collaboration as the mobilised workforce jumps on the trend."
WebRTC has many use cases but one that stands out for Bradshaw is the potential to remove the proprietary nature of integrations and make it possible to give similar user experiences to client-based application users via a browser, securely and without having to be resident on an in-house system or be licensed to use one. "This makes it possible for me as a ShoreTel user to send a collaboration request to a prospect who uses another voice platform and for them to join that session without having to download anything," he added. "Easy, intuitive, borderless communications is the future."
Also anticipating WebRTC dominance, Paul Taylor, Sales Director at Voiceflex, is in early discussions with his customers about the technology, sharing ideas to see which applications can be delivered via WebRTC. "WebRTC opens the door for high quality audio and video communications and will transform how we communicate," he concurred. "We will see a significant shift from telephony to the web, and stepping stones are being put in place to provide high level web-based content. Resellers will need to increase their understanding of WebRTC and realise that they will not make money from calls, but from selling services and data connectivity. WebRTC moves the industry away from a me-to market into a consultancy based sales environment."•