When you’re launching a new business or extending your product and service portfolio, your first task should always be assessing the market. Is there demand for what you’re selling? How can you stir up interest and secure customers in those difficult first few months?
For hosted VoIP resellers, audience can be an important consideration in finding the competitive edge and positioning that stands out. However, at a more fundamental level, there’s reduced pressure to find a market – because the general level of demand for hosted telephony is so great.
According to research specialists Cavell, the UK hosted VoIP market had grown to more than 3 million users by late 2017. In the UK more than anywhere else in Europe, demand has increased year-after-year.
Here’s why.
1. Businesses need flexibility to compete
Today’s commercial landscape is one where flexibility is a matter of survival. Young, agile startups use their flexibility to disrupt the market and compete against bigger players. Meanwhile, huge corporations are rethinking how they work in an attempt to find flexibility and hold their positions.
It’s no surprise, then, that cloud services have become an integral part of business. From data storage to IT security, businesses understand that a hosted service – like hosted VoIP – can help them to:
- Move and react faster with services on-demand
- Support a highly mobile, often geographically distributed workforce
- Upscale and downscale in a way that capital investments simply can’t
As every aspect of IT migrates to the cloud, VoIP resellers can give businesses telephony that’s as flexible, convenient, and accessible as other technologies have already become.
2. Businesses face increased pressure on costs
The general economic downturn and the uncertainty of fast-changing technology and Brexit mean that every business is trying to take more control over costs. Unpredictable expenses like server repairs or upgrades are harder to bear than ever before – and hosted VoIP can take that uncertainty away.
As a VoIP reseller, you can offer the considerable benefit of telephony that’s a simple operating expense. Your customers get predictability, clarity and a way to preserve their capital. It’s a compelling proposition that’s hard to resist in this climate of tightening margins.
3. Businesses lack in-house telephony expertise
We’re all living in an age of relentless innovation. The irony is that the workforce, particularly in the UK, is barely able to keep up.
According to ChannelWeb, most UK executives expect the IT skills shortage to continue – or worsen – in the coming years. At the same time, the inherent value of IT expertise means that highly-qualified, highly-experienced teams are often outside the budget of most small businesses.
Telephony is a critical part of any business infrastructure and keeping it up-and-running can be a time-consuming, complicated process. Without the in-house resources to do this, businesses recognise the appeal of telephony that someone else takes care of. A hosted VoIP reseller can provide a service that’s fully managed and maintained by the service provider, eliminating the need to pay for costly in-house expertise.
What’s next for hosted VoIP?
The hosted VoIP market is big – and growing.
A report from MarketResearchStore.com put the global VoIP market at around 83 billion USD back in 2015. Since then, we’ve seen world markets, commercial pressures, and the capabilities of technology change drastically. It’s a seismic shift in ways of working, one that means the VoIP market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 9.1%, reaching 140 billion USD by 2021.
For VoIP resellers, it’s an opportunity that looks set to get better and better for the foreseeable future.
Find out about Hostcomm’s VoIP reseller plans.
Click here to see how easily you could get started. And if you are not ready to take the plunge but have customers who need a high quality hosted telephony service, then take a look at our Affiliates page.
