Specialist
Director, Partner Sales, Southwest Region at Intelisys Communications Inc
Agenda
- YoY and QoQ growth trends for 8x8 (NYSE: EGHT), RingCentral (NYSE: RNG), Avaya (NYSE: AVYA), Vonage (NASDAQ: VG), Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM) and others
- Avaya Cloud Office (ACO) adoption update
- Broader competition from hyperscale cloud players
- Outlook for 2021 and beyond – post-coronavirus demand environment and potential wildcards
Questions
1.
Could you break down UCaaS [unified-communications-as-a-service] spend in aggregate in 2020 vs 2019, given the pandemic-driven outpaced demand across the year?
2.
Would you say UCaaS spend growth in Q4 2020 was accelerated relative to Q3 or Q2? Was there steady- state YoY growth vs 2019, or did spend accelerate or decline QoQ or MoM as 2020 progressed?
3.
Do you expect Q1 2021 UCaaS spend to be flat or accelerated relative to Q4 2020?
4.
Who would you pinpoint as the largest market share gainers and donors across 2020? Who potentially has the most to lose?
5.
How do you expect 2021 to ultimately round out for these providers? Obviously, comps will become more difficult, given the rapid growth they experienced in 2020. Do you still expect YoY growth, or flat comps?
6.
RingCentral has been perceived as the UCaaS market leader over the last few years. What YoY growth would you say the company experienced in Q4 2020?
7.
To what extent might RingCentral’s new products contribute to further growth? Do you think these are easy-attach offerings that will resonate well with the instal base?
8.
Can you outline the coronavirus-led demand curve for RingCentral in Q2 vs Q3 vs Q4 2020? Would you say billings were accelerated in Q3 with a slight decline into Q4, or was growth accelerated across the year?
9.
Can you broadly break down 8x8’s YoY billingCan you broadly break down 8x8’s YoY billings growth in 2020?s growth in 2020?
10.
How do you think 8x8’s billings growth trended throughout 2020? Would you say there was any stagnancy in Q4, relative to the trajectory in the preceding quarters?
11.
How should we frame the impact of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing and 8x8 offering that for free? It seems like a knock to gross margins for the potential of market share gains. How does that net out? How significant is the margin pressure relative to the size of the land grab opportunity?
12.
How did Vonage’s YoY billings growth in 2020 compare to 8x8’s and RingCentral’s?
13.
You alluded to potential channel or marketing miscues for Vonage. Do you think its growth still accelerated throughout 2020, or were there any stagnancies or declines as it worked through these issues?
14.
How would you characterise Mitel’s YoY billings growth in 2020?
15.
How did Zoom’s billings growth broadly trend MoM in 2020, especially after the onset of coronavirus?
16.
How quickly would you say the Zoom Phone product resonated in the channel?
17.
How might Zoom’s outsized growth translate to market share losses across competing offerings? Do you expect a broad-based trend with all vendors losing a percentage point here and there to Zoom, or could anyone be a particular market share donor?
18.
How would you say ACO [Avaya Cloud Office] billings growth trended MoM in 2020?
19.
Do think ACO’s growth will meaningfully accelerate in 2021, or do you expect a steadier growth clip?
20.
Are any players better-positioned to take share if legacy Avaya customers begin to shop vendors?
21.
Do you expect Avaya to come through with a meaningful CCaaS [contact-centre-as-a-service] product anytime soon? Obviously, there are a lot of better-entrenched vendors out there.
22.
You referenced that once Ring’s book of business reaches its current high status, it’s more difficult to grow at the rate of smaller players in your vendor base. Could you elaborate on that component? How should we frame the magnitude of the respective books of business across the vendors we discussed?
23.
How meaningfully do you expect the vendor mix to shift across 2021 relative to 2020? Are there any players in particular that you expect to gain or lose wallet share?
24.
Would you say there were any major shifts in average order value or unit costs across your vendor base? Has pricing held fairly steady since our last Interview [see UCaaS Channel Check – 8x8, RingCentral, Avaya & Mitel – Q4 2020 – 5 October 2020]?
25.
What do you expect to drive the likely broad-based industry consolidation you referenced? Do you think that will take place across the stack? How should we tie in CPaaS [communication-platform-as-a-service]-type players such as Twilio, who own the underlying API product and are seeking to move up the stack into software products such as CCaaS?
26.
Have you noted any exciting developments from Microsoft, Google or Amazon since our Q4 Interview? How do you expect their evaluation of the UCaaS business opportunity to evolve over the next 1-2 years?
27.
How did you assess Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack? I know that Salesforce’s CRM [customer relationship management] resonates a little more in the CCaaS segment. Do you think it will be increasingly evaluating UCaaS opportunities over time, given some of the movements lately?
28.
Do you think CAC was lower in 2020 than pre-pandemic, given the outsized coronavirus-led demand?
29.
Have you noted any normalising or reversion of SPIFs as the coronavirus impact kicked in? We’ve discussed the potential longer-term need for those to be more optimal for the vendors themselves, but obviously, we’re in land-grab phase.
30.
When might the UC market be penetrated to the extent that some vendors really start to evaluate optimising their cost structures?
31.
How might RingCentral’s Q4 2020 acquisition of DeepAffects allow it to augment its video products? Do you expect significant changes here over the next 1-2 years?
32.
What would you highlight as the most exciting opportunities to improve on products?
33.
Would you say 8x8’s contact centre solution is at parity with the pure-plays you’ve referenced as being strong, whether Five9, Nice, Genesys or others? Is there still a gap in product quality relative to 8x8?
34.
You indicated some migration paths with ACO have been fairly seamless, but it sounds like that’s lowering the moat around the high switching costs for the legacy Avaya install base. How can Avaya make the transition seamless for customers without exposing itself to vendor shopping and market share erosion?
35.
How could Avaya approach fixing the degradation of these partner relationships? Would this be through above-industry channel incentives, or are there any other methodologies it could explore?
36.
How do you expect the dynamic to evolve between RingCentral video and Zoom? Obviously, you referenced this becoming a lot less cooperative. If RingCentral tries to pull its customers over to its own video from Zoom, do you think customers will continue to resonate with Zoom’s video product offering? How might this impact growth or market share with the current instal base?
37.
Is there any likelihood that aggressive tactics from RingCentral could lead to significant churn? Might we expect any stagnation or even flatness in RingCentral’s growth if customers feel their hand is being forced?
38.
RingCentral’s partnership with Zoom had been there for several years. Why wouldn’t success by Ring in converting former Zoom customers to the video product have a detrimental impact to Zoom into next year?
39.
Can we conclude with your broader market outlook? What key trends should we be tracking?
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